13 ms·

Ok, so you can’t decide

197 points by jbredeche 5y ago

TrispusAttucks 5y ago
When I am in a stalemate between a couple of options I find it easiest to use a decision maker app [1] If I feel bad about the decision I try again until I feel good about it. Letting go of the choice and leaving it to fate to decide kinda sets you free. [1] https://easydecisionmaker.com/ https://easydecisionmaker.com/
- kekebo 5y ago
  Which isn't necessarily relying on fate as much as rerouting the decision function through an external api to figure out what your internal choice state was in the first place
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Failing that, just look at the second or minute indication on a nearby clock, modulo the number of options in your choice. You probably don't know exactly what time it is, so the clock's LSD is basically a 1d10 roll.
AlbertCory 5y ago
I think this guy is spot on. I've learned, reluctantly, that if I leave the house feeling like I've forgotten something, I usually have. Maybe it didn't matter, but better to know that before leaving. Of course he wouldn't advise dithering forever, but if your subconscious is making you anxious about the decision, it might be for a good reason.
datameta 5y ago
Never underestimate the efficacy of light to moderate physical activity in synthesizing information without necessarily directly thinking about the topic at hand. We enter a different thinking mode, termed "diffuse", where the release of focus allows us to subconsciously zoom out and stitch together the newly acquired information and partial revelations into a clearer more advanced picture.
- jes 5y ago
  Eli Goldratt used to sometimes say "If you're looking at a problem and see no solution, it means one thing: You're looking at the problem too narrowly."
- edoceo 5y ago
  Need to have a big think? Leave phone in office, 30min walk outside. Amazing.
  - zeku 5y ago
    I 100% agree. Background processing is the way to go!
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Taking a long shower also does it for me.
- mlang23 5y ago
  Talking a bathroom break was most effective to cure a blank mind during a long test at school. At least if they would let you go.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    That works fine until someone else camps out in the stall where you stashed your notes.
baldeagle 5y ago
Once, I was trying to decided between moving to North Carolina or Southern California for work (there is a song in that somewhere). Both sides had pros and cons, and I couldn't decide.... So I flipped a coin. It came up Carolina, so I flipped it agin and moved to California. It was amazing how having 'decided' I could then evaluate the other oppertunity. (And I think the Carolina business suffered greatly during the 07 recession, but I bought a house in Cali before the market fell... so either way was a path with struggle.)
- kofejnik 5y ago
  yeah, I think it was in some movie - if you can't decide, flip a coin, and you will already know which side you want it to land while it's still in the air also, if you can't decide it often (but not always) means choices are about equally good (unless you're missed something big), so you probably won't be terribly wrong either way
  - andi999 5y ago
    Something similiar happened in 'the last king of scottland'. The protagonist is spinning the globe and says he will go anywhere he will point to. Then it came up too boring so he spun again.
- Zircom 5y ago
  >Once, I was trying to decided between moving to North Carolina or Southern California for work (there is a song in that somewhere). Both sides had pros and cons, and I couldn't decide.... So I flipped a coin. It came up Carolina, so I flipped it agin and moved to California There is indeed a song there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvLjJE7Bt88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvLjJE7Bt88.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Also known as the Marine Corps PCS (permanent change of station) song.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
JohnFen 5y ago
> The defining characteristic of the great relief is the sense of immediate progress. After days or weeks of careful analysis, you are suddenly moving forward again and… it’s a delightful relief. You are no longer stuck endlessly second-guessing yourself. I truly wish this were my experience. If I'm facing a decision that it really hard for me to make, then once I've made it, I experience no such relief.
torstenvl 5y ago
In hunting and shooting sports we have a term, overscoped, that means your rifle scope is either too much for your rifle or you're at greater magnification than you should be. This is the result of, yes, marketing, but also the kind of naive belief that more magnification → better. The idea of always just throwing more brain-racking at a problem strikes me as similarly naive. Yes, getting down to work and doing the analysis is important, and sometimes there isn't enough of that. When you don't have enough, go ahead and add more. But sometimes, the naive brute-force method isn't what’s called for. Sometimes, instead, you need to zoom out.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  A day or two ago, someone pointed to a great article on Melatonin[0]. I'm pretty sure it was a repeat, from a couple of years ago. In any case, the thing that struck me, was the recommended dose, of 300 micrograms (0.3mg). Since the lowest OTC dosage is 3mg, and it goes up to at least 10mg, this was a shock. I have been taking 6-9 mg per night. I immediately lowered the dosage to about 1mg (I have 300 microgram pills on order). Slept like a baby. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28416035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28416035
  - lfowles 5y ago
    Surprised the heck out of me too, I would have intensely weird and disturbing dreams if I took a whole melatonin tablet (around 3-5mg). Slept a lot better once I started dividing them into quarters.
  - coding123 5y ago
