I'd like to share my specific motivation for writing Can the Chain Still Hold You?
I agree with Yvain that akrasia is probably a major reason that rationality alone doesn't create superheroes. You might be much better than average at making good decisions based on an accurate model of reality, but that doesn't mean you can follow through with them.
Many people report that their thinking is clearer and better as a result of Less Wrong. But despite our many, many attempts to hack away at the problem of akrasia (more: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), I haven't heard of many LWers conquering akrasia.
But I still have hope that this is possible. In 2006, we finally got a decent psychological theory of procrastination, much better than the old decisional-avoidant-arousal theory. On the timescale of progress in psychology, 2006 is basically yesterday. The first book on how to apply this new theory to daily life was published in late 2010. There is no community of people systematically practicing these techniques and reporting their results.
So it seems to me there is a lot of low-hanging fruit to be scooped up in the field of procrastination research. If we try and test enough things, and especially if our tests our theory-guided, we may be able to learn new things and flip a few causal factors such that the chain of akrasia no longer holds us — at least, not as tightly as before.
This is interesting. Actually, you are quite right in that TMT is an overall integrative model. It was actually designed to be a Roseatta stone, allowing us to draw findings and applications from different fields into a coherent whole. It was at one level of detail and has it uses, just as a map of the city is useful but not equivalent to a blueprint of a house (though neither are wrong). For example, it excluded nonsense solutions, which the field is rife with.
You have a naturally critical mind, which is useful, but you are taking a few short cognitive shortcuts. By what you write, it doesn't seem like you actually read the book or the article. The article formally integrates prospect theory, under the section CPT. CPT is actually the next update to prospect theory by Kahneman and Tversky, see pages 894-895 (e.g., "Consequently, other researchers have already proposed various integrations of prospect theory with some hyperbolic time-discounting function"). Chapter three of the book is an extended review of system one and system two, including a historical review of it going back to Plato. The last three chapters then, using TMT as an organizing model, reviews all the applied science on this, ones that has been successfully used to increase self-regulaton.
What would be useful is this. What precise techniques do you take issue with? Are there any you think ineffective or too vague to be applied? Though everything was already scientifically vetted, maybe I could have been clearer in sections. Given other feedback, I found that many people needed a better walkthrough of how to apply these techniques. In the paperback version, I added a step-by-step guide. So is it the techniques or the explanation?
Alternatively, you might have some insight into specific techniques that the book neglected. This is quite possible as I didn't want to include less developed techniques, ones without proven value. Developing a full package of self-regulatory techniques is exactly where science needs to go and why what Lesswrong is doing is quite remarkable. We don't have this. Instead, the area of motivation is splintered into competing theories and practices, other redundant to one another or simply isolated. What we get marketed to us from the self-help arena is often out of date or even wrong. Aside from Lesswrong, I don't know of another concerted effort to change this.
Think of the book as version 1.0. What do you want in the next upgrade? You like the basic model, which is a start. It can help direct people towards broad areas of weakness (e.g., the diagnostic test in the book; which notably accounts for about 70% of the variance in people's procrastination scores). Then, we have a series of techniques to address these weaknesses, outlined in chapters 7, 8, and 9. What's next? Can we expand on them? Can we refine or improve their implementation? Can we express them in ways that helps people adopt them? Can we combine them into something more powerful? These are questions worth asking.
To some extent, I can contribute to Lesswrong on a positive venture like this. It is serious, useful and noble.
Yes, I'm aware of that. I was pointing out that the additional complication of hyperbolic discounting isn't necessary; in helping dozens of people work through procrastination difficulties, and myself through many more dozens of sp... (read more)