This raises the question of what it means to want to do something, and who exactly (or which cognitive system) is doing the wanting.
Of course I do want to keep watching YT, but I also recognize there’s a cost to it. So on some level, weighing the pros and cons, I (or at least an earlier version of me) sincerely do want to go to bed by 10:30pm. But, in the moment, the tradeoffs look different from how they appeared from further away, and I make (or, default into) a different decision.
An interesting hypothetical here is whether I’d stay up longer when play time starts at 11:30pm than when play time starts at, say, 10:15pm (if bedtime is 10:30pm). The wanting to play, and the temptation to ignore the cost, might be similar in both scenarios. But this sunk cost / binary outcome fallacy would suggest that I’ll (marginally) blow further past my deadline in the former situation than in the latter.
This raises the question of what it means to want to do something, and who exactly (or which cognitive system) is doing the wanting.
Of course I do want to keep watching YT, but I also recognize there’s a cost to it. So on some level, weighing the pros and cons, I (or at least an earlier version of me) sincerely do want to go to bed by 10:30pm. But, in the moment, the tradeoffs look different from how they appeared from further away, and I make (or, default into) a different decision.
An interesting hypothetical here is whether I’d stay up longer when play time starts at 11:30pm than when play time starts at, say, 10:15pm (if bedtime is 10:30pm). The wanting to play, and the temptation to ignore the cost, might be similar in both scenarios. But this sunk cost / binary outcome fallacy would suggest that I’ll (marginally) blow further past my deadline in the former situation than in the latter.