RANT PAGE

THE RANT BUT NOT REALLY

I wanted to rant about various things. How expensive my favourite muesli bars have gotten - their price jumped from 29 cents to 45 in less than a month. How seemingly every second politician in Latvia wants to be like the Nordic countries, but at the same time wants no immigrants. Or how a very regulated market like licensing of new drivers brings legitimately no benefits. Due to recent circumstances, I have settled for a sunk cost fallacy rant instead.

The sunk cost fallacy is one of the top 5 fallacies out there. Unlike other logical fallacies, this one has actual economic reasoning, making it superior. For those who still have not encountered this wonderful fallacy, it states that past mistakes should not be considered when making current decisions. So, if at any stage of developing a new product, the potential returns fall below the total investment, you should stop developing, even if you have already invested considerable amounts of the green stuff. Apparently, there is also something called a plan continuation bias, which just means that people tend to continue their plans even when the conditions surrounding certain actions change.

A lot of different psychological aspects affect this, but what I realised during these past months, full of unfortunate and fortunate events for that matter, is that people must finally learn to let go. This is one of those “do as I say, not as I do” moments, as I also saw myself struggle with accepting whatever was happening. I also wonder how much other people struggle with letting things go, because surely there must be at least some people who are good at this, like a Buddhist monk or something.

From time to time I think about how fascinating the human brain is. Like it operates as a sentient computer that does the wrong things because it values some abstract concepts over actual benefits. My brain goes actively against what would be the rational thing to do. Why? Is it dumb? Well, for one, it sometimes might value those abstract concepts that cannot be showed into a cost-benefit analysis correctly and not be so dumb. But without the experience, this is at best a 50/50 shot, but most of the cases even worse, because societies are built around motivating people to do everything until the end, to push through when faced with adversity. I can acknowledge that it is important to understand that giving up is not how it should go most of the time, but neither is never giving up the acceptable social norm. You should give up, give up a ton. Give up all the useless things in your life that are not giving returns and focus on something else.

Ok, but how do you escape this appalling fallacy? Well, you do not. You see, experience is what allows you to see further than the end of your nose and understand that by pushing harder you are not going to make the situation better. This means that you must gain that experience somehow. Of course, some can be gained by seeing others fail, by reading books and understanding theory, but most of it will come from life. No one can escape from having setbacks, but it is important to recognise them and do everything to not fall into the same hole twice. Also, I feel it is extremely important not to succumb to external pressure. Just like in a party, when that obnoxious person comes and offers another shot of vodka after you have already had 10, you must have the balls to tell them to give the shot to the person sitting next to you, because we are not wasting precious vodka.

This was a lengthy way to say it is better to admit your mistakes and look like a dumbo, rather than being a stubborn human being noun starting with the letter B. I hope you do re-evaluate your recent decisions and put a little less weight on the investments you have made already and more on the returns you can get. And stop falling into societal pressure traps, be yourself or something.

Tune in next time to see my full list of the top 5 fallacies.