Or the vertical hierarchy in our brains, and our inability to modify it. All four examples show "first order desires" created by lower level subsystems (taste perception, sexuality, motivations, etc.), and the higher level ones are trying to override it (consciousness, planning, models of the future world). But we aren't designed rationally enough to be able to control those lower levels, although we know partially about what they "think". ("We" = the conscious part writing LW comments...)