As in Joshua Blaine's original description (below), but may be used to brag about things you've accomplished either this month (December) or the previous one (November), assuming that you haven't brought it up in any earlier Monthly Bragging Thread.
In an attempt to encourage more people to actually do awesome things (a la instrumental rationality), I am proposing a new monthly thread (can be changed to bi-weekly, should that be demanded). Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to comment on this thread explaining the most awesome thing you've done this month. You may be as blatantly proud of you self as you feel. You may unabashedly consider yourself the coolest freaking person ever because of that awesome thing you're dying to tell everyone about. This is the place to do just that.
Remember, however, that this isn't any kind of progress thread. Nor is it any kind of proposal thread.This thread is solely for people to talk about the awesomest thing they've done all month. not will do. not are working on.have already done. This is to cultivate an environment of object level productivity rather than meta-productivity methods.
So, what's the coolest thing you've done this month?
Yup. I had termed it status quo bias, but endowment effect would also explain it.
I was talking it over with a friend, who suggested that what's really going on is that humans are more willing to gamble with fortuitous winnings than they are with purposeful investments (as in, you'll be more likely to gamble a dollar you found on the ground than one you earned)... and I actually think that this is the biggest contributor to the explanation.
Of course, holding liquid assets in dollars wasn't a deliberate decision either - it was just used by default. Even if I was completely risk averse, It's not like I've got evidence that dollars are the most safe asset.
If I was planning this deliberately - I'm still a dependent and don't really earn yet, so I haven't really researched this - I'd probably store liquid assets in an index fund or something.
The thing is, when I look at the big picture everything is so riddled with bias already. For example, when Bitcoin began I put a high certainty on the value increasing, but I didn't deliberately buy any. Before the recession, I put a high certainty on there being a recession before they put the temporary prohibition on shorting, but I didn't short anything. Yes, it's a good heuristic to not do anything (or more accurately, follow the majority) in scenarios when you are uncertain of your own competence...but my reason for not doing anything wasn't explicitly negotiated via that reasoning, it was simply an instinctive tendency to not activity do things. (Interestingly, in this scenario uncertainty about my competence doesn't imply inaction but action, since I'd have to deliberately buy USD.)
Edit: I'm reminded of this post... I think investing money in small amounts qualifies for "aliveness in training", although as the amounts get larger it's not training anymore. Perhaps we should encourage users who wish to practice in rationality to invest some liquid assets in something other than their native currency (unless they've deliberately chosen the native currency as the best place to store assets) to practice decision making?