    I don't have any great articles on this but it's a super sleep secret. Turn off your lights at night. Seriously people leave the lights on every second until they go to bed, but what you really need is for the lights to be off an hour before your planned bed time. You can still use screens, but at a distance (like a far away TV). If you need to see to get to bed, aim the phone at your feet on a low brightness setting.
    - 5y ago
jes 5y ago
In threads like this one, I sometimes mention the parable of the Chinese Farmer as told by Alan Watts.[1] It's easily found on YouTube. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0OARBqBp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0OARBqBp0
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  Nice parable. To anyone that hears it and gets convinced that you can never tell what's good or bad in the world, please note that this only applies to single events within a large complicated system. Not large emergent systemic effects.
  - mekal 5y ago
    Can you give a few examples of "large emergent systemic effects"? Just curious.
    - rahimnathwani 5y ago
      Climate change. The Coddling of the American Mind.
      - mekal 5y ago
        What if climate change gives humanity the incentive/drive to create new technologies that end up not only overcoming it but also advancing civilization in ways that we otherwise never would have even dreamed possible? What if we discover that everyone really can "just get along" because we coddled 300 million people into believing it, and it actually becomes a reality in the US and spreads throughout the globe? Even the Taliban ends up being nice and people don't even get picked on in school anymore. I mean...its possible right?
        rahimnathwani 5y ago
        The chance of something good coming out of climate change is much lower than that of, e.g. me burning my hand taking something out of the oven. Re: coddling of the American mind, I was talking about increasing intolerance of opposing views views, decreasing willingness to seek truth, seeing words as violence etc. It's hard to see a path where this type of thinking becomes universal. No matter how strong that movement, it won't completely eradicate those who believe in freedom of thoughts and freedom of speech.
at_a_remove 5y ago
I like randomness for these kinds of things. A special coin if the options are balanced, an enormous metal icosahedron (the D20 of Decision) if I feel like shading things out in five percentage point probabilities, or a Tarot deck if I am looking for reflection on my own thoughts.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  An old poker trick: A watch works well for this. You can assign probabilities to actions based on where the second hand is. So for example, Suppose you think it should be 80% action A, 10% action B, 10% action C. If, when you glance at your watch, the second hand lies between: 0 and 6 seconds --> Action C 6 and 12 seconds --> Action B 12-60 seconds --> Action A Another useful trick I use is to take the sequential digits of pi mod (n) for n possible actions. I happen to remember 40 digits or so of pi, so I can produce 40 very random-looking actions that way.
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    I do those, too!
davidw 5y ago
"Long bike ride" - this is the way! Something about relatively steady low-intensity exercise does wonders for the brain.
legrande 5y ago
Personal anecdote: I refuse to blog anymore because I can't find the right CMS to use. I have weighed the pros and cons so heavily over a whole decade and just can't decide what to use (And I've used them all). Posthaven, Wordpress, Ghost, WriteFreely & Write.as, Blogger, Tumblr and a few others. Now I am aware of the phrase: 'If you wait until you are ready, you will never get it done'. But I've actually blogged professionally for about 3 years and saw what that meant. You had journalists cold-calling you in the middle of the night because your blogpost was going viral, traffic going through the roof. Though the blog didn't go down because of the traffic, I was still paying for the CDN monthly which at the time because of AD revenue didn't hurt my pocket as much. Today I simply can't afford it, and out of respect for my users, I won't serve ADS. So the workaround for many in that situation, is to go with a free service like wordpress.com or Tumblr or Blogger etc. But they're all weaponized with ADs and tracking cookies, and I don't want to make my users suffer loss of privacy because of what I've written. I used to self host, but then even that comes with caveats: can you harden the VPS enough to stop bots and bad actors getting in and ruining your blog? How does the CMS bounce back after the VPS has been rebooted? All these stupid edge cases can make you go insane. Then the CMS itself has to be configured the right way. Have you got HSTS turned on? Have you got your caching right? Are all your images optimized? It's too much. I prefer to just lurk on various Internet forums since I can still reach a large audience that way, albeit even forums come with caveats. So far certain communities haven't had their Eternal September yet, and places like Tildes.net look promising. In the end, it was a good run, but it can't last. Maybe I'll take up blogging again, when I'm 'not ready' for it and DGAF anymore, who knows?
- slig 5y ago
  You can use a static site generator (such as Hugo), and host it for free on GitHub with your domain. Zero costs, zero maintenance and zero headaches.
  - legrande 5y ago
    Tried Github; didn't like it. 1: I prefer EU companies with strict privacy laws. I only host with Switzerland. 2: Github won't be happy with 1/2 million unique IPs in a day hitting their servers when a post goes viral. (That's an expense on their part) 3: With a free GH account everything is public knowledge and every change made to your blog is visible via diffs. I don't want nosey people poring over every mistake I made in posts. I'm not sure it's possible to have a Github Pages instance that is private. 4: Whilst 3rd party tools assist in markdown generation (for use with Jekyll and Hugo), you still have to peek inside templates to customize everything to your liking. Something I am tired of doing. 5: Whilst TLS & HTTPS on Github pages is supported, I still have problems getting it to work properly. Seems to only work on {username}.github.io and not a custom domain. 6: There are issues with what URL to serve to on GH Pages. Do I use `www.site.com` or `site.com`? And how does the server negotiate which one to use?
