Hrm, I hadn't realised how muddled my discussion post sounded until you brought these angles up. I think when I wrote, "the 'nothing' option is never available" I was trying to express a semantic stop sign as you've mentioned - I should have said something like, in considering my options in day to day life, it seems like I often assume that I know what the costs/rewards of the nothing option are without getting specific about them or thinking about the possibility in as much detail as I might think about other options because I seem to have a cached thought about it for most situations. And its often something I've tried before, like "not taking out a mortgage", but it might be something I haven't tried before, or shouldn't try, like, "freezing in a crosswalk" when a vehicle does something unexpected. Not that traffic is a good place for sitting there drawing up a spreadsheet with all your decisions and figuring out the right one, of course, but 'freezing in place' seems like a "do nothing" response to me too, I guess.
Hrm, yes. When I first moved to Portland, OR from Vancouver, WA, I remember losing a lot of money to homeless people in a very short period of time without really thinking about it until I looked at my bank statement and thought about where I'd been spending it. It was really surprising, because handing out a dollar or two, or helping someone who claimed to be in need, seemed like pretty standard behavior as a child. My dad still makes a point of handing out money to homeless people when he sees them begging at intersections. I've cut back to buying street roots (the homeless's local newspaper) when I see vendors if I haven't bought the latest issue, which seems to keep me from blowing everything, or as you've pointed out, interacting with a potentially dangerously confused person.
I guess "nothing" to me seems like its a bit subtle in that information from instinct (the play dead routine) and experience get muddled together kind of seamlessly. And it is often reliable enough that I don't get eaten by tigers, or assaulted by homeless people anyways, on a regular basis.
I'll have to think more about all this. Thank you.
Thanks for the thanks! Sometimes I feel bad when a comment I think is particularly helpful sits at zero and comments I think were cheap applause buttons are voted up. Most people like sugar and few people like broccoli, and this felt like a broccoli comment that maybe(?) I shouldn't have bothered with... until you responded :-)
The "freezing in place in traffic" as a "do nothing" response was interesting. I would not have lumped that with "not taking out a mortgage", but I can see how some people do. I think there might be...
It might be a useful habit to remember, whenever you're making a choice about some situation, that "doing nothing" is never actually an available option. Even if you avoid doing the task you're considering, you're still making some kind of choice about how you spend your time, and you're still doing something relative to that task. For example, if the task is "paint the barn" the alternative is "leave the bare barn exposed to the elements", not "store the barn in some impermeable stasis field and return to paint it later". Being able to clearly articulate what that "nothing" slot entails, its consequences and rewards, might be a helpful way to motivate yourself to make better choices.
I am working on internalising this, because if I don't think about it, a part of me tends to just think that I'm doing the equivalent of sticking the task in an atemporal stasis field instead of leaving it unattended. If I don't exercise, I don't stay "the same amount fit". I get weaker (or, as aelephant points out, I could be getting stronger, during a recovery period - in which case "doing nothing" (as far as exercise) is the better option, after evaluation) . If I don't study, I don't stay "the same amount knowledgeable". I forget. Sure, there are things which remain effectively "in stasis" - Olympus Mons will probably stay about the same whether I climb it in ten years (somehow) or a hundred years - but I won't be the same by then. Or things that are so transient and commonplace that they might as well be in stasis - If I'm thinking of going somewhere, I might think, "I might miss catching this taxi cab, but I miss cabs all the time, there are always more cabs, and I can catch another one". But subjectively static opportunities are rare.