You can outsource these decisions by giving up on your agency, but I think that’s a really big deal that would probably mostly make things worse.
A pretty key piece of my thinking here is: if I emotionally cannot handle a decision, then “don’t give up my agency” is not an option. My agency is already basically gone at that point. If I am not emotionally capable of choosing between at least two different decisions (e.g. engage in a long negotiation to change circumstances or keep going with status quo), then for agency-analysis purposes, I am a rock with my already-chosen decision written on it.
This is why we have things like power of attorney and living wills. At some point, there is no meaningful agency left to retain. The first-best option (i.e. retaining agency) is already gone, and it’s time to move on to next-best.
(John and I just chatted offline, and a point of confusion we resolved was that I thought John was saying something like “the majority people in the house who are able to do thinking better should take over the thinking for the people who are too overwhelmed to think”, but the thing he meant was more like* “the people who are having trouble thinking should proactively find a person to be their lawyer, and/or help them think. Their “lawyer” should be whoever they trust most to help them.” Which is a pretty different frame.
I happen to not think this would have worked very well – I think a key problem was that everyone was overwhelmed at once, so there was nobody you trusted to be your lawyer who actually had bandwidth to do so. But, this is more of a straightforward factual constraint than a deep disagreement. I agree that looking for people to help you think, and/or represent you at house meetings, is a useful approach in some cases)
*I’m not 100% sure I represented his viewpoint well here.
A pretty key piece of my thinking here is: if I emotionally cannot handle a decision, then “don’t give up my agency” is not an option. My agency is already basically gone at that point. If I am not emotionally capable of choosing between at least two different decisions (e.g. engage in a long negotiation to change circumstances or keep going with status quo), then for agency-analysis purposes, I am a rock with my already-chosen decision written on it.
This is why we have things like power of attorney and living wills. At some point, there is no meaningful agency left to retain. The first-best option (i.e. retaining agency) is already gone, and it’s time to move on to next-best.
(John and I just chatted offline, and a point of confusion we resolved was that I thought John was saying something like “the majority people in the house who are able to do thinking better should take over the thinking for the people who are too overwhelmed to think”, but the thing he meant was more like* “the people who are having trouble thinking should proactively find a person to be their lawyer, and/or help them think. Their “lawyer” should be whoever they trust most to help them.” Which is a pretty different frame.
I happen to not think this would have worked very well – I think a key problem was that everyone was overwhelmed at once, so there was nobody you trusted to be your lawyer who actually had bandwidth to do so. But, this is more of a straightforward factual constraint than a deep disagreement. I agree that looking for people to help you think, and/or represent you at house meetings, is a useful approach in some cases)
*I’m not 100% sure I represented his viewpoint well here.
Endorsed.