ketzo 5y ago
If you're with a group of people who are trying to decide where to go to dinner, but no one's putting out suggestions or willing to make any hard calls: Suggest you all go to McDonald's. There's nothing that gets people to immediately shoot down an idea and suggest something else quite like the prospect of a Big Mac.
- elwell 5y ago
  I love a Big Mac.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    Yeah, I read that and asked myself "Am I a garbage person?".
    - yuuu 5y ago
      No, everyone else is just pretending they don't like McDonald's for that valuable elitist cred.
  - ketzo 5y ago
    Trust me, so do I. But when you're picking between "trendy Thai place" and "trendy bar down the street," the suggestion of McDonald's really sharpens people's metaphorical knives.
  - tomjakubowski 5y ago
    You might luck out and find people agree to go there.
- Teknoman117 5y ago
  Except I lost on that one because some of my coworkers were all over the buy one get one free Big Mac on Tuesdays a few years ago.
  - QuercusMax 5y ago
    A 2-big-mac lunch sounds like a terrible idea
beaconstudios 5y ago
there's a related effect that feeds into this, that is the subject of Robert Frost's poem "the road not taken": if we make a decision and things go well, we typically put the outcome down to our decision, regardless of whether it made a difference. So we get to thinking that our decisions really matter, even if they hardly do at all.
wintermutestwin 5y ago
Making difficult decisions became so much easier when I realized: a) that the fact that the decision was difficult meant that either choice had a close likelihood of turning out well. b) that the biggest mistakes I have made tended to lead to my biggest successes.
- fouronnes3 5y ago
  Choosing is the same as not knowing.
  - mym1990 5y ago
    Not choosing is a choice as well, the truth is that there are so many possible timelines but we will only ever experience one. So I would get comfortable with not knowing :)
  - staticautomatic 5y ago
    A fair philosophical point.
- davtbaum 5y ago
  on a) I came to the same realization years ago. The fact that its a hard decision inherently means that either solution can be the right solution
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    i usually have analysis paralysis when the consequences of either decision is really dire. In short... i'm stuck between two bad choices.
    - wintermutestwin 5y ago
      That's exactly why I included realization b) :-) I should have also added: c) Sometimes, you perception has limited you to choosing between two choices. Change your perception enough to see that there are always a multitude of choices. You may not want to pick the 3rd+ choice, but knowing that you made your choices freely allows you to own the choice and the outcome.
csomar 5y ago
> Even if unexpected consequences begin to show up, you eagerly attack them because consequences are more fun than mental paralysis. Isn't this what got you mental paralysis in the first place? And why young people are generally more risk-taking? As you get more experience, you learn that every endeavor hides unknown risks. It's this uncertainty (and unknown) that makes you hesitant. If you did enough endeavors that made you go through significant pain, you'll likely don't want to go through the experience again.
dredmorbius 5y ago
"If you can't choose wisely, choose randomly" remains my favourite discussion of this issue: As moderns, we take it for granted that the best decisions stem from a process of empirical analysis and informed choice, with a clear goal in mind. That kind of decision-making, at least in theory, undergirds the ways that we choose political leaders, play the stock market, and select candidates for schools and jobs. It also shapes the way in which we critique the rituals and superstitions of others. But, as the Kantu’ illustrate, there are plenty of situations when random chance really is your best option. And those situations might be far more prevalent in our modern lives than we generally admit. https://aeon.co/essays/if-you-can-t-choose-wisely-choose-randomly https://aeon.co/essays/if-you-can-t-choose-wisely-choose-ran... Randomness, in the face of insufficient information or a poorly-scoped model for interpreting data, at least avoids the overt biases of bad decisionmaking systems.
ciwchris 5y ago
I believe if I collect enough information the best decision will stand out. Yet rarely is this the case. I continue to rehash the same thoughts, think there's information I'm overlooking and so continue to search. But the yield from doing so continues to diminish. Then I read the following from the book On Being Certain: Without a circuit breaker, indecision and inaction would rule the day. What is needed is a mental switch that stops infinite ruminations and calms our fears of missing an unknown superior alternative. Such a switch can't be a thought or we would be back at the same problem. The simplest solution would be a sensation that feels like a thought but isn't subject to thought's perpetual self-questioning. The constellation of mental states that constitutes the feeling of knowing is a marvelous adaptation that solves a very real metaphysical dilemma of how to reach a conclusion. [0] This clicked to me. I try to think my way to a decision. But what I really need is a feeling. [0] https://www.rburton.com/_i_on_being_certain_i___believing_you_are_right_even_when_you_re_not_63166.htm https://www.rburton.com/_i_on_being_certain_i___believing_yo...
sanketskasar 5y ago
While all this and most other advises are applicable to career, money, and tangible things, what does one do when unable to make a decision in intangible things like relationships and love life? Asking because stuck in a situation where not sure what choice is better for me, for the other person and there is nothing that's helping me decide.

