Facing decisions and free throws
Learning from decisions—Overcoming biases—Thick vs. thin desires
Hi all,
I had a relaxing, memorable weekend with my family. I’m reminded of a quote I saw recently on Twitter:
“The purpose of life is to experience things for which you will later experience nostalgia.”
Make those memories while you still can!
Top nostalgias from me for the last few years:
2022: Poconos triathlon and listening to Harry Styles new album… “Daylight, you got me calling at all times…”
2021: Boston Marathon and finding my way back home post Miami, Newport, California travels
2020: Pandemic cooking and reading Montaigne as a true highbrow
Thank you,
Brendan
#1: Free throws in the dark
“Forecasters who use ambiguous language and rely on flawed memories to retrieve old forecasts don’t get clear feedback, which makes it impossible to learn from experience. They are like basketball players doing free throws in the dark.”
—Philip Tetlock, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
Wharton School professor Philip Tetlock has spent decades studying the characteristics of good forecasters—people who are surprisingly accurate at foreseeing future political or economic events. He has learned they tend to be open-minded, accepting of contradictory evidence, and skilled with numbers. Most critically, though, they are able to get clear feedback on the accuracy of their past forecasts, allowing them to learn and improve over time.
In general, this is a good rule of thumb for improving at any skill. We need clear feedback on what we’re doing well and what needs improvement.
A basketball player wouldn’t practice free throws in the dark.
(And I should probably work with an editor more often.)
#2: Sheryl, how much longer until lunch?
“In a study of more than 1,100 judicial rulings, prisoners were granted parole at about a 60 percent rate when judges had recently eaten, and at essentially a 0 percent rate just before judges ate. […] Justice may be blind, but she’s sure sensitive to her stomach gurgling.”
—Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
When we think of a judge, we think of someone who is methodical, analytical, and impartial. We think of someone with years of experience in practicing judgment. Yet even they can be swayed easily by factors they have no conscious control over…like an empty stomach! Even they can make errors.
What does that say about us? As I wrote back in December, for critical, irreversible decisions, we need to slow down the process and really think twice when making judgments.
#3: Think twice
“A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”
Most people say $0.1 for the ball (and $1 for the bat).
Incorrect!
Take a closer look. The right answer is $1.05 for the bat and $0.05 for the ball.
That’s the brain “jumping to conclusions.” It’s another example of how we may make a decision without consciously processing all of the relevant information.
Psychologist Danny Kahneman introduced a now-famous framework for understanding how we think and make decisions. He suggested we can use either System 1 or System 2 thinking.
System 1 thinking is near-instantaneous. It’s automatic, intuitive, effortless, and it’s useful for the hundreds of quick, easy judgments we make all day. When someone asks us what 3 + 3 is, we barely have to think. That’s System 1.
By contrast, System 2 thinking is slower, requiring greater effort. It is conscious and logical. It’s what we use when we agonize over the right wording for an email or how to statistically model an NCAA bracket.
In the above brain teaser, if you got it wrong, chances are you let System 1 thinking dictate your decision, when you should’ve waited for a few seconds and used System 2. It’s not a hard problem, it just requires more conscious deliberation than expected.
In general, it’s critical to use System 1 and System 2 thinking in the right contexts to make the right decisions at the right speed.
#4: Thick vs. thin desires
“Thick desires are like diamonds that have been formed deep beneath the surface, nearer to the core of the Earth. Thick desires are protected from the volatility of changing circumstances in our lives. Thin desires, on the other hand, are highly mimetic, contagious, and often shallow.”
—Luke Burgis, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
Desires exert a massive gravitational pull on both our long and short-term decisions.
But before we can fully grasp what Luke Burgis is saying here about the two different types of desires, we first must understand the concept of mimetic desire.
Mimetic desire is wanting something because other people in our life also want it.
In college, nearly everyone at the LeBow College of Business coveted an internship at Goldman Sachs. Why? Because everyone knew that everyone else knew they wanted to work there. It was, simply, G O L D M A N. This desire was fueled not by a genuine interest in “facilitating M&A transactions” or “selling bonds”—how boring!—but by a mimetic desire for social standing, as precarious and unfulfilling as that may have been.
Mimetic desire is wanting to run a marathon because your friend just ran one. Or wanting a dog because another friend just adopted one. It’s the root of fads and trends, of pleather jackets, cargo pants, and using the word “gaslight”.
Sometimes we make very important life decisions based on thin desires, based on what other people in our network are saying or doing at the time. Don’t underestimate their power, lest you end up spending 90% of your post-tax on a Tesla and Equinox membership.
Critical life decisions should be based on thick desires, those interests and callings that buried are deep within us.
Want to learn more about how to determine those? Read Luke Burgis’s short intro on mimetic desire here. Or check out his awesome book Wanting.
Thanks for reading! I love when these thoughts lead to conversations with readers. Did you find anything interesting or surprising? Reply to me and let’s have a dialogue.