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
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.
I agree with the sentiment expressed here if the alternative is simply a naive sense that "doing nothing" is always an option and is a generic semantic stop sign for consideration of possible outcomes of possible plans in a serious discussion on an important subject.
On the other hand, I think it is naive to forget that "doing nothing" is an option, and it usually does have a uniquely privileged position with respect to the alternatives. Specifically, "doing nothing" is generally a low cost and/or "low energy" strategy that allows its performer to fade into the background environment and not stick out where they could become a target for predation or blame or whatever. When people talk about the "nothing" option, they generally mean the option that goes along with things like diffusion of responsibility.
One hundred people can walk past a homeless person asking for money, and in doing so they are exercising the "do nothing" option, and it works if their goal is to get to work without a potentially dangerous interaction with a potentially confused person. If one of them stopped and tried to chat with the person to gather information as to whether or not it would be consequentially good all things considered to help this particular person that would not be "doing nothing".
I don't think neurologically normal people with experience living in cities would make this mistake based on thinking that doing "nothing" isn't particularly privileged, but I think it is possible to acquire a sort of second-order decision-theoretic naivete where you have an argument against "doing nothing" but no other arguments that explain what's going on when that strategy is executed. This second order naivete can trip you up in places common sense human instincts aren't already protecting you. If you're not careful you can end up trying to "become batman" and getting hurt or something...
Learn to "fall properly" before you work on throwing and being thrown over someone's shoulder, otherwise you'll probably become fodder for stories about the valley of bad rationality. The "nothing" option is generally a pretty safe move while you build up resources to spend some on a clever experiment :-)
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 cac... (read more)