197 points by jbredeche 5y ago

When I am in a stalemate between a couple of options I find it easiest to use a decision maker app [1] If I feel bad about the decision I try again until I feel good about it. Letting go of the choice and leaving it to fate to decide kinda sets you free. [1] https://easydecisionmaker.com/ https://easydecisionmaker.com/

kekebo 5y ago
Which isn't necessarily relying on fate as much as rerouting the decision function through an external api to figure out what your internal choice state was in the first place
CamperBob2 5y ago
Failing that, just look at the second or minute indication on a nearby clock, modulo the number of options in your choice. You probably don't know exactly what time it is, so the clock's LSD is basically a 1d10 roll.

AlbertCory 5y ago

I think this guy is spot on. I've learned, reluctantly, that if I leave the house feeling like I've forgotten something, I usually have. Maybe it didn't matter, but better to know that before leaving. Of course he wouldn't advise dithering forever, but if your subconscious is making you anxious about the decision, it might be for a good reason.

datameta 5y ago

Never underestimate the efficacy of light to moderate physical activity in synthesizing information without necessarily directly thinking about the topic at hand. We enter a different thinking mode, termed "diffuse", where the release of focus allows us to subconsciously zoom out and stitch together the newly acquired information and partial revelations into a clearer more advanced picture.

jes 5y ago
Eli Goldratt used to sometimes say "If you're looking at a problem and see no solution, it means one thing: You're looking at the problem too narrowly."
edoceo 5y ago
Need to have a big think? Leave phone in office, 30min walk outside. Amazing.
- zeku 5y ago
  I 100% agree. Background processing is the way to go!
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Taking a long shower also does it for me.
mlang23 5y ago
Talking a bathroom break was most effective to cure a blank mind during a long test at school. At least if they would let you go.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  That works fine until someone else camps out in the stall where you stashed your notes.

baldeagle 5y ago

Once, I was trying to decided between moving to North Carolina or Southern California for work (there is a song in that somewhere). Both sides had pros and cons, and I couldn't decide.... So I flipped a coin. It came up Carolina, so I flipped it agin and moved to California. It was amazing how having 'decided' I could then evaluate the other oppertunity. (And I think the Carolina business suffered greatly during the 07 recession, but I bought a house in Cali before the market fell... so either way was a path with struggle.)

