I also think that another important issue is that reasoning on counterfactuals makes people more prone to do things that are unusual AND is more prone to errors (e.g. by not taking into account some other effects).
Both combined make counterfactual reasoning without empirical data pretty perilous on average IMO.
In the case of Ali in your example above for instance, Ali could neglect that the performance he’ll have will determine the opportunities & impact he has 5y down the line and so that being excited/liking the job is a major variable. Without counterfactual reasoning, Ali would have intuitively relied much more on excitement to pick the job but by doing counterfactual reasoning which seemed convincing, he neglected this important variable and made a bad choice.
I think that counterfactual reasoning makes people very prone to ignoring Chesterton’s fence.
I agree with the general underlying point.
I also think that another important issue is that reasoning on counterfactuals makes people more prone to do things that are unusual AND is more prone to errors (e.g. by not taking into account some other effects).
Both combined make counterfactual reasoning without empirical data pretty perilous on average IMO.
In the case of Ali in your example above for instance, Ali could neglect that the performance he’ll have will determine the opportunities & impact he has 5y down the line and so that being excited/liking the job is a major variable. Without counterfactual reasoning, Ali would have intuitively relied much more on excitement to pick the job but by doing counterfactual reasoning which seemed convincing, he neglected this important variable and made a bad choice.
I think that counterfactual reasoning makes people very prone to ignoring Chesterton’s fence.