The Grand Illusion
Many if not most people have come across the rule of holes: When you’re in a deep hole, stop digging.
It seems obvious enough when you think about it. Don’t compound the problem by doing more of the same thing that got you in the hole.
Unfortunately, too many people, especially politicians, seem never to have heard the rule of holes or, if they have, they’ve forgotten it.
If government is running a deficit and the national debt is increasing at a dangerous rate, you’re not getting out of the mess by more deficit spending.
If you’re fighting a war that you can’t win without enormous losses, either in dollar terms or increasing casualties, you might want to try something different instead of pursuing more of the same.
If more and more students can’t read or effectively make simple calculations without electronic help, continuing to rely on teaching to standardized tests, inundating students with meaningless praise, watering down primary and secondary education, and judging educations’ success on how good students feel might not be the best approach to getting out of the educational hole.
If we’re seeing more and more corruption in government, business, and public life, re-electing and praising and supporting politicians and business people who’ve continually demonstrated a lack of honesty and little concern for public welfare isn’t exactly likely to improve the situation.
When AI-created algorithms are addicting more and more people to waste time buried in iphone and computer screens, what sort of sense does it make to pour billions into AI and associated data centers to enable even more electronic addictions and to increase the power drain on an already fragile electric grid?
But almost no one seems to want to stop digging.
No kidding. Instead the popular phrase now seems to be “double down.” Like that’s ever a good idea.
I also like the expression, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten”.
I definitely agree that continuing to dig is the wrong approach but the question is what hole? The concern of the administration is to stay out of jail. Anything that postpones jail is a positive. It is driven out of fear and isn’t usually rational which is why it seems odd from the outside.
Sunk cost fallacy…
Doubling down. Sunk cost fallacy. Throwing good money after bad. All seem illogical, and usually are, except …
If we accept that the only reason to dig a hole is that the state “above ground” is unacceptable in some way ..
Then to a nuanced, analog thinker (shades of gray, better/worse, compromise) than indeed if digging the hole does not yield, and is unlikely to yield, then by all means stop. Either get out of the hole, or stop digging to at least not make it worse.
But … to an unnuanced, binary thinker (Win/Lose, Pass/Fail, MyWay/HighWay) then it does make sense to keep digging. If above ground wasn’t acceptable, and the bottom of the whole still isn’t acceptable (even if worse than above ground), and being acceptable (to the hole digger) is the only thing that matters, then there is nothing to lose from perpetual digging. It won’t stop until “acceptable” is reached.
L.E.M. warned us about that kind of thinking in Adiamante.