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Sure, there are a whole host of reasons Congress is bad at this, but there is nothing rational about repeatedly authorizing $1bn in funding for something with a

Sure, there are a whole host of reasons Congress is bad at this, but there is nothing rational about repeatedly authorizing $1bn in funding for something with a projected benefit of $1bn. Congress can't manage it, but in an ideal world they could demand good management practices and refuse to fund things that go over budget without evidence of good management.

CamTin 8y ago
Yeah, not in this specific example, but under certain (somewhat artificial) circumstances, it could be. Imagine that your car doesn't start and you have it towed to a 100% trustworthy mechanic. He says that he knows what is wrong and it will cost you $500. You need the car, and $500 is far less than what it would cost you to replace the car. You authorize the mechanic to fix what he thinks is wrong for $500. He calls you the next day to say he did the $500 worth of work but, just as he was finishing, he found something else wrong. The car won't work at all without this new work. It also costs $500. Because it is still worth more $500 to you to have a working car, you authorize this work as well. This can continue indefinitely, even far past the point where you could have just bought a new car with the money you spent fixing this one. At every point along the way, the most prudent-, rational-seeming thing to do was to spend the $500, but this ultimately leads you to ruin: no working car, and your savings totally depleted. This outcome is similar to that in the (also artificial) circumstances of a dollar auction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction). Still, many things is real life approximate this dynamic, if not exactly, then in part. It's valuable to recognize the pattern so that you can recognize and short-circuit it in situations where you would otherwise "rational" yourself into a corner. In a dollar auction, you can pick the optimal move, which is not to play at all. In certain real-life circumstances, that isn't really an option.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  The rational thing to do is to not be limited by the go/no go choice and seek more complete information. This game illustrates the limits of blind cost-benefit analysis, but that is not the entirety of rational thought.

CamTin 8y ago

Yeah, not in this specific example, but under certain (somewhat artificial) circumstances, it could be. Imagine that your car doesn't start and you have it towed to a 100% trustworthy mechanic. He says that he knows what is wrong and it will cost you $500. You need the car, and $500 is far less than what it would cost you to replace the car. You authorize the mechanic to fix what he thinks is wrong for $500. He calls you the next day to say he did the $500 worth of work but, just as he was finishing, he found something else wrong. The car won't work at all without this new work. It also costs $500. Because it is still worth more $500 to you to have a working car, you authorize this work as well. This can continue indefinitely, even far past the point where you could have just bought a new car with the money you spent fixing this one. At every point along the way, the most prudent-, rational-seeming thing to do was to spend the $500, but this ultimately leads you to ruin: no working car, and your savings totally depleted. This outcome is similar to that in the (also artificial) circumstances of a dollar auction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction). Still, many things is real life approximate this dynamic, if not exactly, then in part. It's valuable to recognize the pattern so that you can recognize and short-circuit it in situations where you would otherwise "rational" yourself into a corner. In a dollar auction, you can pick the optimal move, which is not to play at all. In certain real-life circumstances, that isn't really an option.

Eridrus 8y ago
The rational thing to do is to not be limited by the go/no go choice and seek more complete information. This game illustrates the limits of blind cost-benefit analysis, but that is not the entirety of rational thought.