Politics, making bad choices with votes, is mainly what I have in mind…but it’s not limited to that. You see it with anything that requires a choice and a commitment of money, time, effort, etc. By and large people don’t want to admit I made a bad choice and it’s time to cut my losses.
Instead there is lots of rationalizing going on, and I think this leads people down paths they otherwise would not have gone, rinse repeat as things worsen. Small concessions to negative consequences build over time, and along the way the initial bad choices may be forgotten. Plenty of people can be swimming in the messes they made without ever a thought of changing their views.
It never helps to point out the degree to which a person has compromised themselves. That has to be done from within, and that’s exactly what is missing.
I think all of this is a huge problem in the world today. But damned if I know what to do about it.
it’s especially a big deal when it comes to battle passes in video games. you know how many people bend over backwards to justify fortnite gatekeeping most everything? especially the stuff that’s not time gated but just doesn’t appear in the shop too often. Then they throw a hissy fit when someone buys it
the obvious first solution is to condemn fomo practices, but in the fortnite case, the devs would rather go bankrupt and die
This is one of the silliest things about video games. There is so much quality content available, but gamers love to complain about the only game they play. They could just play something else, but then they wouldn’t feel morally superior, or something? It’s very silly. I play GT7 frequently and some of the complaints from the community are just ridiculous.
The politics aspect is much more driven by identity and social group than by sunk cost or refusal to have buyer’s remorse. A singular respected leader can turn the ship - churches and pastors were critical in the US civil rights movement, for example - but groups can be more nebulous without a particular leadership structure, like how difficult it is for people to leave Twitter: even though most users agree the experience has significantly degraded, there is no critical mass agreed on a replacement.
The more nebulous groups can break up - Twitter’s engagement is declining - it’s just slow. Maybe years or decades slow to get to the point it’s no longer one of the dominant social media. So I guess keeping the social connections open (giving someone who wants to make a major change an option to still have a friend or family member who will talk to them after), and patience.
In general, there’s the sunk cost fallacy. But I think there’s an additional, related component in politics. Trump in particular but many politicians (and whatever Elon Musk is) are conmen and not particularly smart. They’re just charismatic — I don’t personally get Trump or Musk’s charisma but apparently a lot of people do. (And their tweets alone are evidence enough to prove they aren’t clever.)
And so any time Trump or Musk or whomever does something completely idiotic, supporters compensate by telling themselves it’s all 12 dimensional chess and they’re actually brilliant. It’s just too embarrassing for them to admit they were conned by a fool. So, they double down to compensate. But ultimately, most conmen aren’t smart. That’s why they’re conmen.
I know it’s easy to say and hard to do for most, but you just have to find contentment with what you have. I have everything I need, most of what I want, and I don’t particularly feel like I’m missing anything. My sole focus now is saving as much as I can so I can retire early and, in effect, buy myself more free time.
I wouldn’t know, I’ve never made a bad purchase in my life and I’ll fight you if you say otherwise 😭
I made a bad choice and it’s time to cut my losses
You’ve received some good replies on this question, but I think there’s also another question at play: an offshoot of identity politics. Many people wrap their personal identity around things. If you question the thing, or put restrictions on it, people take it as an attack on their persona since the thing and their person are so interwoven. You can see this with things like guns, vehicles (motorcycles, car vs truck, auto vs manual, brand x vs brand y), video game consoles, physical media, etc.
