Am I wrong, or are you conflating disregarding past costs in evaluating costs and benefits with failing to remember past costs when making predictions about future costs and benefits?
It seems pretty clear that the sunk cost consideration is that past costs don’t count in terms of how much it now would cost you to pursue using vendor A vs. pursuing vendor B, while induction requires you to think, “every time we go with Vendor A, he messes up, so if we go with Vendor A, he will likely mess up again”.
I think I may have been too brief/unclear, so I am going to try again:
The fallacy of sunk costs is, in some sense, to count the fact that you have already expended costs on a plan as a benefit of that plan. So, no matter how much it has already cost you to pursue project A, avoiding the fallacy means treating the decision about whether to continue pursuing A, or to pursue B (assuming both projects have equivalent benefits) as equivalent to the question of whether there are more costs remaining for A, or more costs remaining for B.
The closest to relevant thing induction tells us is how to convert our evidence into predictions about the remaining costs of the projects. This doesn’t conflict, because induction tells us only that, if projects like A tend to get a lot harder from the point you are at, that your current project is likely to get a lot harder from the point you are at.
If project A is what you’ve always done in the past, even when having the knowledge that project B is superior, you can induce that you will probably continue with project A in the future.
You can also induce from what incentives you seem to respond to how to increase the probability that you will do B. For instance, if telling your friends that you plan to do a project has a high correlation with your doing that project, then you can increase your probability that you will do B by telling your friends that you plan to do B.
If project A is what you’ve always done in the past, even with the knowledge that project B is superior, you can induce that you will probably continue with project A.
Probably, but shouldn’t? If project B is superior, is that not the superior choice?
I think I understand the point you are making, I just want to be clear that there is a distinction between what is supposed to happen and what is likely to happen.
To put it another way, the prognosis of recovering irrationalists is, so far, not good.
As I read it, this was the main point of the original post. Most of us (I suspect) still get rather different answers when we honestly ask “what action should I take” and “what action would I take”.
Am I wrong, or are you conflating disregarding past costs in evaluating costs and benefits with failing to remember past costs when making predictions about future costs and benefits?
It seems pretty clear that the sunk cost consideration is that past costs don’t count in terms of how much it now would cost you to pursue using vendor A vs. pursuing vendor B, while induction requires you to think, “every time we go with Vendor A, he messes up, so if we go with Vendor A, he will likely mess up again”.
What’s the conflict?
I think I may have been too brief/unclear, so I am going to try again:
The fallacy of sunk costs is, in some sense, to count the fact that you have already expended costs on a plan as a benefit of that plan. So, no matter how much it has already cost you to pursue project A, avoiding the fallacy means treating the decision about whether to continue pursuing A, or to pursue B (assuming both projects have equivalent benefits) as equivalent to the question of whether there are more costs remaining for A, or more costs remaining for B.
The closest to relevant thing induction tells us is how to convert our evidence into predictions about the remaining costs of the projects. This doesn’t conflict, because induction tells us only that, if projects like A tend to get a lot harder from the point you are at, that your current project is likely to get a lot harder from the point you are at.
There just isn’t a conflict there.
If project A is what you’ve always done in the past, even when having the knowledge that project B is superior, you can induce that you will probably continue with project A in the future.
You can also induce from what incentives you seem to respond to how to increase the probability that you will do B. For instance, if telling your friends that you plan to do a project has a high correlation with your doing that project, then you can increase your probability that you will do B by telling your friends that you plan to do B.
Probably, but shouldn’t? If project B is superior, is that not the superior choice?
I think I understand the point you are making, I just want to be clear that there is a distinction between what is supposed to happen and what is likely to happen.
Yes.
To put it another way, the prognosis of recovering irrationalists is, so far, not good.
As I read it, this was the main point of the original post. Most of us (I suspect) still get rather different answers when we honestly ask “what action should I take” and “what action would I take”.