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The mantra, "A timely wrong decision is often better than no decision," has been helpful in my life. (my own adaptation of Kelly Johnson's statement here: http
by ISL 5y ago
The mantra, "A timely wrong decision is often better than no decision," has been helpful in my life.
(my own adaptation of Kelly Johnson's statement here: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/97803-skunk-works https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/97803-skunk-works (search for "wrong decision") )
- paulpauper 5y agohow about the iraq war. that was timely and costly wrong decision
- 0x008 5y agoIt doesn’t say “always”.
- kickout 5y agoThat's a bit disingenuous. Individual decisions != policy decisions. No government struggles with 'perfectionism'
- chucksta 5y agoIf you are going to poke, does that mean you consider there to be a perfect war?
- exdsq 5y agoThe Emu War would be pretty high on that list [1]. TLDR; the Australians lost a war to Emus. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
- chucksta 5y agoThat continent always wins lol; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo_Fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo_Fence
- edgyquant 5y agoIn what way is this perfect, other than as a joke?
- exdsq 5y agoIt’s mostly a joke but it did result in jobs and money being dispersed among poor farmers in rural Australia with zero casualties (human) and minimal emu casualties. Plus Emus won so, for the Emus, this is perfect because it means they’ve never lost a war and there hasn’t been another one waged against them since! Plus, as Emus are notable for never once using a gun in war, it’s probably good as a case study for pacifist strategists.
- simonw 5y ago"A timely wrong decision is often better than no decision" Looks like you found the "often".
- afarrell 5y agoAvoiding perfectionism requires accepting flaws and failures. This requires keeping a sense of proportion about the impact of those flaws and the likelihood of those failures. Suppose you notice that your decision-making habits would work well for living a humble good life but would fail you if you were a head of state deciding whether or not to go to war. It is likely worth accepting that flaw because the likelihood of being in that situation without time to philosophically prepare is quite low.
- bogdanoff_2 5y agoWhen you say "wrong decision" do you really mean "bad outcome"? Be careful not to confound the two. (See "outcome bias")
- kazinator 5y agoThere is no such thing as no decision; delaying a certain decision is a way of deciding it, and is always on time.
- ss48 5y agoThe one I've found helpful, somewhat similar, is that if you don't make the decision, the decision will be made for you.
- kazinator 5y agoBut even that's not true, because you can consciously decide not to choose either one of several presented alternatives, with the full awareness and acceptance of what that means. Basically you can always add the default case, making it explicit, and explicitly choose it. Sometimes it's other people that want you to think that there are only two (or however many) alternatives, of which you must choose one; and by not taking any of them, you can assert your own thinking. Sometimes you just have a small input to some process that other people are controlling, which will proceed without your input. Sometimes in these situations you only have the illusion that you're making a real decision even if you pick one of the non-default choices you're presented with.