The right not to have to choose

[ad hoc]

Increasingly choice wears me down. It's not that I don;t like to have options, it;s that I can't stand having so many of the bloody things. One of the hidden benefits of being vegetarian is that when you go to a restaurant (other than a vegetarian one) the number of choices you have is usually around 4 or 5. This is, frankly, perfect. I feel sorry for people who are presented with pages and pages of choices.

We need to get a cooker hood, so went to the local white goods shop. Sadly, there were only about 3 that were within our specs, and we didn't like them, so I went online. The most popular online store in Romania offers 2157 hoods. How the actual fuck do people choose from 2157 options? If there were 4, I could look at the pros and cons of each. I can't do that with 2157 options. Sure there are filters, but even if go through every one and be really strict in my selections, I still end up with 300. I'm paralyzed.

This research suggests that too much choice makes some people unhappy because they can never be sure they made the right choice. This may be true for some, but that's not my issue. Once I've made a choice I tend to be Ok with it. I don't really suffer much from regret (in life in general) https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...nny-of-choice/

Am I the only one who hankers after a bit less choice?

[WOM]

When I was working at the golf course, we had a wedding / banquet menu that literally consisted of four options. A chicken, a prime rib, a salmon and a steak. We only added the salmon to bridge a price-point gap, knowing full well that nobody would ever order it. And they never did. More choice than four easy options would paralyze people.

[ursus arctos]

This really doesn't bother me, but I understand how it could distress some people (as it does some members of our family).

I would expect that are at least 2000 of the online hoods are completely unsuitable for ad hoc.

What did anoy me were the encyclopedia-sized menus favoured by Warsaw Pact "fine dining" establishments back in the day, which listed hundreds of dishes, of which the kitchen produced maybe six (if you were lucky).

In the immortal words of the waiter at such a place in Praha "We have meat, meat with gravy, meat with potato, potato with gravy, . . ."

[Kevin S]

I want to add a resounding yes to this thread, but don't have much else to add. I get a bit of both issues to be honest, as does my better half - the choice fatigue and the doubts.

But it feels obvious to me, Joe Bloggs BSc in Economics, that choice is bad (Yoram Bauman PhD in in Economics agrees with this). We learn immediately that choice incurs an opportunity cost or trade off. The cost of what you get, is whatever you had to not have to get it. So that doesn't sound like a good thing.

Here's how he explains this:

Let's say that somebody offers you a Snickers bar that you value at $1, then what you can loosely think of as your economic profit in this situation is the dollar of the Snickers bar minus the cost would you give up to get it, which is nothing. Your economic profit is a dollar.

Now, imagine someone offers you a choice between the Snickers bar that you valued at $1 and some M&Ms that you value at 70 cents. Now your economic profit is the dollar minus the 70 cents ... only 30 cents.You begin to understand why choices are bad.

The worst possible situation in fact is being offered choice between a Snickers bar and.... an identical Snickers bar.... because then your economic profit is zero.

Right?

Now people are not trained in economics my say that "That's no different than just being offered one Snickers bar," but that kind of sloppy thinking will never get you a tenure-track position.

You know I occasionally get faculty members who email me and they say "That thing about the Snickers bar is great, I'm gonna put it on the final exam and have the students explain what's wrong with it," and then they always email me back a week later and say that they didn't do it because they couldn't figure out the answer.

There is no good answer! Choices are bad, choices are really bad. I'm not gonna beat around the bush with you folks: if you don't understand why choices are bad you're probably stupid.

[Kevin S]

We've managed to cut down the amount of choice needed in a supermarket by trying to stick to a policy of (generally) not buying ultra processed food.

Pension and investment choices, that's another one that can frankly do one. Because realistically how can you make the right choice there? You can only find out years later, and the whole thing was frankly pot luck anyway.

[WOM]

We stopped at a cool old Americana type diner in ...I dunno...Virginia a couple of years ago. Amazing place. But the menu, honestly, I think was 16 or 18 pages. It was bonkers. A simple front/back thing would have sufficed for anyone.

