It’s true there are situations in which this isn’t the case, but I think they’re rare enough that it’s worth acknowledging the value of hesitation in many cases and trying to be clear about distinguishing valid from invalid hesitation.
It seems to me that thinking through uncertainties and scenarios is often really really important, as is making specific safeguards that will help you if your model turns out to be wrong; but I claim that there is a different meaning of “hesitation” that is like “keeping most of my psyche in a state of roadblock while I kind-of hang out with my friend while also feeling anxious about my paper”, or something, that is very different from actually concretely picturing the two scenarios, and figuring out how to create an outcome I’d like given both possibilities. I’m not expressing it well, but does the distinction I am trying to gesture at make sense?
It seems to me that thinking through uncertainties and scenarios is often really really important, as is making specific safeguards that will help you if your model turns out to be wrong; but I claim that there is a different meaning of “hesitation” that is like “keeping most of my psyche in a state of roadblock while I kind-of hang out with my friend while also feeling anxious about my paper”, or something, that is very different from actually concretely picturing the two scenarios, and figuring out how to create an outcome I’d like given both possibilities. I’m not expressing it well, but does the distinction I am trying to gesture at make sense?
Yup.