Academics may be relevant as a similar "thinking community". I've heard many academics say they are severe procrastinators. Possible reasons for this are: 1) Procrastinators are attracted to the job, its independence and long-term deadlines 2) The nature of the work makes people procrastinate; research is hard, plus no boss and long-term deadlines mean immediate punishment for procrastination is rare 3) The job makes people feel they have akrasia even when they don't, perhaps because colleagues and competitors seem smarter and harder-working than in other fields
If nothing else, reading LW makes me feel 3)
2 seems like most of the explanation. You can't procrastinate on an assembly line.
I was reading the NY Times article on Decision Fatigue, when I came upon a hypothesis I would like everyone's feedback on.
I take as a premise that there seems to be a high prevalence of akrasia in the lesswrong community.
I also take as a premise that the sequences give us a more-than-usual detailed model of the world, one that presents us with more possible trade-offs we could be making in every day life.
So the conjecture that by trying to reduce bias and perform a lot of cognitive calculation, we effectively spend large parts of our days in a decision fatigued state, leading to akrasia problems.
Does this sound (un)reasonable? Why? How would you go about turning this into a testable proposition?
UPDATE: Anna Salamon has put up a detailed poll here that may shed some light on the situation. Please take some time to fill it in.