Isn’t this just an example of the loss aversion tendency in action? It’s a well known concept rooted in our primate evolutionary past, nowadays broadly accepted by mainstream academia, that people care more about losing X then gaining Y when X = Y. Maybe the ratio is as great as losing 1*X = gaining 2*Y.
So in the liminal zone where there isn’t sufficient activation energy where X < Y < 2*X, it should be expected that humans avoid taking such actions, for example like legal risks. Even if it’s a net benefit, because the net benefit is insufficiently large.
The real challenge is finding a scenario where losing 1*X = gaining >2*Y.
Isn’t this just an example of the loss aversion tendency in action? It’s a well known concept rooted in our primate evolutionary past, nowadays broadly accepted by mainstream academia, that people care more about losing X then gaining Y when X = Y. Maybe the ratio is as great as losing 1*X = gaining 2*Y.
So in the liminal zone where there isn’t sufficient activation energy where X < Y < 2*X, it should be expected that humans avoid taking such actions, for example like legal risks. Even if it’s a net benefit, because the net benefit is insufficiently large.
The real challenge is finding a scenario where losing 1*X = gaining >2*Y.