[sw2borshch]

I can't believe people don't want to spend time choosing between different gas boards and leccy boards.

[San Bernardhinault]

The cooker hood thing resonates with me, as I've been going through the process in the remodeling of the 3 bathrooms and the tiny kitchen that Ursus thinks is huge.

I asked my contractor for advice on what I should buy, and he vaguely mentioned one online store and a couple of famous mainstream brands. I go to that online store and find that there are 1600 toilets to buy. Now, as it happens, Ursus is right that most of these are not suitable. The trouble is that you then have to filter all the variables. Do you know how many different variables there are on modern toilets? So you have to hope you're guessing right. Most of them would work, but do you want one or two piece? Single or dual flush? Small or large rough-in? What height to you want? And so on and so forth. Eventually you narrow it down to about 20 or 30, at which point it feels like throwing darts into the paper to pick one. As it happens, I got two right, but the third one I missed a detail and ended up picking something that didn't work.

This is repeatedly hundreds of times in the process: what colour fittings do you want? What controller do you want for the shower. What shape and brand of showerhead. And how much waterflow. And what kind of drain. And how high do you want it on the wall. And do you want a hose or just fixed shower. And what kind of light. And extractor fan. And what colour trim on the metal for the shower. And then there's a question of tiles. Oh, there are 5 tile shops we recommend and each has walls and walls and walls of tiles. The amount of tile choice is just crushing.

I mean, yes, it's self inflicted and yes it's making our house lovely for decades to come and yes, it's the most first world of problems. But there's a serious decision fatigue here - both choosing stuff we like and correctly filtering all the right variables.

I now understand why people hire designers to do all this work, even if designers make poor or weird choices that I dislike, just because having someone else make the choice takes so much time and effort away from you.

[ursus arctos]

Many such places here have two options.

Laminated front and back or leatherette bound wine list

[San Bernardhinault]

Of course, the worst Tyranny of Choice thing in the US is fucking healthcare. Yes, I want a good heart surgeon. No, I'm not in a position to research that when I'm having a heart attack. And, in fact, the one good heart surgeon I would choose will almost certainly be a very popular heart surgeon and therefore be already busy dealing with someone else so now I have to research a second choice heart surgeon while I'm quickly dying.

And that assumes that I'm competent to research and know what kind of heart surgeon I want, who has experience with my particular condition. And to research whether he's covered by my particular weird heart attack insurance.

It's America, baby. You can choose your heart surgeon! This is freedom! Just spend a few weeks learning about heart attacks so you know what you need, a few days researching surgeons to find the best few, years learning to understand the small print and acronyms of the US health insurance system, hope you've got it all correct and then get your great heart attack treatment after you're long dead.

[ursus arctos]

You are so oppressed

[Sporting]

there are 1600 toilets to buy. Now, as it happens, Ursus is right that most of these are not suitable. The trouble is that you then have to filter all the variables. Do you know how many different variables there are on modern toilets? So you have to hope you're guessing right. Most of them would work, but do you want one or two piece? Single or dual flush? Small or large rough-in? What height to you want? And so on and so forth. Eventually you narrow it down to about 20 or 30, at which point it feels like throwing darts into the paper to pick one

Hole in the ground would do for me. Properly built, of course.

[Nocturnal Submission]

The tyranny of choice is definitely a thing for a lot of people. Personally, the breadth and focus are major factors as to the degree to which I feel tyrannised.

So a restaurant menu with a lot of choices is basically fine - I'm happy to look for a favourite dish, one with a favourite ingredient or, if there are half-a-dozen equally attractive options, just plump for any of them. My only difficulty is trying to focus and choose when, invariably, you've only just arrived and met your friends and everyone is much more interested in chatting than getting into the ordering process.

The cooker hood (white/brown good) issue is more problematic, because when there are so many virtually identical options differentiated only by functionality that you don't really care about you can feel lost. Price and customer rating help; colour and general appearance may or may not be relevant. Consequently, I filter by the (few) things I care about and allow myself to be steered by the price/rating intersection. I also trust my judgement and am generally happy if necessary to live with a choice which I subsequently judge to have been moderately sub-optimal.

