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Z_M_Davis comments on Share Your Anti-Akrasia Tricks - Less Wrong
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I read these tricks for avoiding procrastination and I find myself terrified at the idea of trying them at a gut level, because what if they work? What if I actually find myself playing fewer videogames and surfing the internet less? That doesn't actually sound better, now that I have to seriously consider the possibility of changing this state of affairs.
Based on this revelation, I have to say I am coming around to the point of view that a lot of what we call "akrasia" is just us not wanting to admit, to others or to ourselves, what our actual desires are, so we make up more socially acceptable desires and then when we pursue our actual desires instead we blame akrasia.
Interesting data point. I too have felt a strange fear of actually overcoming akrasia. However, I interpret it as a fear of inconsistency--like being afraid of waking up one day as a completely different person (albeit a better one by my own standards), and not being able to explain what happened. I try to tell myself that the part of myself that is so afraid is being silly: I don't need to fear winning too quickly, because that just doesn't happen, and if it did I should only be grateful--and if someone were to explicitly ask how the radical discontinuity came about, I could simply express my honest ignorance.
Strange that we would seem to describe similar experiences (fear of the outcome marked "Success" actually occurring), but that you should count it as evidence that akrasia is an excuse, whereas I don't. For myself, it still seems (more than ever, really) that I do want to change--for I have changed, however slowly. I don't play games anymore, and count myself happier for it.