kofejnik 5y ago
yeah, I think it was in some movie - if you can't decide, flip a coin, and you will already know which side you want it to land while it's still in the air also, if you can't decide it often (but not always) means choices are about equally good (unless you're missed something big), so you probably won't be terribly wrong either way
- andi999 5y ago
  Something similiar happened in 'the last king of scottland'. The protagonist is spinning the globe and says he will go anywhere he will point to. Then it came up too boring so he spun again.
Zircom 5y ago
>Once, I was trying to decided between moving to North Carolina or Southern California for work (there is a song in that somewhere). Both sides had pros and cons, and I couldn't decide.... So I flipped a coin. It came up Carolina, so I flipped it agin and moved to California There is indeed a song there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvLjJE7Bt88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvLjJE7Bt88.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Also known as the Marine Corps PCS (permanent change of station) song.
- tshaddox 5y ago

JohnFen 5y ago

> The defining characteristic of the great relief is the sense of immediate progress. After days or weeks of careful analysis, you are suddenly moving forward again and… it’s a delightful relief. You are no longer stuck endlessly second-guessing yourself. I truly wish this were my experience. If I'm facing a decision that it really hard for me to make, then once I've made it, I experience no such relief.

torstenvl 5y ago

In hunting and shooting sports we have a term, overscoped, that means your rifle scope is either too much for your rifle or you're at greater magnification than you should be. This is the result of, yes, marketing, but also the kind of naive belief that more magnification → better. The idea of always just throwing more brain-racking at a problem strikes me as similarly naive. Yes, getting down to work and doing the analysis is important, and sometimes there isn't enough of that. When you don't have enough, go ahead and add more. But sometimes, the naive brute-force method isn't what’s called for. Sometimes, instead, you need to zoom out.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
A day or two ago, someone pointed to a great article on Melatonin[0]. I'm pretty sure it was a repeat, from a couple of years ago. In any case, the thing that struck me, was the recommended dose, of 300 micrograms (0.3mg). Since the lowest OTC dosage is 3mg, and it goes up to at least 10mg, this was a shock. I have been taking 6-9 mg per night. I immediately lowered the dosage to about 1mg (I have 300 microgram pills on order). Slept like a baby. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28416035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28416035
- lfowles 5y ago
  Surprised the heck out of me too, I would have intensely weird and disturbing dreams if I took a whole melatonin tablet (around 3-5mg). Slept a lot better once I started dividing them into quarters.
- coding123 5y ago
  I don't have any great articles on this but it's a super sleep secret. Turn off your lights at night. Seriously people leave the lights on every second until they go to bed, but what you really need is for the lights to be off an hour before your planned bed time. You can still use screens, but at a distance (like a far away TV). If you need to see to get to bed, aim the phone at your feet on a low brightness setting.
  - 5y ago

jes 5y ago

In threads like this one, I sometimes mention the parable of the Chinese Farmer as told by Alan Watts.[1] It's easily found on YouTube. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0OARBqBp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0OARBqBp0

Swenrekcah 5y ago
Nice parable. To anyone that hears it and gets convinced that you can never tell what's good or bad in the world, please note that this only applies to single events within a large complicated system. Not large emergent systemic effects.
- mekal 5y ago
  Can you give a few examples of "large emergent systemic effects"? Just curious.
  - rahimnathwani 5y ago
    Climate change. The Coddling of the American Mind.
    - mekal 5y ago
      What if climate change gives humanity the incentive/drive to create new technologies that end up not only overcoming it but also advancing civilization in ways that we otherwise never would have even dreamed possible? What if we discover that everyone really can "just get along" because we coddled 300 million people into believing it, and it actually becomes a reality in the US and spreads throughout the globe? Even the Taliban ends up being nice and people don't even get picked on in school anymore. I mean...its possible right?
      - rahimnathwani 5y ago
        The chance of something good coming out of climate change is much lower than that of, e.g. me burning my hand taking something out of the oven. Re: coddling of the American mind, I was talking about increasing intolerance of opposing views views, decreasing willingness to seek truth, seeing words as violence etc. It's hard to see a path where this type of thinking becomes universal. No matter how strong that movement, it won't completely eradicate those who believe in freedom of thoughts and freedom of speech.

at_a_remove 5y ago

I like randomness for these kinds of things. A special coin if the options are balanced, an enormous metal icosahedron (the D20 of Decision) if I feel like shading things out in five percentage point probabilities, or a Tarot deck if I am looking for reflection on my own thoughts.

