Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Against "better solutions"

A common claim I hear when suggesting an improvement for someone is that " there is a better way" that the guy is not doing the better way either is a fact. Yet he avoids the practical improvement because he is deluding about the better way.

It has two sources. One is an excuse. The better solution is a great way to escape acting and changing. The second is a genuine thought that it is good to avoid the improvement until the better one is there. This is usually a practical mistake. The deeper source of this mistake is loss aversion, the possibility of a better way for doing instills a feeling of lose if one does the not so perefct way. And to avoid this imagined loss, one does nothing. Entirely irrational. 

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