The Sunk Cost Fallacy is the fallacy considering sunk costs (expenses already paid) when calculating expected returns. I/e, if I’ve already spent $100, and my expected returns are $50, then it would be the sunk cost fallacy to say it is no longer worth continuing, since my expected return is negative—I should instead, to avoid the fallacy, only consider the -remaining- expenses to get that return.
Which is to say, to avoid the fallacy, sunk costs must be ignored.
The post is about the scenario when prior-cost insensitivity (avoiding the sunk cost fallacy) opens you up to getting “mugged”, a situation referred to as the Sunk Cost Dilemma, of which surprisingly little has been written; one hostile agent can extract additional value from another, sunk-cost-insensitive, agent by adding additional costs at the back-end.
(There was no “trolling”. Indeed, I wasn’t even tricking anybody—my “mugging” of other people was conceptual, referring to the fact that any “victim” agent who continued to reason the way the people here were reasoning would continue to get mugged in a real-life analogue, again and again for each time they refused to update their approach or understanding of the problem.)
As I said, that is not what the sunk cost fallacy is. If you’ve spent $100, and your expected net returns are -$50, then the sunk cost fallacy would be to say “If I stop now, that $100 will be wasted. Therefore, I should keep going so that my $100 won’t be wasted.”
While it is a fallacy to just add sunk costs to future costs, it’s not a fallacy to take them into account, as your scenario illustrates. I don’t know of anyone who recommends completely ignoring sunk costs; as far as I can tell you are arguing against a straw man in that sense.
Taking them into account is exactly what the sunk cost fallacy is; including sunk costs with prospective costs for the purposes of making decisions.
I think you confuse the most commonly used examples of the sunk cost fallacy with the sunk cost fallacy itself.
(And it would be e.g. there, strictly speaking.)
ETA: So if I’m arguing against a straw man, it’s because everybody is silently ignoring what the fallacy actually refers to in favor of something related to the fallacy but not the fallacy entire.
If you think that everyone is using a term for something other than what it refers to, then you don’t understand how language works. And a discussion of labels isn’t really relevant to the question of whether it’s a straw man. Also, your example shows that what you’re referring to as a sunk cost fallacy is not, in fact, a fallacy.
Wait. You paid a karma toll to comment on one of my most unpopular posts yet to… move the goalposts from “You don’t know what you’re talking about” to “The only correct definition of what you’re talking about is the populist one”? Well, I guess we’d better redefine evolution to mean “Spontaneous order arising out of chaos”, because apparently that’s how we’re doing things now.
Let’s pull up the definition you offered.
in fact in refers the opposite, of subtracting expenses already paid from future expected expenses.
You’re not even getting the -populist- definition of the fallacy right. Your version, as-written, implies that the cost for a movie ticket to a movie I later decide I don’t want to see is -negative- the cost of that ticket. See, I paid $5, and I’m not paying anything else later, so 0 − 5 = −5, a negative cost is a positive inlay, which means: Yay, free money?
Why didn’t I bring that up before? Because I’m not here to score points in an argument. Why do I bring it up now? Because I’m a firm believer in tit-for-tat—and you -do- seem to be here to score points in an argument, a trait which I think is overemphasized and over-rewarded on Less Wrong. I can’t fix that, but I can express my disdain for the behavior: Your games of trivial social dominance bore me.
I believe it’s your turn. You’re slated to deny that you’re playing any such games. Since I’ve called your turn, I’ve changed it, of course; it’s a chaotic system, after all. I believe the next standard response is to insult me. Once I’ve called that, usually -my- turn is to reiterate that it’s a game of social dominance, and that this entire thing is what monkeys do, and then to say that by calling attention to it, I’ve left you in confusion as to what game you’re even supposed to be playing against me.
We could, of course, skip -all- of that, straight to: What exactly do you actually want out of this conversation? To impart knowledge? To receive knowledge? Or do you merely seek dominance?
You paid a karma toll to comment on one of my most unpopular posts yet
My understanding is that the karma toll is charged only when responding to downvoted posts within a thread, not when responding to the OP.
to… move the goalposts from “You don’t know what you’re talking about” to “The only correct definition of what you’re talking about is the populist one”?
I didn’t say that the only correct definition is the most popular one; you are shading my position to make it more vulnerable to attack. My position is merely that if, as you yourself said, “everybody” uses a different definition, then that is the definition. You said “everybody is silently ignoring what the fallacy actually refers to”. But what a term “refers to” is, by definition, what people mean when they say it. The literal meaning (and I don’t take kindly to people engaging in wild hyperbole and then accusing me of being hyperliteral when I take them at their word, in case you’re thinking of trying that gambit) of your post is that in the entire world, you are the only person who knows the “true meaning” of the phrase. That’s absurd. At the very least, your use is nonstandard, and you should acknowledge that.
