One time, a bunch of particularly indecisive friends had started an email thread in order to arrange a get-together. Several of them proposed various times/locations but nobody expressed any preferences among them. With the date drawing near, I broke the deadlock by saying something like “I have consulted the omens and determined that X is the most auspicious time/place for us to meet.” (I hope they understood I was joking!) I have also used coin-flips or the hash of an upcoming Bitcoin block for similar purposes.
I think the sociological dynamic is something like: Nobody really cares what we coordinate on, but they do care about (a) not wanting to be seen as unjustifiably grabbing social status by imposing a single choice on everyone else, and (b) not wanting to accept lower status by going along with someone else’s preference. So, to coordinate, we defer the choice to some “objective” external process, so that nobody’s social status is altered by it.
An example where this didn’t work: The Gregorian calendar took centuries to be adopted throughout Europe, despite being justified by “objective” astronomical data, because non-Catholic countries thought of it as a “papal imposition” whose acceptance would imply acceptance of the Pope’s authority over the whole Christian church. (Much better to stick with Julius Caesar’s calendar instead!)
I use the same strategy sometimes for internal coordination. Sometimes when I have a lot of things to do I tend to get overwhelmed, freeze and do nothing instead.
A way for me to get out of this state is to write down 6 things that I could do, throw a die, and start with the action corresponding to the dice outcome!
Nice! I think about doing this, sometimes, but never end up actually doing it. (Partly because I don’t always need it, once I recognize the problem; but probably partly because if I’m procrastinating then I’m probably motivated to keep procrastinating rather than settle on anything.)
One time, a bunch of particularly indecisive friends had started an email thread in order to arrange a get-together. Several of them proposed various times/locations but nobody expressed any preferences among them. With the date drawing near, I broke the deadlock by saying something like “I have consulted the omens and determined that X is the most auspicious time/place for us to meet.” (I hope they understood I was joking!) I have also used coin-flips or the hash of an upcoming Bitcoin block for similar purposes.
I think the sociological dynamic is something like: Nobody really cares what we coordinate on, but they do care about (a) not wanting to be seen as unjustifiably grabbing social status by imposing a single choice on everyone else, and (b) not wanting to accept lower status by going along with someone else’s preference. So, to coordinate, we defer the choice to some “objective” external process, so that nobody’s social status is altered by it.
An example where this didn’t work: The Gregorian calendar took centuries to be adopted throughout Europe, despite being justified by “objective” astronomical data, because non-Catholic countries thought of it as a “papal imposition” whose acceptance would imply acceptance of the Pope’s authority over the whole Christian church. (Much better to stick with Julius Caesar’s calendar instead!)
I use the same strategy sometimes for internal coordination. Sometimes when I have a lot of things to do I tend to get overwhelmed, freeze and do nothing instead.
A way for me to get out of this state is to write down 6 things that I could do, throw a die, and start with the action corresponding to the dice outcome!
Nice! I think about doing this, sometimes, but never end up actually doing it. (Partly because I don’t always need it, once I recognize the problem; but probably partly because if I’m procrastinating then I’m probably motivated to keep procrastinating rather than settle on anything.)