Your Irrational Fear Is Quite Rational
Three Short & Simple Ideas
“You do not want to win an argument, you want to win”
That’s a sign you have skin in the game. For example, when there’s a war, soldiers have skin in the game. They don’t care about winning an argument. They care about surviving. They care about winning the war. People on the other side of the planet mostly have no skin in the game. They care more about winning the argument about the war than either side actually winning the war.
“By definition, what works cannot be irrational”
A pure academic’s view of rationalism is often different from true rationality. In economics, there’s a commonly used figure called a “rational actor”, which represents a human. However, that figure usually does not act like a normal person.
People talk about irrational fears a lot, but many of them are more rational than they seem. A fear of heights is not irrational. Falling from a large height could kill you. It’s rational to overestimate risk so you can survive. It’s not necessary but it’s also not irrational. A fear of cheese… okay that one is a little irrational.
“Things designed by people without skin in the game tend to grow in complication (before their final collapse).
This is the reason 99.99% of government agencies are awful. It’s the reason I showed up before 5am at the Provincial Automobile Agency to get my new driver’s license, waited six hours to be seen and was told simply to fill out the online form again and hope for an email in the next few months.
Nobody is incentivized to improve the experience. A new employee or more likely, a consultant, will come in every few years and propose a solution when the system is on the edge of implosion. That solution fixes the short-term problems with an even more complicated solution that will collapse even sooner next time.
Next time you’re wondering why your service is slow and awful when it seems like it should be pretty simple, see how large the provider is. The larger they are, the more likely someone was awarded for proposing a “smart” solution that added steps instead of a “simple” solution that just works.
Question of the Day
When you get into an argument, are you trying to win the argument or are you trying to win?
Your Biggest Fan,
Noah “BigNerd” Sochaczevski