Choosing with Mrs. NS negates every single point above.

[Nocturnal Submission]

The cooker hood thing resonates with me, as I've been going through the process in the remodeling of the 3 bathrooms and the tiny kitchen that Ursus thinks is huge.

I asked my contractor for advice on what I should buy, and he vaguely mentioned one online store and a couple of famous mainstream brands. I go to that online store and find that there are 1600 toilets to buy. Now, as it happens, Ursus is right that most of these are not suitable. The trouble is that you then have to filter all the variables. Do you know how many different variables there are on modern toilets? So you have to hope you're guessing right. Most of them would work, but do you want one or two piece? Single or dual flush? Small or large rough-in? What height to you want? And so on and so forth. Eventually you narrow it down to about 20 or 30, at which point it feels like throwing darts into the paper to pick one. As it happens, I got two right, but the third one I missed a detail and ended up picking something that didn't work.

This is repeatedly hundreds of times in the process: what colour fittings do you want? What controller do you want for the shower. What shape and brand of showerhead. And how much waterflow. And what kind of drain. And how high do you want it on the wall. And do you want a hose or just fixed shower. And what kind of light. And extractor fan. And what colour trim on the metal for the shower. And then there's a question of tiles. Oh, there are 5 tile shops we recommend and each has walls and walls and walls of tiles. The amount of tile choice is just crushing.

I mean, yes, it's self inflicted and yes it's making our house lovely for decades to come and yes, it's the most first world of problems. But there's a serious decision fatigue here - both choosing stuff we like and correctly filtering all the right variables.

I now understand why people hire designers to do all this work, even if designers make poor or weird choices that I dislike, just because having someone else make the choice takes so much time and effort away from you.

Oh, Lord - tiles! Choosing tiles for our new en suite a couple of years ago almost killed me.

We need a new dishwasher, oven, hob and cooker hood for the kitchen. The small local company that we're using proposed a single Bosch model for each. They obviously have a relationship with the company but I like Bosch and I'd probably just go with their suggestions, but it's not wholly my decision to take.

[ursus arctos]

Couples and families who find themselves at significantly different points on this spectrum can definitely find themselves in strife.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Hole in the ground would do for me. Properly built, of course.

This may not be the thread for you.

[San Bernardhinault]

Hole in the ground would do for me. Properly built, of course.

Could you please specify the details of your hole in the ground and proper construction.

What diameter would you like it to be? What depth? What substrate do you want beneath? How do you want the walls of your hole built to maintain strength over time? How do you plan to ameliorate smell issues? etc...

[Hot Pepsi]

I want to add a resounding yes to this thread, but don't have much else to add. I get a bit of both issues to be honest, as does my better half - the choice fatigue and the doubts.

But it feels obvious to me, Joe Bloggs BSc in Economics, that choice is bad (Yoram Bauman PhD in in Economics agrees with this). We learn immediately that choice incurs an opportunity cost or trade off. The cost of what you get, is whatever you had to not have to get it. So that doesn't sound like a good thing.

Here's how he explains this:

Let's say that somebody offers you a Snickers bar that you value at $1, then what you can loosely think of as your economic profit in this situation is the dollar of the Snickers bar minus the cost would you give up to get it, which is nothing. Your economic profit is a dollar.

Now, imagine someone offers you a choice between the Snickers bar that you valued at $1 and some M&Ms that you value at 70 cents. Now your economic profit is the dollar minus the 70 cents ... only 30 cents.You begin to understand why choices are bad.

The worst possible situation in fact is being offered choice between a Snickers bar and.... an identical Snickers bar.... because then your economic profit is zero.

Right?

Now people are not trained in economics my say that "That's no different than just being offered one Snickers bar," but that kind of sloppy thinking will never get you a tenure-track position.

You know I occasionally get faculty members who email me and they say "That thing about the Snickers bar is great, I'm gonna put it on the final exam and have the students explain what's wrong with it," and then they always email me back a week later and say that they didn't do it because they couldn't figure out the answer.

