21–30 of 129 posts
My technique for simple close decisions is to pick an option at random - flip a coin, random.org, whatever, and then see what my gut reaction is. If I’m happy, decision made. But if there’s a pang of regret or whatever… that means you actually prefer the alternate so should do that. Admittedly I’m talking about stuff on the level of “What should I do for lunch” and not, say, career decisions
I like to flip a coin when the decision is difficult. If the answer is satisfying, then either I had an unarticulated preference or it didn’t matter. If the answer is unsatisfying, then I had an unarticulated preference and I can just choose the (apparently preferable) alternative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not a paradox but it can be irrational. When the two choices have similar utility the cost of distinguishing them is high and the benefit of making the correct choice is low. There is a crossover point where it does not matter which option you choose, putting more effort into your decision can only leave you worse off, and this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point.
Sure, but how do you know a given decision is one of those decisions?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not a paradox but it can be irrational. When the two choices have similar utility the cost of distinguishing them is high and the benefit of making the correct choice is low. There is a crossover point where it does not matter which option you choose, putting more effort into your decision can only leave you worse off, and this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point.
Sure, but how do you know a given decision is one of those decisions?
The irrationality presumes: 1. That the decision-making activity itself is wasteful. 2. That the decision-making time would, if not consumed by decision making, be spent elsewhere in a more productive manner. These are hardly safe assumptions. The discussion itself can be enjoyable. The faster decision making can create less certainty in the decision and encourage regret, or create conflict with others. The time gain…
I'm not sure which decision is better, considering they are so different and probably are not comparable. I just chose to do a postgraduate degree that seems more interesting, and leaves me more options later, rather than going to the industry which can make more money.
I don't think this is a paradox at all. If an option is perceived to be significantly better, then the decision can be made quickly. Otherwise more study is required to decide which is better, or if they are actually indistinguishable. It's the same reason why more trials of an experiment are required to reject the null hypothesis when the effect of the experimental variable is very weak. This is analogous to conside…
It is not a paradox but it can be irrational. When the two choices have similar utility the cost of distinguishing them is high and the benefit of making the correct choice is low. There is a crossover point where it does not matter which option you choose, putting more effort into your decision can only leave you worse off, and this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point.
Simply put, given a continuous function mononically increasing from 0 to 1, given any degree of discernment X there will be some radius interval Y in which the function is closer than X to 1/2. And people won’t be able to tell for a while what’s better.
If you add random perturbations people will still be sitting there for a while figuring it out, because it could go either way.
Like a pencil which is almost perfectly balanced will take a long time to “figure out” which way to fall.
The interesting thing is that even if you had a timer to go off that said “if you haven’t made a decision by time Z, then choose the first one” there is also a nonzero probability that you won’t be able to tell whether you haven’t made a decision! It is also ambiguous. Read the paper… it took me a while to get it as I corresponded w Leslie about it
I like to flip a coin when the decision is difficult. If the answer is satisfying, then either I had an unarticulated preference or it didn’t matter. If the answer is unsatisfying, then I had an unarticulated preference and I can just choose the (apparently preferable) alternative.
Then I discover the alternative is unsatisfying as well. Which causes me to spend time trying to understand why.
I don't think this is a paradox at all. If an option is perceived to be significantly better, then the decision can be made quickly. Otherwise more study is required to decide which is better, or if they are actually indistinguishable. It's the same reason why more trials of an experiment are required to reject the null hypothesis when the effect of the experimental variable is very weak. This is analogous to conside…
It is not a paradox but it can be irrational. When the two choices have similar utility the cost of distinguishing them is high and the benefit of making the correct choice is low. There is a crossover point where it does not matter which option you choose, putting more effort into your decision can only leave you worse off, and this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point.
it's because people have the irrational belief that their thinking and reasoning more about a problem/decision makes their outcome better.
I think the common symptom found in software is design analysis paralysis. A software team end up using tonnes of time fretting about design choices (often as a committee), rather than just use that time to implement one of the designs. The (ir)rational idea that by reasoning about the design up-front, one saves the (potential) time lost in reimplementing a different design in the future!!