The Floor
Does anyone deserve credit for a decision that only worked out by luck?
Closed at 1,300 answers. Some credit — and the floor says which part of the decision it belongs to.
Concluded from · Assessed from the stance that a decision is judged by what was knowable when it was made.
Closed 10 days ago
Centred on “Some — they still chose” — the line is where the room balances.
- No credit at all
- Some — they still chose
- Full credit, it worked
Where you stand
The room's largest group answered "Some — they still chose".
Answered as you did
—
Lead over second
13 pts
"Some — they still chose" is ahead
Everyone here
1,387
92 changed their mind
How divided
Genuinely divided
agreed → even
| Answer | Share of the room | People | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| No credit at all | 511 | 37% | |
| Some — they still chosemost | 688 | 50% | |
| Full credit, it worked | 188 | 14% |
Closed 9 Sept at 1,300 answers — the floor's conclusion is below.
1,387 have taken a position · 92 changed their mind · 1 reason
What people are weighing
- The reasoning was sound and the odds were against itSome — they still chose
- Nobody hands back a prize won on a lucky guessFull credit, it worked
- Outcomes are what the world rewards, fairly or not
The lesson
Judge a decision as it stood before the outcome arrived.
From the standpoint That a decision and its outcome are two different things, and only one of them was ever in the person's hands.
Some credit, and the room's centre is there too. The product this floor sits beside is built on keeping the decision and the outcome apart: a good call can lose and a bad one can win, and a person who cannot tell those apart will learn the wrong lesson from both. Credit belongs to the part the person controlled — what they knew, what they weighed, what they were willing to risk and for whom — and not to the part the dice supplied afterwards.
The better course, in practice
- 1Praise the reasoning you can see, not the result you can count: "you priced the downside and took it" rather than "it worked".
- 2Ask what the decision looked like the moment before the outcome was known, and judge that moment.
- 3When something worked by luck, say so. The person who admits it is the one to trust with the next call.
How the room moved
Share of the room, 0 to 100 per cent · 22 Aug to now
How this one ended
This one has no answer. It has a room. It closed, and the floor said what it concluded above.
The count closed when 1,300 people had answered. Positions can still be registered, and are kept but not counted.
What people said · 1
Every bubble carries the side its writer took.
Take a position above to add your view. You can read everyone else’s now.
Victor S.@victor_s· 5 Sept
Every result anybody is ever praised for had luck in it. We only call it luck when we dislike the person.
