My point is that in some cases the “option of "just not do them"” does require a change (if you count precommitting devices and the like as changes). There are people who wouldn't be able to successfully resolve to (say) just stop smoking
I understand what your are saying about akrasia and maintain that the intended rhetorical point of your question is not especially relevant to it's context. You are arguing against a position I wouldn't support so increasingly detailed explanations of something that was trivial to begin with aren't especially useful.
Obviously quitting smoking counts as change and involves enormous akrasia problems. An example of something that doesn't count as changing is just not negotiating in a certain situation because you are one of the many people who are predisposed to just not negotiate in such situations. That actually means not changing instead of changing (in response to pressure from a naive decision theory or naive decision theorist that asserts that negotiating is the rational choice when precommitment isn't possible.)
The problem with MixedNut's claim:
Aren't you just neglecting that humans can't self-modify much?
... wasn't that humans in fact can self modify a lot (they can't). The problem was that this premise doesn't weaken Eliezer's point significantly even though it is true.
I'm sure this observation has been made plenty of times before: a principal can gain negotiating power by delegating negotiations to an agent, and restricting that agent's ability to negotiate.
For example: If I'm at a family-owned pizza joint, and I want a slice of pepperoni but all they've got is meat-lover's, I can negotiate for the latter at the price of the former. This is a good deal with well-aligned incentives, and is likely to be accepted. But at a chain restaurant, the employees are not empowered to negotiate: It's the menu prices or nothing. Since I'm aware of their lack of power, and my demand for pizza is not very elastic, I'm likely to give them the higher price.
If I squint, this looks a lot like a precommitment, on the part of the pizza store, not to negotiate prices. But if they explicitly made such a precommitment, it might turn off customers -- nobody likes to feel like they're getting a bad deal, and a statement of precommitment (e.g. a sign reading "all prices are final") is likely to make customers feel marginally negative towards the business by drawing their attention to the money they aren't saving.
By contrast, the corporate form -- such as the chain store has -- gives this kind of 'precommitment' as a side-effect of the otherwise socially-normal behavior of delegating limited responsibility to employees. Same benefit, but without the drawback, mostly because the practice is socially-accepted.
Is there any literature that covers this kind of thing further? Particularly the link between precommitment and agents with limited negotating ability.
(I am sitting in a chain pizza store as I write this. Guess what I wanted to order, and what I got instead?)