Now, as to “moving the goalposts”, the thing that I suspected you of not knowing what you were talking about was knowing the standard meaning of the phrase “sunk cost fallacy”, so the goalposts are pretty much where they were in the beginning, with the only difference being that I have gone from strongly suspecting that you don’t know what you’re talking about to being pretty much certain.
Well, I guess we’d better redefine evolution to mean “Spontaneous order arising out of chaos”, because apparently that’s how we’re doing things now.
I don’t know of any mainstream references defining evolution that way. If you see a parallel between these two cases, you should explain what it is.
You’re not even getting the -populist- definition of the fallacy right.
Ideally, if you are going to make claims, you would actually explain what basis you see for those claims.
Your version, as-written, implies that the cost for a movie ticket to a movie I later decide I don’t want to see is -negative- the cost of that ticket. See, I paid $5, and I’m not paying anything else later, so 0 − 5 = −5, a negative cost is a positive inlay, which means: Yay, free money?
Presumably, your line of thought is that what you just presented is absurd, and therefore it must be wrong. I have two issues with that. The first is that you didn’t actually present what your thinking was. That shows a lack of rigorous thought, as you failed to make explicit what your argument is. This leaves me with both articulating your argument and mine, which is rather rude. The second problem is that your syllogism “This is absurd, therefore it is false” is severely flawed. It’s called the Sunk Cost Fallacy. The fact that it is illogical doesn’t disqualify it from being a fallacy; being illogical is what makes it a fallacy.
Typical thinking is, indeed, that if one has a ticket for X that is priced at $5, then doing X is worth $5. For the typical mind, failing to do X would mean immediately realizing a $5 loss, while doing X would avoid realizing that loss (at least, not immediately). Therefore, when contemplating X, the $5 is considered as being positive, with respect to not doing X (that is, doing X is valued higher than not doing X, and the sunk cost is the cause of the differential).
Why didn’t I bring that up before? Because I’m not here to score points in an argument.
And if you were here to score points, you would think that “You just described X as being a fallacy, and yet X doesn’t make sense. Hah! Got you there!” would be a good way of doing so? I am quite befuddled.
Why do I bring it up now? Because I’m a firm believer in tit-for-tat—and you -do- seem to be here to score points in an argument
I sincerely believe that you are using the phrase “sunk cost fallacy” that is contrary to the standard usage, and that your usage impedes communication. I attempted to inform you of my concerns, and you responded by accusing me of simply trying “score points”. I do not think that I have been particularly rude, and absent prioritizing your feelings over clear communication, I don’t see how I could avoid you accusing me of playing “games of trivial social dominance”.
“Once I’ve called that, usually -my- turn is to reiterate that it’s a game of social dominance, and that this entire thing is what monkeys do”
Perceiving an assertion of error as being a dominance display is indeed something that the primate brain engages in. Such discussions cannot help but activate our social brains, but I don’t think that means that we should avoid ever expressing disagreement.
We could, of course, skip -all- of that, straight to: What exactly do you actually want out of this conversation? To impart knowledge? To receive knowledge? Or do you merely seek dominance?
My immediate motive is to impart knowledge. I suppose if one follows the causal chain down, it’s quite possible that humans’ desire to impart knowledge stems from our evolution as social beings, but that strikes me as overly reductionist.
My understanding is that the karma toll is charged only when responding to downvoted posts within a thread, not when responding to the OP.
You could be correct there.
I didn’t say that the only correct definition is the most popular one; you are shading my position to make it more vulnerable to attack. My position is merely that if, as you yourself said, “everybody” uses a different definition, then that is the definition. You said “everybody is silently ignoring what the fallacy actually refers to”. But what a term “refers to” is, by definition, what people mean when they say it. The literal meaning (and I don’t take kindly to people engaging in wild hyperbole and then accusing me of being hyperliteral when I take them at their word, in case you’re thinking of trying that gambit) of your post is that in the entire world, you are the only person who knows the “true meaning” of the phrase. That’s absurd. At the very least, your use is nonstandard, and you should acknowledge that.
There’s a conditional in the sentence that specifies “everybody”. “So if I’m arguing against a straw man...”
