I should have been more specific about my alarm bells: many things seem like they would be easy to stop
I understand this potential problem, but it doesn’t seem to be exactly the same as the Good Deed potential problem. Are you talking about one failure more or two?
Specifically: participating in an activity that ostensibly fights akrasia as a distraction or a form of procrastination seems like it’s very much opening up the door to the Good Deed failure mode.
I see the problem. If we can do something about it, that would be great—I await your suggestions.
But notice that it’s only a real problem if 3A is ineffective! Otherwise it will be worth it, even if initially we forgo other Good Deeds as we work on the problem of akrasia.
Certainly, in the case that 3A is ultimately ineffective, participating in it will be a net loss of time, willpower, Good Deeds, etc.
You’re right, I was first making a point about the general propensity of humans to become addicted to activities (“I want to want to stop, but I don’t want to stop”), and then I moved on to discussing the other failure mode. I’ve been up all night reading; looks like my brains got a little scrambled.
An idea for preventing the Good Deed problem: have a points system based on actually getting work done—you post your goals on a profile of sorts, as well as your progress on them, and other members (or I guess you could do this for yourself) have a way to assign you points based on your work; you have to spend some points to use the site, though (e.g. it costs points to view other peoples’ profiles, to make posts, etc.). That way, you have to actually get stuff done to participate in the first place, and keep getting stuff done to keep participating. This is just a suggestion; I haven’t fully thought it through yet.
I also wanted to note that I was taking the Outside View when I noted the Addiction failure mode (spending so much time on 3A that it prevented real work from getting done). I’ve wasted a lot of time on points systems and lists, instead of just getting stuff done.
I’ve wasted a lot of time on points systems and lists, instead of just getting stuff done.
The problem (akrasia) is that you can’t just get stuff done. That’s why you can’t directly compare “just getting things done” to other things. Of course if you could just get things done, that would be far better than using lists; the reason you use lists is because you can’t get things done otherwise!
The fact that lists didn’t work well for you, and you still didn’t get stuff done even though you used lists a lot, means you need to search for a different way. But if lists did work, and you spent e.g. 40% of your time managing lists and the other 60% doing actual work, that would be a great improvement over 30% just getting things done without lists and 70% procrastination.
I understand this potential problem, but it doesn’t seem to be exactly the same as the Good Deed potential problem. Are you talking about one failure more or two?
I see the problem. If we can do something about it, that would be great—I await your suggestions.
But notice that it’s only a real problem if 3A is ineffective! Otherwise it will be worth it, even if initially we forgo other Good Deeds as we work on the problem of akrasia.
Certainly, in the case that 3A is ultimately ineffective, participating in it will be a net loss of time, willpower, Good Deeds, etc.
You’re right, I was first making a point about the general propensity of humans to become addicted to activities (“I want to want to stop, but I don’t want to stop”), and then I moved on to discussing the other failure mode. I’ve been up all night reading; looks like my brains got a little scrambled.
An idea for preventing the Good Deed problem: have a points system based on actually getting work done—you post your goals on a profile of sorts, as well as your progress on them, and other members (or I guess you could do this for yourself) have a way to assign you points based on your work; you have to spend some points to use the site, though (e.g. it costs points to view other peoples’ profiles, to make posts, etc.). That way, you have to actually get stuff done to participate in the first place, and keep getting stuff done to keep participating. This is just a suggestion; I haven’t fully thought it through yet.
I also wanted to note that I was taking the Outside View when I noted the Addiction failure mode (spending so much time on 3A that it prevented real work from getting done). I’ve wasted a lot of time on points systems and lists, instead of just getting stuff done.
The problem (akrasia) is that you can’t just get stuff done. That’s why you can’t directly compare “just getting things done” to other things. Of course if you could just get things done, that would be far better than using lists; the reason you use lists is because you can’t get things done otherwise!
The fact that lists didn’t work well for you, and you still didn’t get stuff done even though you used lists a lot, means you need to search for a different way. But if lists did work, and you spent e.g. 40% of your time managing lists and the other 60% doing actual work, that would be a great improvement over 30% just getting things done without lists and 70% procrastination.