Perhaps the sunk cost fallacy is useful because without it you’re prone to switch projects as soon as a higher-value project comes along, leaving an ever-growing heap of abandoned projects behind you.
Sunk costs might in fact be useful heuristic for many people. But if rationality gets you in trouble in this area, use more rationality! - after all, once you know about this switching behavior, you can consciously counteract it with strategies (precommitment, etc).
What you’re pointing to is that a little rationality can be a dangerous thing.
If someone believes in X, they will like the general argument: “If X causes a problem, the solution is to use more X.” But can it be somehow proved, for X = rationality?
Perhaps this is all just one big sunk cost fallacy. Some of us have already invested too much resources into learning rationality—whether so called traditional rationality, x-rationality, or whatever is your popular flavor. Maybe we just refuse to update...
Sunk costs might in fact be useful heuristic for many people. But if rationality gets you in trouble in this area, use more rationality! - after all, once you know about this switching behavior, you can consciously counteract it with strategies (precommitment, etc).
What you’re pointing to is that a little rationality can be a dangerous thing.
If someone believes in X, they will like the general argument: “If X causes a problem, the solution is to use more X.” But can it be somehow proved, for X = rationality?
Perhaps this is all just one big sunk cost fallacy. Some of us have already invested too much resources into learning rationality—whether so called traditional rationality, x-rationality, or whatever is your popular flavor. Maybe we just refuse to update...