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Sunk Cost Fallacy: Difference between revisions
When the wiki host is headquartered in the UK, the host server is in the Netherlands, and the wiki has at least one Canadian moderator, referring to the USA as "we" is patently ridiculous - that has been fixed. Also did other minor changes (to/too, their/there, etc)
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(When the wiki host is headquartered in the UK, the host server is in the Netherlands, and the wiki has at least one Canadian moderator, referring to the USA as "we" is patently ridiculous - that has been fixed. Also did other minor changes (to/too, their/there, etc)) |
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When somebody's sacrificed or invested a great deal in a cause or project, they tend to become irrationally dedicated to it. This applies even when the costs invested can't be recovered. More of a cognitive bias than anything.
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* One use of the poker term "pot committed" is when a player continues to call with poor cards simply because they've already sunk a lot of money into the pot, even when there's no chance that they'll win.
** By the way, even poker experts disagree on whether "pot committed" is really a thing, or how situational it is (e.g., does it matter how much everybody else has bet?). Be ready for debate if you just go around the poker community calling it a fallacy.
*
** [https://neurotoxinweb.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/holiness-spirals-and-wars-of-attrition/ The key features are]: Your outcome depends on where you are relative to the other player. You bear costs whether you win or lose. Action is sequential (You would never ''start'' by bidding $1.02 for a dollar, but…). Which is a simple model of real life escalating situations:
{{quote|An all-pay auction is an artificial situation, but consider a war of attrition: some of your soldiers are killed, etc., whether you win or lose. It really is all-pay. Same for patent races: Suppose you spend $0.9 billion on R&D trying to develop a new medicine worth $1 billion, but your competitor is on track to win by spending $1 billion. Win or lose, you pay the R&D costs. It would actually be better to plow another $0.2 billion in, so you’ll “win” the race by paying $1.1 billion.}}
* Happens in labour disputes where management or unions try to recoup the losses from a strike or lockout, and that merely pushes the bargaining positions of the parties further apart.
* Within sociology, the combination of this and [[My Girl Is Not a Slut]] often leads to girls feeling resigned to becoming sexually promiscuous after having had sex once. After all, they can only lose their virginity once and what does it matter after that?
* The Dutch public transport card system started out as a bad idea, turned out to be a worse idea, became a ''giant'' money sink, and still the government refused to just fess up and admit their mistake. A few years later, it's currently{{when}} being debated as the worst thing that ever happened in the history of Dutch transport. Attempts by the government to just buy out the company responsible for the mess are still failing miserably.
* Stephen Colbert, on [[The Colbert Report]], summed it up quite succinctly when discussing the American dilemma of whether [[Cold-Blooded Torture|torture was justified]] since it helped to capture and kill a hated terrorist. Stephen's usual [[Insane Troll Logic]] is applied to the point where, because America has already lost its beloved moral superiority by using torture, they have to ''keep'' torturing until it solves all of our problems, or:
{{quote|"[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/18/977051/-Brilliant-Stephen-Colbert-piece-on-renewed-torture-debate We must do whatever it takes to justify what we've already done.]"}}
* Supporters of [[The Vietnam War]] and [[The War on Terror|the U.S. occupation of Iraq]] said that unless the U.S. continued the wars, the lives of soldiers who'd already died there would be wasted.
** That's actually not this fallacy. The Sunk Cost Fallacy is about continuing
* An old maxim dating from [[World War I]] is "never reinforce failure" gotten from experience of generals who spent too much time, well, reinforcing failure. What that means is that when you make an attack you send uncommitted troops to places where there are reports of a little give, and don't send them where they are stalled. Of course like most of these sayings it requires judgment to know when the time has come to invoke it, as some operations really do take a while.
== Looks like this fallacy but is not ==
* When abandoning the current plan has costs that outweigh the benefit of switching to a better plan; for example, a penalty clause for cancellation of a contract that is higher than simply paying the contracted price until the contract runs out. Cell phones and cable/satellite services, health clubs, and auto leases often have these. (For example, a cell phone contract is 2 years at $20.00 a month, and has a $250.00 cancellation penalty. If 12 months or fewer remain on the contract, it costs ''more'' to cancel than it does to simply continue paying the contracted amount until the contract expires.) Another example would be, if in the contest above, the person had spent $11 rather than $8. '''Assuming victory was certain at $15''', continuing to play would be a reasonable decision. Continuing to play costs $4 more, making $15 total. Stopping after spending $11 and simply buying the prize elsewhere for $5 costs $16
** Or if the contest itself is something fun enough to be worth at least $2 in its own right. This is how things like carnival prizes work.
** Or the contest is for charity, so even if you lose the money you spend is going to a good cause.
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** This was long argued to be the main reason why Russia lost the [[Russo-Japanese War]]. By the end of the war Japan was winning militarily, but its economy was stretched to the breaking point, and their mobilization resources were completely depleted, as they had started drafting kids and geezers into the army, with the predictable outcome for troops quality and morale. Some analysts say that had Russia pushed just for a couple of months more, even in the wake of the horrific losses like Tsushima and Mukden, Japan would've sued for peace. On the other hand the Tsar's government had really lousy intelligence and ''[[Didn't See That Coming|didn't know that]]'', so they decided to [[Know When to Fold'Em|cut their losses]] and sued first.
*** Of course, this war was deemed logistically impossible by the Chief of Staff before it even started, and would be strategically crippling for Russia even in the impossible best-case scenario, so in a way it's an ''inversion'' of going with sunk costs: the monarch in question turned away from his own awful decision in the worst possible moment, which in itself caused more damage.
** Also, politicians have to consider not only a given war in isolation, but the position of their state afterwards. If they fold too quickly other nations might regard them as easy game, and many would prefer continuing a stalemated war in the hopes of a break. After all, there are historical examples of such breaks happening, and even if there weren't, they have demonstrated they can stick up for themselves.
* When the possible return is so great compared to the possible loss that it is deemed a reasonable risk to take. That's gambling, not fallacious.
** This works better with non-cumulative risks (like Lotto); otherwise, see pot committed above.
*** The scene in ''[[Casablanca]]'' where a Bulgarian fugitive is playing roulette for a ticket is an even better example. His life and that of his wife were dependent on success and so it was not primarily money he was thinking of.
* ''[[Labyrinths of Echo]]'' explored the borders of it a few times. One, there's [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Arvarokhian]] notion that dying to bring a
** Juffin comes from the people of highland hunters. In a prequel, he explained to Lonli-Lokli their view: it's acceptable to take lives for defending oneself, eating, selling furs, etc, but to kill without a good reason and "throw the corpse in a swamp" is a "crime against live" - and one ''[[Karma|will]]'' pay for it. Of course, Juffin ''is'' manipulative and ''is'' telling Lonli-Lokli - right after he got his [[Lawful Stupid]] personality - that he got an ultimate honor debt to the only creature he ever called a friend... but also
{{quote|'''Juffin''': That's also why I ''cannot''
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