I don’t think I -am- arguing against a straw man. As I wrote directly above that, I think your understanding is drawn entirely from the examples you’ve seen, rather than the definition, as written on various sites—you could try Wikipedia, if you like, but it’s what I checked to verify that the definition I used was correct when you suggested it wasn’t. I will note that the “Sunk Cost Dilemma” is not my own invention, and was noted as a potential issue with the fallacy as it pertains to game theory long before I wrote this post—and, indeed, shows up in the aforementioned Wikipedia. I can’t actually hunt down the referenced paper, granted, so whether or not the author did a good job elaborating the problem is a matter I’m uninformed about.
Presumably, your line of thought is that what you just presented is absurd, and therefore it must be wrong. I have two issues with that. The first is that you didn’t actually present what your thinking was. That shows a lack of rigorous thought, as you failed to make explicit what your argument is. This leaves me with both articulating your argument and mine, which is rather rude. The second problem is that your syllogism “This is absurd, therefore it is false” is severely flawed. It’s called the Sunk Cost Fallacy. The fact that it is illogical doesn’t disqualify it from being a fallacy; being illogical is what makes it a fallacy.
“Illogical” and “Absurd” are distinct, which is what permits common fallacies in the first place.
I sincerely believe that you are using the phrase “sunk cost fallacy” that is contrary to the standard usage, and that your usage impedes communication. I attempted to inform you of my concerns, and you responded by accusing me of simply trying “score points”. I do not think that I have been particularly rude, and absent prioritizing your feelings over clear communication, I don’t see how I could avoid you accusing me of playing “games of trivial social dominance”.
Are you attempting to dissect what went wrong with this post?
Well, initially, the fact that everybody fought the hypothetical. That was not unexpected. Indeed, if I include a hypothetical, odds are it anticipates being fought.
It was still positive karma at that point, albeit modest.
The negative karma came about because I built the post in such a way as to utilize the tendency on Less Wrong to fight hypotheticals, and then I called them out on it in a very rude and condescending way, and also because at least one individual came to the conclusion that I was actively attempting to make people less rational. Shrug It’s not something I’m terribly concerned with, on account that, in spite of the way it went, I’m willing to bet those who participated learned more from this post than they otherwise would have.
Perceiving an assertion of error as being a dominance display is indeed something that the primate brain engages in. Such discussions cannot help but activate our social brains, but I don’t think that means that we should avoid ever expressing disagreement.
I’ll merely note that your behavior changed. You shifted from a hit-and-run style of implication to over-specific elaboration and in-depth responses. This post appears designed to prove to yourself that your disagreement has a rational basis. Does it?
My immediate motive is to impart knowledge. I suppose if one follows the causal chain down, it’s quite possible that humans’ desire to impart knowledge stems from our evolution as social beings, but that strikes me as overly reductionist.
Case in point.
Let’s suppose that is your motive. What knowledge have you imparted? Given that you’re concerned that I don’t know what it is, where’s the correct definition of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and how does my usage deviate from it? I’d expect to find that somewhere in here in your quest to impart knowledge on me.
Your stated motive doesn’t align with your behavior. It still doesn’t; you’ve dressed the same behavior up in nicer clothes, but you’re still just scoring points in an argument.
So—and this time I want you to answer to -yourself-, not to me, because I don’t matter in this respect—what exactly do you actually want out of this conversation?
The negative karma came about because I built the post in such a way as to utilize the tendency on Less Wrong to fight hypotheticals, and then I called them out on it in a very rude and condescending way, and also because at least one individual came to the conclusion that I was actively attempting to make people less rational. Shrug It’s not something I’m terribly concerned with, on account that, in spite of the way it went, I’m willing to bet those who participated learned more from this post than they otherwise would have.
The means, in this case, don’t violate any of my ethics checks, so I don’t see any need to justify them, and nobody suggested my ethics in this case were off. The sole accusation of defection was on a misinterpretation of my behavior, that I was trying to make people less rational.
It’s more a statement that I think the post was effective for its intended purposes, so I’m not too concerned about re-evaluating my methodology.
I should have separated that out into two paragraphs for clarity, I suppose.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy is the fallacy considering sunk costs (expenses already paid) when calculating expected returns. I/e, if I’ve already spent $100, and my expected returns are $50, then it would be the sunk cost fallacy to say it is no longer worth continuing, since my expected return is negative—I should instead, to avoid the fallacy, only consider the -remaining- expenses to get that return.
Which is to say, to avoid the fallacy, sunk costs must be ignored.
The post is about the scenario when prior-cost insensitivity (avoiding the sunk cost fallacy) opens you up to getting “mugged”, a situation referred to as the Sunk Cost Dilemma, of which surprisingly little has been written; one hostile agent can extract additional value from another, sunk-cost-insensitive, agent by adding additional costs at the back-end.
