My wife and I play a game where we each pick 3 movies we would be down to watch, put them on a numbered list, then roll a die. It's kind of silly, but it actually helps a lot making decisions.
Sometimes the length of time spent making the decision can be part of the enjoyment of whatever is chosen. My son and I have planned three trips for every one we've taken and we both have tremendous fun in the planning and debating process.
Visiting various colleges with your children is another example where the effort significantly overshoots the expected differences in outcome, but, again, the process is valuable in itself.
Both my examples are as a parent of now adult children (who I think are older than you are!). So, maybe there's a general "process" exception to parent/child decision making. Probably also for engaged or married couples.
I liked this piece because it confirms my long standing belief that hard life decisions really should be that hard because you are basically weighing two roughly equal expected outcomes. The decision its itself is far less important than what you do once the decision is made. I am talking about decisions like what job to take, who to marry and where to go to college.
Now, there can be exceptions: if the time spent making the decision is really spent casting aside illusions about what kind of person you are or someone else is, then it is probably time well spent.
There are times when spending a long time on a decision will have a significant impact on the outcome. For example, many products on Amazon seem equally good on the surface, however, only after reading the reviews and watching Youtube videos about those products one could discover what that product is really like.
You and Hanania (who I also like) use the word "irrational" a lot, and given that you both use it to describe behavior engaged in by the majority of humans, I always wonder how that can be. The implication is that because most people don't make data-driven decisions, they have some sort of neurological hiccup somewhere.
Your premise seems to be that for a human to be considered rational, they have to meet a set of qualifications that somehow the overwhelming majority of humans don't meet. That seems backward to me; it assumes a considerable set of imperfections in baseline human neurobiology.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the human animal. I'd say instead that we've created a world of infinite options which doesn't accommodate the way we ourselves are built.
This is something i've had problems with, so it makes a lot of sense to me. Especially with vacations, i'll think and procrastinate for way too long, and I think it is BECAUSE they all seem like good options. So it's like man I really want to maximize what I can do and not pick the less good option. But I can see that it probably isn't worth spending so much time on such decisions. In general it seems like it's better to try things and learn from mistakes, rather than paralysis by analysis as you say.
This also seems like it could have some parallels to things Jordan Peterson has discussed, about how much of a difference there is between someone who is in the 99th percentile versus 99.9. What a massive difference that is. Or with sports, the difference between say Lebron or MJ compared to someone who is just an all-star.
My wife and I play a game where we each pick 3 movies we would be down to watch, put them on a numbered list, then roll a die. It's kind of silly, but it actually helps a lot making decisions.
Sometimes the length of time spent making the decision can be part of the enjoyment of whatever is chosen. My son and I have planned three trips for every one we've taken and we both have tremendous fun in the planning and debating process.
Visiting various colleges with your children is another example where the effort significantly overshoots the expected differences in outcome, but, again, the process is valuable in itself.
Both my examples are as a parent of now adult children (who I think are older than you are!). So, maybe there's a general "process" exception to parent/child decision making. Probably also for engaged or married couples.
Good post in that you made me think!
I liked this piece because it confirms my long standing belief that hard life decisions really should be that hard because you are basically weighing two roughly equal expected outcomes. The decision its itself is far less important than what you do once the decision is made. I am talking about decisions like what job to take, who to marry and where to go to college.
Now, there can be exceptions: if the time spent making the decision is really spent casting aside illusions about what kind of person you are or someone else is, then it is probably time well spent.
There are times when spending a long time on a decision will have a significant impact on the outcome. For example, many products on Amazon seem equally good on the surface, however, only after reading the reviews and watching Youtube videos about those products one could discover what that product is really like.
Minor quibble:
You and Hanania (who I also like) use the word "irrational" a lot, and given that you both use it to describe behavior engaged in by the majority of humans, I always wonder how that can be. The implication is that because most people don't make data-driven decisions, they have some sort of neurological hiccup somewhere.
Your premise seems to be that for a human to be considered rational, they have to meet a set of qualifications that somehow the overwhelming majority of humans don't meet. That seems backward to me; it assumes a considerable set of imperfections in baseline human neurobiology.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the human animal. I'd say instead that we've created a world of infinite options which doesn't accommodate the way we ourselves are built.
This is something i've had problems with, so it makes a lot of sense to me. Especially with vacations, i'll think and procrastinate for way too long, and I think it is BECAUSE they all seem like good options. So it's like man I really want to maximize what I can do and not pick the less good option. But I can see that it probably isn't worth spending so much time on such decisions. In general it seems like it's better to try things and learn from mistakes, rather than paralysis by analysis as you say.
This also seems like it could have some parallels to things Jordan Peterson has discussed, about how much of a difference there is between someone who is in the 99th percentile versus 99.9. What a massive difference that is. Or with sports, the difference between say Lebron or MJ compared to someone who is just an all-star.
I like restaurant menus with fewer choices! I can’t stand reading a book before dinner : )