What I meant here was: How am I supposed to follow your advice to do all this effortful research (how many hours are we talking here, anyway?), when the way to find out what I actually need is to try a bunch of versions of the product in question, at which point I immediately realize that some weird new requirement like “smartphone screen must not exceed a certain height” trumps all my other requirements.
Here I will only note that the standard advice in such cases is “buy the cheapest version of whatever it is; use it until it breaks (or no longer satisfies your needs); at that point you will have gotten a great deal of data to inform subsequent purchases, if any”.
Doing a great deal of research first, before taking any action whatsoever, is certainly a typical (or perhaps stereotypical) “rationalist” failing, and I do not by any means endorse it. (Indeed you may note that I never said anything about “do[ing] all this effortful research”; there is no particular reason why the sort of thought process to which I alluded in my initial post should take all that long. The difficult part—apparently—is the insight, in the first place, that such an approach is correct.)
Here I will only note that the standard advice in such cases is “buy the cheapest version of whatever it is; use it until it breaks (or no longer satisfies your needs); at that point you will have gotten a great deal of data to inform subsequent purchases, if any”.
Doing a great deal of research first, before taking any action whatsoever, is certainly a typical (or perhaps stereotypical) “rationalist” failing, and I do not by any means endorse it. (Indeed you may note that I never said anything about “do[ing] all this effortful research”; there is no particular reason why the sort of thought process to which I alluded in my initial post should take all that long. The difficult part—apparently—is the insight, in the first place, that such an approach is correct.)