I’m completely uncertain whether this would work better, worse, or the same as more common methods of group decision-making. It’s certainly an interesting idea.
I would make one caution, though. I find that businesses, schools, and decision-making workshops are far too willing to accept any cute or clever or radical sounding idea without any evidence that it works. It’s easier to use them as an boast: “Don’t say our decisions aren’t rational. We care so much about being rational that we make all our decisions with special rationalist hats. If you’re so rational, what do you do?” With “make decisions as well as possible based on available information” being a less acceptable answer than “have color coded teams using the Ten Step Rationalo-X Colors Method” or whatever.
For me to use this, I would need evidence that it worked. The best evidence would be assigning people to random groups, having one group talk it out informally and having the other use this hats method, and making them work on problems that are difficult but where there is one correct answer. If the hat people come to the correct answer more often than the non-hat people, then we use hats for everything.
I don’t know why people don’t do this more often for the common decision-making systems proposed, but I’ll bet Robin Hanson would have some choice things to say about it.
I’m completely uncertain whether this would work better, worse, or the same as more common methods of group decision-making. It’s certainly an interesting idea.
I would make one caution, though. I find that businesses, schools, and decision-making workshops are far too willing to accept any cute or clever or radical sounding idea without any evidence that it works. It’s easier to use them as an boast: “Don’t say our decisions aren’t rational. We care so much about being rational that we make all our decisions with special rationalist hats. If you’re so rational, what do you do?” With “make decisions as well as possible based on available information” being a less acceptable answer than “have color coded teams using the Ten Step Rationalo-X Colors Method” or whatever.
For me to use this, I would need evidence that it worked. The best evidence would be assigning people to random groups, having one group talk it out informally and having the other use this hats method, and making them work on problems that are difficult but where there is one correct answer. If the hat people come to the correct answer more often than the non-hat people, then we use hats for everything.
I don’t know why people don’t do this more often for the common decision-making systems proposed, but I’ll bet Robin Hanson would have some choice things to say about it.