Only A Fool Refuses To Pick Between A Bad Option & A Worse Option
When you can’t avoid suffering either a bad outcome or a worse outcome, picking neither is the hallmark of a fool
By David Grace (Amazon Page — David Grace Website)
People Often Do Not Exercise Common Sense
The Sunk Costs Fallacy
One example of illogical thinking is the “sunk costs” fallacy where humans continue to invest more time or energy or money in an already losing project because they think that what they’ve already spent will go to waste if they don’t keep on investing more.
“I’ve spent so much money [time] on this project, it would be a waste if I gave up now.”
There is a related “I paid for it so I have to consume it” fallacy.
You bought some bad-tasting food, or you found old, half-spoiled food in the fridge.
“It tastes terrible and it might make me sick, but the money I paid for that food will go to waste if I don’t eat it.”
The similar stupidity applies to continuing to watch a terrible movie or read a bad book because you paid for it.
The sunk costs fallacy is the belief that somehow the money you’ve already spent will be wasted if you don’t continue to fund a losing enterprise, eat bad food, endure the entire bad book or bad movie all the way to the end, even though doing so is unpleasant.
You Cannot Get Back The Money You’ve Already Spent
The money you spent on the bad project, the bad food, the bad movie, or the bad book is already lost. Nothing you do now can get it back.
It’s a fallacy to believe that you can make that project, food, movie or book useful by investing more, eating all the bad food, watching the entire bad movie or reading the entire bad book.
Consuming the bad product hurts you, not helps you.
If you hadn’t paid for the bad food, the bad movie, or the bad book you absolutely wouldn’t consume it all the way to the end, yet because you spent money that you can never get back on these products, you feel that the money you’ve already spent will be “wasted” if you don’t punish yourself by entirely consuming them.
Hello, that money is already wasted. Nothing you do now can undo that.
The person with common sense closes their checkbook, throws out the bad food, turns off the bad movie, and closes the bad book.
The Refusing To Pick Between Two Bad Options Fallacy
Another irrational attitude that afflicts a substantial number of people is the belief that “Refusing To Pick Between A Bad Choice and A Worse Choice Will Avoid Them Both.”
Sometimes we encounter inescapable choices that are both bad, but where one bad choice is substantially worse than the other bad choice.
No one wants to suffer a bad result, but when we cannot avoid either a bad choice and a worse choice, people with any common sense will suck it up and choose the least-bad outcome.
If a situation presents you with only two options: one option that will cost you $10 and the other option that will cost you $100, any halfway intelligent person will choose to lose the $10 rather than losing the $100.
Duh!
But not everyone is willing to choose the least-bad option.
Refusing To Choose Either Bad Option
There are a material number of people who cannot bear to choose a bad outcome even when the alternative is a worse result. A bad choice vs. a worse choice causes them to mentally freeze up and do nothing.
By abstaining they allow other people or random chance to pick how bad a result they will suffer.
Thinking That Choosing Causes You To Be Blamed
They think that by refusing to choose either option that they can somehow either avoid both bad outcomes or avoid the “blame” for picking either bad outcome.
They want to say to themselves: “Don’t blame me. I didn’t choose to lose that $10 [or $100].”
Not Choosing Will Not Avoid The Bad Results
The fundamental flaw in this kind of thinking is the idea that by not choosing one or the other option that they can somehow avoid both bad results.
But, by abstaining they will not only lose at least the $10, the price for refusing to choose to lose the $10 is the risk that they will lose the $100.
Your Money Or Your Life
There’s an old Jack Benny joke where a robber confronts Benny in a dark alley and tells him, “Your money or your life.” Benny doesn’t answer. The robber angrily repeats “Your money or your life.”
Benny is still silent. The robber shouts, “Well?” and Benny says, “I’m thinking. I’m thinking!”
Benny is closing his eyes and praying that the robber won’t shoot him, or that God will send a policeman to save him. But there is a vanishingly small chance that the robber won’t shoot or that a cop will magically appear.
As much as Benny doesn’t want to choose to give up his money, it’s clearly better for him to hand over his money than to give up his life. By refusing to choose the less bad option, Benny will either still lose his money or he will lose both his life and his money.
Refusing to choose gains Benny nothing beyond the feeling that he cannot be blamed for whatever bad result occurs.
Have The Surgery Today Or Die Tomorrow
Your doctor tells you that you have a terminal heart condition. You can do nothing and within six months you will die in pain, or you can have open-heart surgery which has a 75% success rate and a 25% chance that you will die on the table.
There are people who, when confronted by these two unpalatable choices, will instead leave the decision to random chance or to some third party.
They might tell their spouse, “You decide” or call in a faith healer, or visit a clinic in Mexico that promises a miracle cure.
As much as the patient doesn’t want to take a 25% chance of dying tomorrow, it’s clearly a better option than the 100% chance of dying in pain within six months.
When confronted with only a bad outcome and a terrible outcome, the inescapable fact is that no matter what the affected person does or doesn’t do, they will still suffer either the bad outcome or the worse outcome.
John Bolton Chose Not To Choose
In 2018 John Bolton was Trump’s National Security Advisor. In 2020 he said, “A mountain of facts demonstrates that Trump is unfit to be President.”
John Bolton chose to vote for neither Trump nor Biden in the 2020 election. He abstained.
If Bolton thought that both 2020 candidates would make an equally bad President, then by abstaining he was saying, “You people out there choose my President for me. Pick whomever you like. I don’t care. Neither one is better or worse than the other.”
But, if Bolton thought that Biden was bad but that Trump was worse, then Bolton was a fool to abstain because his refusal to vote for either candidate
- did nothing to create what he thought would be a “good” outcome
- did nothing to avoid what he thought would be the “worst” outcome.
His decision to abstain only allowed him to tell himself, “Don’t blame me, I didn’t for him” much the same way that Benny might have said, “Don’t blame me. I didn’t give him my money” and the patient might have said, “Don’t blame me, I didn’t choose to have the surgery.”
By abstaining:
- Benny still lost either his money or his life at another’s choice.
- The patient still either lived or died at another’s choice.
- The guy still lost either $10 or $100 at another’s choice.
- Trump or Biden were either still elected at others’ choice.
Abstaining always buys you the risk that others will choose the worst possible outcome for you.
When confronted with a bad choice and a worse choice,
- Stop worrying about being blamed.
- Stop feeling guilty for choosing a result that is painful to you.
- Refuse to take the risk of suffering the worst outcome
- Suck it up and choose what you believe is the least bad option.
— David Grace (Amazon Page — David Grace Website)
