Chapter 3Making Decisions with Data: Causality and Uncertainty
Do you regret any decisions you’ve made in the past? We’ve only ever met a handful of people who said they had “no regrets,” and universally they had illustrious, 15-minute careers as TikTok stars peddling their personal brand of DGAF canvas bags (just kidding). All of us should stand to eat a little humble pie and admit to decisions we’ve made that, looking back, weren’t the right ones. In fact, we decided to write this book at great expense, effort, and time away from our families because we were absolutely certain it would become a best seller. Perhaps upon seeing the sales numbers, we’ll come to regret our decision.
As a society, we’re hooked on reducing the level of regret we experience because its uncomfortable, painful, and often linked to real consequences, like the destruction of credibility and trust in a relationship, the loss of a stream of income, or a missed opportunity that might have―just might have―solved our problems. We expend incredible time and effort structuring our lives to avoid the feeling of regret.
We universally look to technology to help us eliminate regret because it has historically been the salvation of our problems. There’s something comforting in the cold, hard science of technology that seems impervious to the uncertainty that begets regret.
Good decisions run on good information—the ...
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