The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do • Hacker News Board

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#131

Post by RobertRoberts » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 11:28 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #121

RobertRoberts wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judaism has no hell, ask any religious Jew. (I know a few and have had this very discussion with them.) Ghenna was a burning trash heap, not a place of torment. Death is a silencing end, not a torturous punishment in the bible, including the teachings used by the Jews. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell Also, christian Churches don't teach Jewish theology, they teach a version of Catholisim, and eternal burning hell…

> Judaism has no hell, ask any religious Jew. Not all historical variations of Jewish religious beliefs that existed near the time of the birth of Christianity still exist as Jewish beliefs, but, AFAICT, the Jewish belief of at a minimum something like a Purgatory is still active; the concept of hell/Gehenna explicit in the Gospels as a place of punishment reflected (possibly an evolution from) a then-current (but no…

>Mark (9:43) ...into the fire that never shall be quenched"

It doesn't say they will still be alive, just burned to death. Many other scriptures confirm a permanent death, none say everlasting torment.

>Revelation (20:10): “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

It says the "devil" and the beast and the false prophet will tormented, but no one else is listed here.

In Rev 22:18,19 and Deut 4:2 have strict warnings about adding to or taking away words from the bible.

I would completely support a statement that these scriptures "strongly imply" or even "seem to imply", but they certainly do not state plainly that people will go to the classical hell taught by many today.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#132

Post by padobson » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 12:37 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #126

padobson wrote: post #29

Akrasia and Enkrateia remind me of the dual nature of humans that St. Paul describes in Romans: We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know th…

The only problem is that I am procrastinating by being on HN, and if I read about combating procrastination here then I can even fool myself into thinking I'm doing something useful.

Yeah, I definitely hear that. It's very easy to fool yourself into believing that something is helpful when it's not.

That said, I've definitely gotten a ton of benefit from reading HN. It's a great resource for discovering new tech, startups, research, and many other things. If you find part of it beneficial, maybe you should work it into your daily plan/schedule/checklist or however you might organize the productive parts of your day. Put it after a high-friction task, something you have trouble starting. Then reading HN is like a reward for completing that high-friction task.

Then you can contribute what you learned to a blog post or comment thread on HN, thus perpetuating the community.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#133

Post by CompelTechnic » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 12:55 PM UTC

kentrado wrote: post #125

beat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, I'm not criticizing Nietzsche. I'm saying Simone de Beauvoir criticized Nietzsche in a manner I found interesting enough to remark upon. "This Simone person" pretty much invented second wave feminism with her book "The Second Sex", and is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Her work changed the course of history. So yes, she's definitely up to something.

You started off by misrepresenting Nietzsche's views and now you say that she effectively criticized him but dare not mention what that criticism was. I was trying to extract some substance from you, but now I see that will not be possible.

I think the charitable way to interpret your counterparty is that Simone's criticisms of Nietzsche are long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize, and that Nietzsche himself is long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize. It is not worth the effort to do so for either case, especially considering that a partial or failed effort lacks depth and invites criticism (as already demonstrated, but unfairly).

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#134

Post by Raidion » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 12:58 PM UTC

byproxy wrote: post #66

bernardino wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I definitely resort back to entertainment every once in a while. I wouldn't go as far to call it a problem though. I suppose entertainment in low doses is fine but entertainment as the main staple of our diet is no good. In terms of deep work, I think it's important to see the side of spectrum of how entertainment only exists to stimulate a neurological response. For instance, think about always refreshing a site…

How would you define 'entertainment'? Is it simply something that distracts from 'work' being done? Or, time spent on something from which no 'value' can be obtained?

I personally think of entertainment as something that's enjoyable but doesn't directly advance my goals at getting better at something I prioritize. Which means entertainment is different for different people. Most people would regard movies and TV as entertainment, but for a journalist or critic, it might not be. Obviously this is on a spectrum, where binge watching TV could be pure entertainment, but playing volleyball casually would have a physical component that would add additional value, even if you're not looking to improve at volleyball.

Also want to state that I don't think entertainment is a bad thing, no one can go 100% all the time. I do think it's important to think about what we do with our time and make that choice honestly.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#135

Post by jezclaremurugan » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:03 PM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #131

dragonwriter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Judaism has no hell, ask any religious Jew. Not all historical variations of Jewish religious beliefs that existed near the time of the birth of Christianity still exist as Jewish beliefs, but, AFAICT, the Jewish belief of at a minimum something like a Purgatory is still active; the concept of hell/Gehenna explicit in the Gospels as a place of punishment reflected (possibly an evolution from) a then-current (but no…

> Mark (9:43) ...into the fire that never shall be quenched" It doesn't say they will still be alive, just burned to death. Many other scriptures confirm a permanent death, none say everlasting torment. > Revelation (20:10): “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” It says t…

where their worm shall never die..