Enginerrrd 5y ago
An old poker trick: A watch works well for this. You can assign probabilities to actions based on where the second hand is. So for example, Suppose you think it should be 80% action A, 10% action B, 10% action C. If, when you glance at your watch, the second hand lies between: 0 and 6 seconds --> Action C 6 and 12 seconds --> Action B 12-60 seconds --> Action A Another useful trick I use is to take the sequential digits of pi mod (n) for n possible actions. I happen to remember 40 digits or so of pi, so I can produce 40 very random-looking actions that way.
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  I do those, too!

davidw 5y ago

"Long bike ride" - this is the way! Something about relatively steady low-intensity exercise does wonders for the brain.

legrande 5y ago

Personal anecdote: I refuse to blog anymore because I can't find the right CMS to use. I have weighed the pros and cons so heavily over a whole decade and just can't decide what to use (And I've used them all). Posthaven, Wordpress, Ghost, WriteFreely & Write.as, Blogger, Tumblr and a few others. Now I am aware of the phrase: 'If you wait until you are ready, you will never get it done'. But I've actually blogged professionally for about 3 years and saw what that meant. You had journalists cold-calling you in the middle of the night because your blogpost was going viral, traffic going through the roof. Though the blog didn't go down because of the traffic, I was still paying for the CDN monthly which at the time because of AD revenue didn't hurt my pocket as much. Today I simply can't afford it, and out of respect for my users, I won't serve ADS. So the workaround for many in that situation, is to go with a free service like wordpress.com or Tumblr or Blogger etc. But they're all weaponized with ADs and tracking cookies, and I don't want to make my users suffer loss of privacy because of what I've written. I used to self host, but then even that comes with caveats: can you harden the VPS enough to stop bots and bad actors getting in and ruining your blog? How does the CMS bounce back after the VPS has been rebooted? All these stupid edge cases can make you go insane. Then the CMS itself has to be configured the right way. Have you got HSTS turned on? Have you got your caching right? Are all your images optimized? It's too much. I prefer to just lurk on various Internet forums since I can still reach a large audience that way, albeit even forums come with caveats. So far certain communities haven't had their Eternal September yet, and places like Tildes.net look promising. In the end, it was a good run, but it can't last. Maybe I'll take up blogging again, when I'm 'not ready' for it and DGAF anymore, who knows?

slig 5y ago
You can use a static site generator (such as Hugo), and host it for free on GitHub with your domain. Zero costs, zero maintenance and zero headaches.
- legrande 5y ago
  Tried Github; didn't like it. 1: I prefer EU companies with strict privacy laws. I only host with Switzerland. 2: Github won't be happy with 1/2 million unique IPs in a day hitting their servers when a post goes viral. (That's an expense on their part) 3: With a free GH account everything is public knowledge and every change made to your blog is visible via diffs. I don't want nosey people poring over every mistake I made in posts. I'm not sure it's possible to have a Github Pages instance that is private. 4: Whilst 3rd party tools assist in markdown generation (for use with Jekyll and Hugo), you still have to peek inside templates to customize everything to your liking. Something I am tired of doing. 5: Whilst TLS & HTTPS on Github pages is supported, I still have problems getting it to work properly. Seems to only work on {username}.github.io and not a custom domain. 6: There are issues with what URL to serve to on GH Pages. Do I use `www.site.com` or `site.com`? And how does the server negotiate which one to use?

ketzo 5y ago

If you're with a group of people who are trying to decide where to go to dinner, but no one's putting out suggestions or willing to make any hard calls: Suggest you all go to McDonald's. There's nothing that gets people to immediately shoot down an idea and suggest something else quite like the prospect of a Big Mac.

