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When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

newyorker.com

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Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#61

Post by jodrellblank »

Throwaway823 wrote: post #51
userbinator wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, while the research is interesting, I think it's also being far too overused as justification to remove/not add options. The common counterargument of "just use another product that does have the option you want" often turns out to be as fruitless - that other product may not have some option you want (that this one does), due to the same reasoning! I also fundamentally disagree that removing choices is a…

There is balance but it's not easy to find. If I visit a restaurant, and they only serve chicken, that's kind of limited. Now, they give me the option of beef or chicken. Ok, this is a decision I can make, and be confident in selecting. Now, what happens if they ask whether I would like northwestern chicken, southern chicken, grain fed chicken, or korean chicken? Huh? I'm not a master of chicken, just give me the bes…

How would you like me to give you the best one? Wine first, delay, then meal? Wine then meal with no delay? Drinks and chicken brought together on a tray?

Cutlery wrapped in a serviette or not? Chicken with sauce or sauce in a jug? Chicken covered in sauce, or with some on it, or with the sauce around it? What temperature sauce? How would you like the plate rotated - chicken towards you, or veg towards you? What kind of veg? How big?

Decisions are fractal, everywhere you look there are potentially huge numbers of decisions that someone, somewhere, might plausibly care about, but most people don't.

Beyond where you don't have a strong opinion (I guess one chicken option might be better, but I don't know which) and your confidence drops, you climb back up to a place where you have a strong opinion again and your opinion is "it doesn't matter [to me]", and from there onwards it's not a matter of "I don't know which to chose" it's a matter of "STOP WASTING MY LIFE WITH THIS POINTLESS NONSENSE".

I suspect that the internet puts people on both sides of this gap together, far more often, more quickly, and with less structure, than previous human history has.

Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#62

Post by jackpirate »

paulsutter wrote: post #10

When faced with a difficult decision, it probably doesn't matter which choice you take. Emotionally it's difficult to accept this. But logically it's easy: - If one of the two choices was clearly better, it would be an easy decision - But it is difficult. Therefore, neither of the two choices is clearly better. - Therefore, it doesn't matter much which you choose. This doesn't work for people who feel irrational regr…

Pretty sure this is wrong. For example, in poker, what separates the good players from the suckers is how good you are at making these tough calls. Bad players flip coins, good players use all the information available.

Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#63

Post by jodrellblank »

philwelch wrote: post #19
Throwaway823 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult or impossible to tell if you made the right choice though, so you have no way of knowing if you should regret your decision. If I visit the store and there are two boxes of cereal, or two deodorants, or two digital cameras, and I buy one of them, I start to feel unsure. It doesn't matter if the cereal I bought tastes good or bad, I'll always wonder if the other option would have been better. Until I ta…

The answer is to stop caring and satisfice. Optimizers are never happy.

See also: http://justbuythisone.com/

Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#64

Post by jodrellblank »

unchocked wrote: post #5

This validates something I've suspected for a while: that decisiveness is valuable in and of itself.

From 'Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman':

The lieutenant takes me to the colonel and repeats my remark. The colonel says, "Just five minutes," and then he goes to the window and he stops and thinks. That's what they're very good at -- making decisions. I thought it was very remarkable how a problem of whether or not information as to how the bomb works should be in the Oak Ridge plant had to be decided and could be decided in five minutes. So I have a great deal of respect for these military guys, because I never can decide anything very important in any length of time at all.

In five minutes he said, "All right, Mr. Feynman, go ahead."

- http://quanta-gaia.org/reviews/books/FeymanJoking.html

Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#65

Post by rhizome »

Throwaway823 wrote: post #30
philwelch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people were satisfied with horses and 480p, we'd be just as happy with those as we are with cars and 1080p. In fact, these decades and centuries of technological advancement hasn't, empirically, resulted in any enhancement in happiness anyway, because we're trapped on the hedonic treadmill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

Yes, but we wouldn't have cars or 1080p in the first place. Why would you develop 1080p technology if you were perfectly happy with 480p? Who would support your research and business by purchasing a 1080p tv, if they were already satisfied? I never said any of this technology enhances our level of happiness. I just said as a species, being constantly unhappy could be one of our greatest strengths. Otherwise, we might…

Who would support your research and business by purchasing a 1080p tv, if they were already satisfied?

Regular people may have been satisfied, but the military wasn't, who drove almost all of the research into the 80s. The consumer market is just a follow-on to that, where choices were presented to "me" as better.

Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#67

Post by jngreenlee »

jodrellblank wrote: post #61
Throwaway823 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is balance but it's not easy to find. If I visit a restaurant, and they only serve chicken, that's kind of limited. Now, they give me the option of beef or chicken. Ok, this is a decision I can make, and be confident in selecting. Now, what happens if they ask whether I would like northwestern chicken, southern chicken, grain fed chicken, or korean chicken? Huh? I'm not a master of chicken, just give me the bes…

How would you like me to give you the best one? Wine first, delay, then meal? Wine then meal with no delay? Drinks and chicken brought together on a tray? Cutlery wrapped in a serviette or not? Chicken with sauce or sauce in a jug? Chicken covered in sauce, or with some on it, or with the sauce around it? What temperature sauce? How would you like the plate rotated - chicken towards you, or veg towards you? What kind…

This. > "STOP WASTING MY LIFE WITH THIS POINTLESS NONSENSE".

I work in datacenter solutions sales, and the majority of my customers know what they want in terms of vendor/product series. However, they need our help for specific performance and capacity sizing, as well as adjusting to fit a budget. This probably it true for about 95% of customers.

However, there is another 5%, that simply want a good solution for their needs. They don't care how, and if they're smart, they have some specific business requirements to share. These ones are EASY to upset as displayed in the comment above if we 'waste' their time asking detailed option questions they really don't care about.

To be successful in this, you have to triage early and set the customer engagement on the proper path!

Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#69

Post by Zigurd »

The article doesn't distinguish between freedom to choose, and getting a ridiculous amount of trivial choice blasted at you in order to sell things. The latter is unnatural and psychologically abusive, and could easily cause stress.

But even supposed political freedom may be overrated. A demarchy might very well be better-performing, more representative, and less corruptible than an elected government. After all, term limits, devolution to more local government, and other "reforms" are just an approximation of demarchy. We sure don't get representation from our current system, but we do give authoritarians a veneer of legitimacy by voting. That's pretty stressful.

This is relevant to the Internet because the value and effectiveness of ads are an ongoing controversy, while at the same time funding much of what we use.

Re: When It's Bad to Have Good Choices

#70

Post by [deleted] »

jackpirate wrote: post #62
paulsutter wrote: post #10

When faced with a difficult decision, it probably doesn't matter which choice you take. Emotionally it's difficult to accept this. But logically it's easy: - If one of the two choices was clearly better, it would be an easy decision - But it is difficult. Therefore, neither of the two choices is clearly better. - Therefore, it doesn't matter much which you choose. This doesn't work for people who feel irrational regr…

Pretty sure this is wrong. For example, in poker, what separates the good players from the suckers is how good you are at making these tough calls. Bad players flip coins, good players use all the information available.

[deleted]
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