(There was no “trolling”. Indeed, I wasn’t even tricking anybody—my “mugging” of other people was conceptual, referring to the fact that any “victim” agent who continued to reason the way the people here were reasoning would continue to get mugged in a real-life analogue, again and again for each time they refused to update their approach or understanding of the problem.)
As I said, that is not what the sunk cost fallacy is. If you’ve spent $100, and your expected net returns are -$50, then the sunk cost fallacy would be to say “If I stop now, that $100 will be wasted. Therefore, I should keep going so that my $100 won’t be wasted.”
While it is a fallacy to just add sunk costs to future costs, it’s not a fallacy to take them into account, as your scenario illustrates. I don’t know of anyone who recommends completely ignoring sunk costs; as far as I can tell you are arguing against a straw man in that sense.
Also, it’s “i.e.”, rather than “i/e”.
Taking them into account is exactly what the sunk cost fallacy is; including sunk costs with prospective costs for the purposes of making decisions.
I think you confuse the most commonly used examples of the sunk cost fallacy with the sunk cost fallacy itself.
(And it would be e.g. there, strictly speaking.)
ETA: So if I’m arguing against a straw man, it’s because everybody is silently ignoring what the fallacy actually refers to in favor of something related to the fallacy but not the fallacy entire.
If you think that everyone is using a term for something other than what it refers to, then you don’t understand how language works. And a discussion of labels isn’t really relevant to the question of whether it’s a straw man. Also, your example shows that what you’re referring to as a sunk cost fallacy is not, in fact, a fallacy.
Wait. You paid a karma toll to comment on one of my most unpopular posts yet to… move the goalposts from “You don’t know what you’re talking about” to “The only correct definition of what you’re talking about is the populist one”? Well, I guess we’d better redefine evolution to mean “Spontaneous order arising out of chaos”, because apparently that’s how we’re doing things now.
Let’s pull up the definition you offered.
You’re not even getting the -populist- definition of the fallacy right. Your version, as-written, implies that the cost for a movie ticket to a movie I later decide I don’t want to see is -negative- the cost of that ticket. See, I paid $5, and I’m not paying anything else later, so 0 − 5 = −5, a negative cost is a positive inlay, which means: Yay, free money?
Why didn’t I bring that up before? Because I’m not here to score points in an argument. Why do I bring it up now? Because I’m a firm believer in tit-for-tat—and you -do- seem to be here to score points in an argument, a trait which I think is overemphasized and over-rewarded on Less Wrong. I can’t fix that, but I can express my disdain for the behavior: Your games of trivial social dominance bore me.
I believe it’s your turn. You’re slated to deny that you’re playing any such games. Since I’ve called your turn, I’ve changed it, of course; it’s a chaotic system, after all. I believe the next standard response is to insult me. Once I’ve called that, usually -my- turn is to reiterate that it’s a game of social dominance, and that this entire thing is what monkeys do, and then to say that by calling attention to it, I’ve left you in confusion as to what game you’re even supposed to be playing against me.
We could, of course, skip -all- of that, straight to: What exactly do you actually want out of this conversation? To impart knowledge? To receive knowledge? Or do you merely seek dominance?
My understanding is that the karma toll is charged only when responding to downvoted posts within a thread, not when responding to the OP.
I didn’t say that the only correct definition is the most popular one; you are shading my position to make it more vulnerable to attack. My position is merely that if, as you yourself said, “everybody” uses a different definition, then that is the definition. You said “everybody is silently ignoring what the fallacy actually refers to”. But what a term “refers to” is, by definition, what people mean when they say it. The literal meaning (and I don’t take kindly to people engaging in wild hyperbole and then accusing me of being hyperliteral when I take them at their word, in case you’re thinking of trying that gambit) of your post is that in the entire world, you are the only person who knows the “true meaning” of the phrase. That’s absurd. At the very least, your use is nonstandard, and you should acknowledge that.
Now, as to “moving the goalposts”, the thing that I suspected you of not knowing what you were talking about was knowing the standard meaning of the phrase “sunk cost fallacy”, so the goalposts are pretty much where they were in the beginning, with the only difference being that I have gone from strongly suspecting that you don’t know what you’re talking about to being pretty much certain.
I don’t know of any mainstream references defining evolution that way. If you see a parallel between these two cases, you should explain what it is.
Ideally, if you are going to make claims, you would actually explain what basis you see for those claims.
