A decision can be hard because the possible outcomes are finely balanced in expected payoff, or because you are quite lacking in knowledge about the possibly outcomes and/or their likelihood. If it’s the latter then it can be hard and matter a lot! For effective altruists there can be a bit of both. “Should I buy this pen or this other one? A better pen might help me write more effectively!” is probably the former, but “What career should I choose?” is probably the latter.
Plus, the latter kind of decision holds the promise of high value of information. If only you devote a bit more time to thinking about it or researching, you might improve your estimates a lot (or not). So that’s another incentive to worry about and delay such a decision.
There are also decisions that are: hard, important, you don’t have enough information, AND the cost of getting more information is too high. Especially if you did this thought experiment: If I tried to optimize every decisions of a similar level of importance as this one, how much would I actually accomplish?
Even for career decisions, once you’ve narrowed it down to a handful that meet your criteria, there needs to come a time when you just pick one and run with it. Especially considering that a lot of the information that is very important is also very hard to get (It’s hard to know how good of a fit you can be for a job until you’ve actually done it for a while)
A decision can be hard because the possible outcomes are finely balanced in expected payoff, or because you are quite lacking in knowledge about the possibly outcomes and/or their likelihood. If it’s the latter then it can be hard and matter a lot! For effective altruists there can be a bit of both. “Should I buy this pen or this other one? A better pen might help me write more effectively!” is probably the former, but “What career should I choose?” is probably the latter.
Plus, the latter kind of decision holds the promise of high value of information. If only you devote a bit more time to thinking about it or researching, you might improve your estimates a lot (or not). So that’s another incentive to worry about and delay such a decision.
I totally agree, Michael!
There are also decisions that are: hard, important, you don’t have enough information, AND the cost of getting more information is too high. Especially if you did this thought experiment: If I tried to optimize every decisions of a similar level of importance as this one, how much would I actually accomplish?
Even for career decisions, once you’ve narrowed it down to a handful that meet your criteria, there needs to come a time when you just pick one and run with it. Especially considering that a lot of the information that is very important is also very hard to get (It’s hard to know how good of a fit you can be for a job until you’ve actually done it for a while)