elwell 5y ago
I love a Big Mac.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Yeah, I read that and asked myself "Am I a garbage person?".
  - yuuu 5y ago
    No, everyone else is just pretending they don't like McDonald's for that valuable elitist cred.
- ketzo 5y ago
  Trust me, so do I. But when you're picking between "trendy Thai place" and "trendy bar down the street," the suggestion of McDonald's really sharpens people's metaphorical knives.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  You might luck out and find people agree to go there.
Teknoman117 5y ago
Except I lost on that one because some of my coworkers were all over the buy one get one free Big Mac on Tuesdays a few years ago.
- QuercusMax 5y ago
  A 2-big-mac lunch sounds like a terrible idea

beaconstudios 5y ago

there's a related effect that feeds into this, that is the subject of Robert Frost's poem "the road not taken": if we make a decision and things go well, we typically put the outcome down to our decision, regardless of whether it made a difference. So we get to thinking that our decisions really matter, even if they hardly do at all.

wintermutestwin 5y ago

Making difficult decisions became so much easier when I realized: a) that the fact that the decision was difficult meant that either choice had a close likelihood of turning out well. b) that the biggest mistakes I have made tended to lead to my biggest successes.

fouronnes3 5y ago
Choosing is the same as not knowing.
- mym1990 5y ago
  Not choosing is a choice as well, the truth is that there are so many possible timelines but we will only ever experience one. So I would get comfortable with not knowing :)
- staticautomatic 5y ago
  A fair philosophical point.
davtbaum 5y ago
on a) I came to the same realization years ago. The fact that its a hard decision inherently means that either solution can be the right solution
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  i usually have analysis paralysis when the consequences of either decision is really dire. In short... i'm stuck between two bad choices.
  - wintermutestwin 5y ago
    That's exactly why I included realization b) :-) I should have also added: c) Sometimes, you perception has limited you to choosing between two choices. Change your perception enough to see that there are always a multitude of choices. You may not want to pick the 3rd+ choice, but knowing that you made your choices freely allows you to own the choice and the outcome.

csomar 5y ago

> Even if unexpected consequences begin to show up, you eagerly attack them because consequences are more fun than mental paralysis. Isn't this what got you mental paralysis in the first place? And why young people are generally more risk-taking? As you get more experience, you learn that every endeavor hides unknown risks. It's this uncertainty (and unknown) that makes you hesitant. If you did enough endeavors that made you go through significant pain, you'll likely don't want to go through the experience again.

dredmorbius 5y ago

"If you can't choose wisely, choose randomly" remains my favourite discussion of this issue: As moderns, we take it for granted that the best decisions stem from a process of empirical analysis and informed choice, with a clear goal in mind. That kind of decision-making, at least in theory, undergirds the ways that we choose political leaders, play the stock market, and select candidates for schools and jobs. It also shapes the way in which we critique the rituals and superstitions of others. But, as the Kantu’ illustrate, there are plenty of situations when random chance really is your best option. And those situations might be far more prevalent in our modern lives than we generally admit. https://aeon.co/essays/if-you-can-t-choose-wisely-choose-randomly https://aeon.co/essays/if-you-can-t-choose-wisely-choose-ran... Randomness, in the face of insufficient information or a poorly-scoped model for interpreting data, at least avoids the overt biases of bad decisionmaking systems.

ciwchris 5y ago

I believe if I collect enough information the best decision will stand out. Yet rarely is this the case. I continue to rehash the same thoughts, think there's information I'm overlooking and so continue to search. But the yield from doing so continues to diminish. Then I read the following from the book On Being Certain: Without a circuit breaker, indecision and inaction would rule the day. What is needed is a mental switch that stops infinite ruminations and calms our fears of missing an unknown superior alternative. Such a switch can't be a thought or we would be back at the same problem. The simplest solution would be a sensation that feels like a thought but isn't subject to thought's perpetual self-questioning. The constellation of mental states that constitutes the feeling of knowing is a marvelous adaptation that solves a very real metaphysical dilemma of how to reach a conclusion. [0] This clicked to me. I try to think my way to a decision. But what I really need is a feeling. [0] https://www.rburton.com/_i_on_being_certain_i___believing_you_are_right_even_when_you_re_not_63166.htm https://www.rburton.com/_i_on_being_certain_i___believing_yo...

sanketskasar 5y ago

While all this and most other advises are applicable to career, money, and tangible things, what does one do when unable to make a decision in intangible things like relationships and love life? Asking because stuck in a situation where not sure what choice is better for me, for the other person and there is nothing that's helping me decide.