Published on November 20, 2025 9:42 PM GMT

Here’s the LessWrong tag page on Akrasia:

Akrasia is the state of acting against one’s better judgment. A canonical example is procrastination.

Increasing willpower is seen by some as a solution to akrasia. On the other hand, many favor using tools such as Internal Double Crux to resolve internal mental conflicts until one wants to perform the reflectively endorsed task. The “resolve internal conflicts” approach is often related to viewing the mind in terms of parts that disagree with each other.

It’s a topic which has been talked about a fair bit on LessWrong (though admittedly more so in years past). Yet looking at both the above description and the list of posts on the topic, I am surprised that nobody has emphasized the standard way in which most of the world solves akrasia most of the time: having a boss tell you what to do.

Left to their own devices, tons of people struggle to get into physical shape; akrasia makes it hard to keep up exercise. You know what works pretty reliably? Joining the military.

Left to their own devices, tons of people struggle to formally study topics they’d like to learn. What’s the standard solution? A classroom environment, where a teacher/professor gives assignments and there are (perceived) consequences for failing to do them.

Left to their own devices, tons of people would struggle to complete the non-fun parts of their job. What’s the standard solution? A boss. If you look at the actual selection pressures on bosses in mid-size-or-larger companies, it sure looks like the main thing they’re selected for is maintaining dominance. Perhaps that is the main value the boss offers: dominance is how they get most employees, even well-meaning employees, to actually do the things which need doing.

It seems like most human brains are pretty hardwired for orders from a person in a position of dominance/authority to circumvent akrasia^[1], in a way that e.g. just setting monetary incentives for oneself usually doesn’t. And this seems to be the main way that most of the economy solves the akrasia problem, on a day-to-day basis.

I think of “dominance is the standard solution to akrasia” as one of the foundational building blocks of a hypothetical Rationalism For Submissives. It’s one of the main reasons why one would want a Rationalism For Submissives, why one would expect such an Art to potentially work at all. In principle, a skilled dom is a way to get the sub to actually do things, even things the sub knows they should do but which are kinda ugh-y. 

Importantly, if two people make the overhead-investment to maintain the dom/sub relationship, then it’s potentially relatively cheap for the dom to marginally help the sub actually do stuff. Not every dom needs to be e.g. a full time teacher or manager, although they probably need some visible real skills of some sort to maintain the sub’s respect. Real punishments of some sort are probably necessary, though.

1. ^{^}

   Of course one does need to psychologically recognize the dominance/authority in order for this to work; cultural packages seem load-bearing for making people recognize specific figures as having dominance/authority.