Presumably, your line of thought is that what you just presented is absurd, and therefore it must be wrong. I have two issues with that. The first is that you didn’t actually present what your thinking was. That shows a lack of rigorous thought, as you failed to make explicit what your argument is. This leaves me with both articulating your argument and mine, which is rather rude. The second problem is that your syllogism “This is absurd, therefore it is false” is severely flawed. It’s called the Sunk Cost Fallacy. The fact that it is illogical doesn’t disqualify it from being a fallacy; being illogical is what makes it a fallacy.
Typical thinking is, indeed, that if one has a ticket for X that is priced at $5, then doing X is worth $5. For the typical mind, failing to do X would mean immediately realizing a $5 loss, while doing X would avoid realizing that loss (at least, not immediately). Therefore, when contemplating X, the $5 is considered as being positive, with respect to not doing X (that is, doing X is valued higher than not doing X, and the sunk cost is the cause of the differential).
And if you were here to score points, you would think that “You just described X as being a fallacy, and yet X doesn’t make sense. Hah! Got you there!” would be a good way of doing so? I am quite befuddled.
I sincerely believe that you are using the phrase “sunk cost fallacy” that is contrary to the standard usage, and that your usage impedes communication. I attempted to inform you of my concerns, and you responded by accusing me of simply trying “score points”. I do not think that I have been particularly rude, and absent prioritizing your feelings over clear communication, I don’t see how I could avoid you accusing me of playing “games of trivial social dominance”.
“Once I’ve called that, usually -my- turn is to reiterate that it’s a game of social dominance, and that this entire thing is what monkeys do”
Perceiving an assertion of error as being a dominance display is indeed something that the primate brain engages in. Such discussions cannot help but activate our social brains, but I don’t think that means that we should avoid ever expressing disagreement.
My immediate motive is to impart knowledge. I suppose if one follows the causal chain down, it’s quite possible that humans’ desire to impart knowledge stems from our evolution as social beings, but that strikes me as overly reductionist.
You could be correct there.
There’s a conditional in the sentence that specifies “everybody”. “So if I’m arguing against a straw man...”
I don’t think I -am- arguing against a straw man. As I wrote directly above that, I think your understanding is drawn entirely from the examples you’ve seen, rather than the definition, as written on various sites—you could try Wikipedia, if you like, but it’s what I checked to verify that the definition I used was correct when you suggested it wasn’t. I will note that the “Sunk Cost Dilemma” is not my own invention, and was noted as a potential issue with the fallacy as it pertains to game theory long before I wrote this post—and, indeed, shows up in the aforementioned Wikipedia. I can’t actually hunt down the referenced paper, granted, so whether or not the author did a good job elaborating the problem is a matter I’m uninformed about.
“Illogical” and “Absurd” are distinct, which is what permits common fallacies in the first place.
Are you attempting to dissect what went wrong with this post?
Well, initially, the fact that everybody fought the hypothetical. That was not unexpected. Indeed, if I include a hypothetical, odds are it anticipates being fought.
It was still positive karma at that point, albeit modest.
The negative karma came about because I built the post in such a way as to utilize the tendency on Less Wrong to fight hypotheticals, and then I called them out on it in a very rude and condescending way, and also because at least one individual came to the conclusion that I was actively attempting to make people less rational. Shrug It’s not something I’m terribly concerned with, on account that, in spite of the way it went, I’m willing to bet those who participated learned more from this post than they otherwise would have.
I’ll merely note that your behavior changed. You shifted from a hit-and-run style of implication to over-specific elaboration and in-depth responses. This post appears designed to prove to yourself that your disagreement has a rational basis. Does it?
Case in point.
Let’s suppose that is your motive. What knowledge have you imparted? Given that you’re concerned that I don’t know what it is, where’s the correct definition of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and how does my usage deviate from it? I’d expect to find that somewhere in here in your quest to impart knowledge on me.
Your stated motive doesn’t align with your behavior. It still doesn’t; you’ve dressed the same behavior up in nicer clothes, but you’re still just scoring points in an argument.
So—and this time I want you to answer to -yourself-, not to me, because I don’t matter in this respect—what exactly do you actually want out of this conversation?
Is that “the end justifies the means”?
The means, in this case, don’t violate any of my ethics checks, so I don’t see any need to justify them, and nobody suggested my ethics in this case were off. The sole accusation of defection was on a misinterpretation of my behavior, that I was trying to make people less rational.
It’s more a statement that I think the post was effective for its intended purposes, so I’m not too concerned about re-evaluating my methodology.
I should have separated that out into two paragraphs for clarity, I suppose.