There is no good answer! Choices are bad, choices are really bad. I'm not gonna beat around the bush with you folks: if you don't understand why choices are bad you're probably stupid.

I don't understand any of that.

[ursus arctos]

Economist brain is a terrible malady

[ursus arctos]

Our course catalogue at Harvard had well over 1000 different options, of which no one could take more then five in any given semester.

Somehow we coped.

That said, I do believe that this phenomenon is especially difficult for those who are thrust from low-choice environments into high-choice situations,

It was widely recognised as a significant social issue in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe, as well as being a major factor undermining the success of the voucher systems adopted by a number of those governments.

[Hot Pepsi]

Lewis Black was on the Pete Holmes podcast this week and they touched on this.

Pete pointed out that we live in a time of infinite customization. He mentioned video games. When he was a kid, the character you got to play was Mario. Everyone's Mario was the same. Now everyone can make their own avatar that looks like them.

He pointe out that all of this customization in the stuff we consume and, importantly, display to other people - on our bodies, our houses, our cars, online, etc. - are ways we build our identity. That's very important to us.

Anyway, the point he was getting to is that this obsession or insistence or perhaps fetishization of choice for it's own sake is a big reason why so many people refuse to believe science and become flat earthers or, worse, anti-vaxxers, etc. They can't cope with being told there is only one option because the only way they know how to be an individual is through choice, so they chose to "do their own research."

There's a lot of lionization of "non-orthodox perspectives" - that used to be mostly just on the left, but in universities, it's a dog-whistle way of saying "right wing and 'anti-woke.'"

Of course, sometimes orthodoxy is bad because it only became the orthodox opinion to serve power. It doesn't have any particular connection to reality nor does it serve most people. But sometimes orthodoxies emerge because they are the best explanation of what is actually, really, unavoidably, unassailably fucking true.*




The obvious move is to claim that this is caused by consumerism and capitalism. Certainly that's a huge part of it.

However, I do suspect that a lot of this is hardwired. I recall my brother saying that my nephew, at age 5, was really excited when he got to chose his lunch at school between two options.

And it seems to be pretty universal that teenagers want to create an identity separate from their parents and will do that with clothes, music, speech, etc. Perhaps we ought to grow out of that, but we don't.

In High Fidelity, Rob said, “What really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films – these things matter. Call me shallow but it’s the fuckin’ truth.” That's the film version, at least. I don't recall what he said in the book, but it's something very similar. I think Hornby was making fun of that perspective. It makes sense that 13-year-olds would think like that because they're desperately trying to create an identity. That's definitely hardwired. But people in their 30s?



Cultures other than the US seem to be a lot more willing to accept a lack of choice. At least they do when they can see the benefits of standardization. For example, I think it is Finland - or maybe it was Norway or both or all of Scandinavia - where every baby gets a box of stuff from the government. Every box is the same. And somebody writing about kids in that country pointed out that it seemed like every kid had the same snow boots, the same jacket - more or less - the same stroller, etc. Of course, Volvo is an icon to boring, practicality and sameness as is Ikea - both Swedish.

I've never been to eastern Europe or China and I certainly wasn't there in the 90s when a lot of this western kind of consumer culture was showing up for the first time. As a comparison, it would be interesting to know how much people - especially young people - embraced the opportunity to create an identity through choices of stuff or if they were so used to not having choices that they didn't really get it.


* Yes, I've studied more than enough philosophy to know that we can argue for a long time about what "true" means, but on topics like the shape of the earth and vaccines, pretending like there can be multiple true opinions is bad faith bullshit.

[hobbes]

Do you know how many different variables there are on modern toilets? So you have to hope you're guessing right. Most of them would work, but do you want one or two piece? Single or dual flush? Small or large rough-in? What height to you want? And so on and so forth

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but just make sure the bowl is deep enough. It's not something you can try out in the shop, but as you get older, bits of you get further from your body.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Word.

[ursus arctos]

Or at least make sure the water level is easy to adjust.

[ursus arctos]

Excellent post from HP.

The primary vector for young people creating their own identity in post-Communist Eastern Europe was emigration.