This sounds like you’re saying that they made a rational prioritization and then, separately from that, forgot that it was there
That implication wasn’t intended. I agree that (for basic reasons) the probability of a small cut was higher given their choice.
Rather, the action itself seems rational to me when considering:
That outcome seems unprobable (at least if they were sitting down), but actual in this particular timeline.
The effects of a cut on the foot are really low (with I’d guess >99.5% probability, for an otherwise healthy person—on reflection, maybe not cumulatively low enough for the also-small payoff?), and if so ~certain to not significantly curtail progress.
That doesn’t necessarily imply the policy which produced the action is rational, though. But when considering the two hypotheses: (1) OP is mentally unwell, and (2) They have some them-specific reason[1] for following a policy which outputs actions like this, I considered (2) to be a lot more probable.
Meta: This comment is (genuinely) very hard/overwhelming-feeling for me to try to reply to, for a few reasons specific to my mind, mainly about {unmarked assumptions} and {parts seeming to be for rhetorical effect}. (For that reason I’ll let others discuss this instead of saying much further)
I think it’s also really important for there to be clear, public signals that the community wants people to take their well-being seriously
I agree with this, but I think any ‘community norm reinforcing messages’ should be clearly about norms rather than framed about an individual, in cases like this where there’s just a weak datapoint about the individual.
A simple example would be “Having introspected and tested different policies before determining that they’re not at risk of burnout from the policy which gives this action.”
A more complex example would be “a particular action can be irrational in isolation but downstream of a (suboptimal but human-attainable) policy which produces irrational behavior less than is typical”, which (now) seems to me to be what OP was trying to show with this example given their comment
That implication wasn’t intended. I agree that (for basic reasons) the probability of a small cut was higher given their choice.
Rather, the action itself seems rational to me when considering:
That outcome seems unprobable (at least if they were sitting down), but actual in this particular timeline.
The effects of a cut on the foot are really low (with I’d guess >99.5% probability, for an otherwise healthy person—on reflection, maybe not cumulatively low enough for the also-small payoff?), and if so ~certain to not significantly curtail progress.
That doesn’t necessarily imply the policy which produced the action is rational, though. But when considering the two hypotheses: (1) OP is mentally unwell, and (2) They have some them-specific reason[1] for following a policy which outputs actions like this, I considered (2) to be a lot more probable.
Meta: This comment is (genuinely) very hard/overwhelming-feeling for me to try to reply to, for a few reasons specific to my mind, mainly about {unmarked assumptions} and {parts seeming to be for rhetorical effect}. (For that reason I’ll let others discuss this instead of saying much further)
I agree with this, but I think any ‘community norm reinforcing messages’ should be clearly about norms rather than framed about an individual, in cases like this where there’s just a weak datapoint about the individual.
A simple example would be “Having introspected and tested different policies before determining that they’re not at risk of burnout from the policy which gives this action.”
A more complex example would be “a particular action can be irrational in isolation but downstream of a (suboptimal but human-attainable) policy which produces irrational behavior less than is typical”, which (now) seems to me to be what OP was trying to show with this example given their comment