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#136

Post by RobertRoberts » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

jezclaremurugan wrote: post #135

RobertRoberts wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mark (9:43) ...into the fire that never shall be quenched" It doesn't say they will still be alive, just burned to death. Many other scriptures confirm a permanent death, none say everlasting torment. > Revelation (20:10): “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” It says t…

where their worm shall never die..

"Worm", not person/soul (or whatever word for human).

As much as I feel it would have ended many religious debates if the bible had been written more clearly, there are some things that just aren't there.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#137

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #131

dragonwriter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Judaism has no hell, ask any religious Jew. Not all historical variations of Jewish religious beliefs that existed near the time of the birth of Christianity still exist as Jewish beliefs, but, AFAICT, the Jewish belief of at a minimum something like a Purgatory is still active; the concept of hell/Gehenna explicit in the Gospels as a place of punishment reflected (possibly an evolution from) a then-current (but no…

> Mark (9:43) ...into the fire that never shall be quenched" It doesn't say they will still be alive, just burned to death. Many other scriptures confirm a permanent death, none say everlasting torment. > Revelation (20:10): “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” It says t…

> It says the "devil" and the beast and the false prophet will tormented, but no one else is listed here.

The mentioned devil and beast may or may not be, but the false prophet is a person so this:

> I would completely support a statement that these scriptures "strongly imply" or even "seem to imply", but they certainly do not state plainly that people will go to the classical hell taught by many today.

Is only correct in the sense that the classical hell is an amalgam of images of Sheol/Hades, Gehenna, the Revelations lake of fire, Tartarus, and definitely other places/outcomes that don't have proper names mentioned in parables, etc., and not directly tied to one single image in the Bible, and the Bible never explicitly says all of these are the same place. But it's absolutely the case that the Bible explicitly and literally says that people in some number n where n ≥ 1 will be punished in everlasting fire, which is the point that was in dispute.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#138

Post by kentrado » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

CompelTechnic wrote: post #133

kentrado wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You started off by misrepresenting Nietzsche's views and now you say that she effectively criticized him but dare not mention what that criticism was. I was trying to extract some substance from you, but now I see that will not be possible.

I think the charitable way to interpret your counterparty is that Simone's criticisms of Nietzsche are long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize, and that Nietzsche himself is long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize. It is not worth the effort to do so for either case, especially considering that a partial or failed effort lacks depth and invites criticism (as already demonstrated, but unfairly).

Fair enough.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#139

Post by beat » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 2:36 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #128

Loic wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep Work is maybe the first book I wanted to through out of the window in a long time. The complete book can be resumed in a sentence: "Secure big chunks of time to reach and be in the flow state". But of course you cannot write a full book out of one sentence, so it repeats itself until it achieves to contradict itself by telling you that if you are a writer/journalist you can achieve the state of flow in chunks of…

I had the opposite experience. In general most self-help books do what you describe, but I thought Deep Work went into quite some detail on how to actually achieve it. For instance the idea of how you deal with short moments of boredom in general (also outside of work) has a lot of influence on how good you are at ignoring distractions during work was an eye opener for me, and goes deeper than "secure big chunks of t…

Learning to tolerate boredom again has been a real eye-opener for my own sense of self.

Re: The Akrasia Effect: Why We Don’t Follow Through on What We Set Out to Do

#140

Post by beat » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

CompelTechnic wrote: post #133

kentrado wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You started off by misrepresenting Nietzsche's views and now you say that she effectively criticized him but dare not mention what that criticism was. I was trying to extract some substance from you, but now I see that will not be possible.

I think the charitable way to interpret your counterparty is that Simone's criticisms of Nietzsche are long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize, and that Nietzsche himself is long, nuanced, and difficult to summarize. It is not worth the effort to do so for either case, especially considering that a partial or failed effort lacks depth and invites criticism (as already demonstrated, but unfairly).

Actually, her criticism of Nietzsche (and most other post-Hegelian philosophers) is brief and relatively easy to summarize, but it is nuanced and deep. It's kind of like Yoda that way. Nietzsche is also practically breezy to read by philosophy standards, but it's still deep and nuanced. Part of the pleasure of both Nietzsche and Simone de Beauvoir is that they're both so darn readable, especially compared to something like Hegel or Heidegger, who were very influential but are incredibly difficult to read.