• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    • Showing only topics with the tag "decision making". Back to normal view

    1. Advice regarding the Sunken Cost Fallacy

      ~health.mental Ask
      Hello everyone, I wanted to provide a litmus test, of sorts. This test helps you figure out if you are engaging in the Sunken Cost Fallacy. Sometimes I find myself asking if I should quit...

      Hello everyone,

      I wanted to provide a litmus test, of sorts. This test helps you figure out if you are engaging in the Sunken Cost Fallacy.

      Sometimes I find myself asking if I should quit something, let something go, move on, etc.. It can be hard to figure out what the answer to those questions are. I heard a piece of advice regarding this very struggle, and wanted to share it with you all.

      Ask yourself:

      Knowing what I know now, would I still make the same decision that I did?

      If the answer is "No" then you are most likely in a Sunken Cost Fallacy mindset. It could be argued that you should stop whatever it is you're considering stopping.

      If the answer is "Yes" it is likely you are not in a Sunken Cost Fallacy and you made a decision in line with your values, even if it may not seem like it (hence the struggling).

      Disclaimers:
      Knowing the answer to this question does not imply you will know what to do with the information.

      This test does not really "fix" anything, so to speak, but it is intended to help you realize when you are in a sunken cost fallacy situation.

      Details

      What is the Sunken Cost Fallacy?

      The sunk cost fallacy is our tendency to follow through with something that we’ve already invested heavily in (be it time, money, effort, or emotional energy), even when giving up is clearly a better idea.

      As an example, consider you moved to a new country to start a new job, but the job really isn't what you thought it would be. You hate going to the job everyday, every aspect of it. However, you feel compelled to stick it out, for various reasons. At some point you ask yourself, "knowing what I know now, that this job is not the right fit for me, would I make the same decision?" You answer "No", and thus realize you're in a Sunken Cost Fallacy situation, and you should make steps to removing yourself from that job.

      Speculation
      Often we end up in situations where we don't actually have all of the information to make a wise decision, whether that's our own doing, or for matters outside of our control (how could one truly know what a job is like without doing the job? how could one truly know what a different country is like if we haven't lived there before?). In these situations, since we don't like to focus on what we can't control - not knowing the unknown-We get stuck in the sunken cost fallacy, because that is something we do know and have control over. "I've already put so much effort into this, I can't quit now" or "I can make this work, is it really that bad?"

      I hope what I've written makes sense, but like all things to do with the mind, it's hard to explain outloud.

      10 votes

    3. Prototyping group decision making with automatic delegation

      ~tech Ask (advice)
      Hey folks, I want to prototype a tool to help groups of people make decisions using a new decision making mechanism. We have two systems of democratic decision making that have major downsides:...

      Hey folks,

      I want to prototype a tool to help groups of people make decisions using a new decision making mechanism.

      We have two systems of democratic decision making that have major downsides:

      1. Direct democracy - everyone votes on every issue. Downside: not everyone has the time and the necessary expertise to vote on every issue.
      2. Representative democracy - everyone votes who will represent them and the representatives vote on every issue. The downside is the corruption - the representatives may not represent the best interest of those who entrusted them.

      The idea I want to explore is a hybrid of the two systems:

      • Like in a direct democracy you can vote on every issue.
      • If you do not vote on a given issue, then your vote is automatically delegated to people who voted like you in the past.

      To test this out I want to build a website [1] where anyone can create a group and invite others to the group. The group members can create proposals and vote on them to make a decision.

      For the idea to be tested the group needs to make many decisions over time (ie, not one-off polls like strawpoll.*). Only then can it take advantage of the delegation based on “voted like you in the past”.

      The details of the design will depend on the use-case:

      • How should the group roles work? Would it be enough to have owner & member roles?
      • How to invite to the group - by sending email or a link.
      • Should every member be able to propose options or just the creator or the vote?
      • Should the voting be closed automatically after some time or by hand?
      • Do you delegate implicitly or explicitly - ie, have a vote option to delegate.
      • Do you vote for a single option or can you rank options in the order of your preferences?
      • Open ballot vs secret ballot?

      Some ideas for use-cases:

      • Choose the next “team-building” activity at work.
      • Make content moderation decisions.
      • Which book to read next in a book club. Maybe transfer the list of books and the votes from the previous vote to the next.
      • Make and record company decisions by shareholders. In this case you would want to weigh the votes based on share ownership.

      I think starting with a specific use-case in mind is a better strategy than trying to build a generic tool.

      What do you think? What would you use such a tool for?

      [1] - I will likely make it part of my existing project https://linklonk.com/ unless I find an available good-sounding domain name.

      12 votes