Banish talk of “thresholds of belief” … However, perhaps I could be so confident that my behavior would not be practically discernible from absolute confidence.
While this is true mathematically, I’m not sure it’s useful for people. Complex mental models have overhead, and if something is unlikely enough then you can do better to stop thinking about it. Maybe someone broke into my office and when I get there on Monday I won’t be able to work. This is unlikely, but I could look up the robbery statistics for Cambridge and see that this does happen. Mathematically, I should be considering this in making plans for tomorrow, but practically it’s a waste of time thinking about it.
(There’s also the issue that we’re not good at thinking about small probabilities. It’s very hard to keep unlikely possibilities from taking on undue weight except by just not thinking about them.)
Maybe someone broke into my office and when I get there on Monday I won’t be able to work. This is unlikely, but I could look up the robbery statistics for Cambridge and see that this does happen. Mathematically, I should be considering this in making plans for tomorrow, but practically it’s a waste of time thinking about it.
I think about such things every time I lock a door. Or at least, I lock doors because I have thought about such things, even if they’re not at the forefront of my mind when I do them. Do you not lock yours? Do you have an off-site backup for your data? Insurance against the place burning down?
Having taken such precautions as you think useful, thinking further about it is, to use Eliezer’s useful concept, wasted motion. It is a thought that, predictably at the time you think it, will as events transpire turn out to not have contributed in any useful way. You will go to work anyway, and see then whether thieves have been in the night.
Tiny probabilities do not, in general, map to tiny changes in actions. Decisions are typically discontinuous functions of the probabilities.
“Someone will break into something I own someday” is much more likely than “someone will break into my office tonight”. The former is likely enough that I do take general preparations (a habit of locking doors) but while there are specific preparations I would make to handle the intersection of that I planned to do at the office tomorrow and dealing with the aftermath of a burglary, that’s unlikely enough to to be worth it.
Does locking doors generally lead to preventing break-ins? I mean, certianly in some cases (cars most notably) it does, but in general, if someone has gone up to your back door with the intent to break in, how likely are they to give up and leave upon finding it locked?
Mathematically, I should be considering this in making plans for tomorrow, but practically it’s a waste of time thinking about it.
And then one day 4 years later you find out that a black swan event has occurred and because you never prepare for such things (‘it’s a waste of time thinking about it’) you will face losses big enough to influence you greatly all at once.
While this is true mathematically, I’m not sure it’s useful for people. Complex mental models have overhead, and if something is unlikely enough then you can do better to stop thinking about it. Maybe someone broke into my office and when I get there on Monday I won’t be able to work. This is unlikely, but I could look up the robbery statistics for Cambridge and see that this does happen. Mathematically, I should be considering this in making plans for tomorrow, but practically it’s a waste of time thinking about it.
(There’s also the issue that we’re not good at thinking about small probabilities. It’s very hard to keep unlikely possibilities from taking on undue weight except by just not thinking about them.)
I think about such things every time I lock a door. Or at least, I lock doors because I have thought about such things, even if they’re not at the forefront of my mind when I do them. Do you not lock yours? Do you have an off-site backup for your data? Insurance against the place burning down?
Having taken such precautions as you think useful, thinking further about it is, to use Eliezer’s useful concept, wasted motion. It is a thought that, predictably at the time you think it, will as events transpire turn out to not have contributed in any useful way. You will go to work anyway, and see then whether thieves have been in the night.
Tiny probabilities do not, in general, map to tiny changes in actions. Decisions are typically discontinuous functions of the probabilities.
I always lock doors without thinking, because the cost of thinking about whether it’s worth my time is higher than the cost of locking the door.
“Someone will break into something I own someday” is much more likely than “someone will break into my office tonight”. The former is likely enough that I do take general preparations (a habit of locking doors) but while there are specific preparations I would make to handle the intersection of that I planned to do at the office tomorrow and dealing with the aftermath of a burglary, that’s unlikely enough to to be worth it.
Does locking doors generally lead to preventing break-ins? I mean, certianly in some cases (cars most notably) it does, but in general, if someone has gone up to your back door with the intent to break in, how likely are they to give up and leave upon finding it locked?
And then one day 4 years later you find out that a black swan event has occurred and because you never prepare for such things (‘it’s a waste of time thinking about it’) you will face losses big enough to influence you greatly all at once.
Or not. - that’s the thing with rare events.