

Cointoss - AlexMuir
http://alexmuir.com/cointoss

======
vog
From the article:

 _> As I throw that coin into the air, I often find myself hoping it comes
down on one side. That moment reveals what I actually want to do. I ignore the
coin result and do what I wanted anyway. The one-second window often reveals
what a few hours or days of mulling has failed to uncover._

That's a great advice!

It reminds me on a great radio talk show at Berlin's youth radio "Fritz". It
was about hard decisions. The caller stated his or her problem, and talked
about it with the moderator. Then, the moderator threw an imaginary dice (some
kind of random number generator, plaing the sound of a falling die), and
confronted the caller with that "oracle decision". The direct reactions were
always revealing: It was either "Great, I'll do that!" or "No! That's
bullshit!" ... so either way, that random "oracle decision" helped them to
maked the real decision.

~~~
devolve
The use of this method is also described here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_flipping#Use_in_clarifying...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_flipping#Use_in_clarifying_feelings)

~~~
bazzargh
I'm not sure about this attribution to Freud. The wiki reference is to a
management self-help book. That kind of book is full of inspirational quotes,
never cites sources, and really shouldn't be relied on.

Digging back it seems likely that the story has been mangled somewhere from
this apposite quote, also popular in the same kind of book:

 _When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it
advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however,
such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from
the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions
of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of
our nature._ \-- Freud. This one's real though, it's related by Theodore Reik
in "The Inner Experience of a Psychoanalyst", 1949. In context, Reik studied
under Freud (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Reik>). They met and Reik
asked for help in choosing a career, the quote was Freud's reply. There's not
a mention of a coin in the anecdote.

------
MatthewPhillips
Off-topic, not trying to be a jerk, just wanted to suggest that you change the
font color for your paragraphs as it doesn't contrast with the background
enough.

~~~
bbx
It's actually not a color problem. It's at #222, and even turning it to full
black doesn't solve the issue. The font is just incredibly thin. Increasing
the font-size is a better option here.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Yeah, you're right. 18px and bold made it much better for me.

------
bazzargh
This is the plot of the 1971 novel, The Dice Man? (I thought that was
reasonably well known?) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man>

~~~
DanBC
No.

Dice Man would be faced with a situation requiring a choice. He would then
assign numbers to the options, then roll a dice, and then do whatever the dice
said _even if it was unpleasant to him_.

AlexMuir's version is to assign numbers to the options, then roll a dice /
toss a coin, and decide while the coin is still in the air.

------
davidw
> KFC or McDonalds

I'd reflect on how you got into a situation where those are your two choices
:-)

~~~
AlexMuir
You're right - I should simply have both.

~~~
ptbello
Grab something to eat

Maccy D's or KFC

Only one choice in the city

Done voicing my pity now lets get to the nitty gritty

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z1kRhiPE0E#t=30s>

------
flixic
I also do this often, but taking inspiration from "The Dice Man", I assign
weights to options (0.3 for one option, 0.6 to another, 0.1 for the third - I
assign weight very quickly, without much consideration), launch calculator and
press Random button. If 0.4 comes up, second option wins (over 0.3, less than
0.9).

~~~
devcpp
And this is exactly how we generate random values with a certain distribution.

------
scottyli
Original quote from Arnold Rothstein (Boardwalk Empire)

<http://youtu.be/6WYsM1nIbKs?t=52s>

------
Kiro
Another trick is that if you think "best out of 3" after it has landed you
know you should go for the other choice because that's what you really want.

~~~
AlexMuir
Absolutely. Any sense of disappointment in the result tells you what you need
to know.

~~~
dbaupp
Not exactly, since one could be disappointed/not totally happy with either
choice (e.g. when buying a car: that car has more comfortable seats, but this
car has more space).

(This isn't to say the technique is wrong though, I use it myself.)

------
newishuser
To me, the main effect here is that you have an excuse to stop thinking about
the other options. There has been a ceremonial decision making process, and
because of it your mind can rest. It's the same as writing your choices down
on strips of paper and pulling one out of a hat. That process, that ceremony,
gives you piece of mind, not "what you actually want to do".

This is more an exploitation of the human brain's tendency to romanticize
chance than an actual method of decision making. If your decision is so
arbitrary that the outcome of a coin toss will mentally satisfy you then
you've already made your decision; it's both, just pick one. Theres no magical
insight into your soul going on here just whatever you thought of while the
coin was in the air. If you had tossed the coin at a different time in the
day, or perhaps right after seeing an ad for KFC maybe your 1 second decision
would have been different.

------
bbx
When I'm walking and I reach a crossroad where my 2 available options are very
close in terms of distance, I usually avoid coming to a halt at all and just
start running in one arbitrary direction.

Even if my chosen path ends up being slighly longer in distance, the small
amount of time gained by this quick process usually makes up for it.

------
SagelyGuru
It is a big mistake to ignore the result! This method only reveals its true
power when you fully commit to the result.

The Chinese practiced this a long time ago - called it 'I Ching'. 'Ching' is
the sound the coins make when they hit the table ;)

------
aaron695
Freakonomics are doing a study/website on this idea (Minus the option to pull
out if you realise what you really want)

<https://www.freakonomicsexperiments.com/>

------
gmu3
I read Tom Perkins (the VC) write once, "The more difficult the decision, the
less it matters what you choose."

------
Swizec
Another reason to toss a coin is when facing an arbitrary choice. Rather than
making an informed or uninformed decision on something that doesn't even
matter (and thus wasting your allotment of daily decisions before reaching
decision fatigue), just toss a coin.

I mostly do this when I don't know what I want to eat in a restaurant. Find
two things that look remotely okay, toss a coin.

