I think this falls into the category of not assuming everyone talks like a LW-er.
Someone who has moved in the past or known someone who has moved might not remember (at least without prompting) each of the individual items which make moving cost. They may just retain a generalized memory that moving is something to be avoided without a good reason.
But guess what? When it comes to making decisions that should take into account the cost of moving, remembering “moving should be avoided without a good reason” will, if their criteria for “good reason” are well-calibrated, lead to exactly the same conclusion as having a shopping list of moving costs in their mind and knowing that the movers are $500 and the loss of social links is worth 1000 utilons etc. even if they can’t articulate any numbers or any specific disadvantages of moving. Just because the people didn’t actually cite those reasons, and wouldn’t be able to cite those reasons, doesn’t mean that they weren’t in effect rejecting it for those reasons.
And yes, this generalizes to people being unable to articulate reasons to avoid other things that they’ve learned to avoid.
This is an extremely cogent articulation of something I’ve been wanting to articulate for a while (but couldn’t, because I’m the sort of person who just remembers “you shouldn’t move without a good reason). I would strongly encourage you to write a top level post about this.
I think this falls into the category of not assuming everyone talks like a LW-er.
Someone who has moved in the past or known someone who has moved might not remember (at least without prompting) each of the individual items which make moving cost. They may just retain a generalized memory that moving is something to be avoided without a good reason.
But guess what? When it comes to making decisions that should take into account the cost of moving, remembering “moving should be avoided without a good reason” will, if their criteria for “good reason” are well-calibrated, lead to exactly the same conclusion as having a shopping list of moving costs in their mind and knowing that the movers are $500 and the loss of social links is worth 1000 utilons etc. even if they can’t articulate any numbers or any specific disadvantages of moving. Just because the people didn’t actually cite those reasons, and wouldn’t be able to cite those reasons, doesn’t mean that they weren’t in effect rejecting it for those reasons.
And yes, this generalizes to people being unable to articulate reasons to avoid other things that they’ve learned to avoid.
This is an extremely cogent articulation of something I’ve been wanting to articulate for a while (but couldn’t, because I’m the sort of person who just remembers “you shouldn’t move without a good reason). I would strongly encourage you to write a top level post about this.