Decision Dynamics: Chances And Choices
Human life is an eventful experiences made up of chances and choices as chances we get and choices we take every moment shapes the course of our life. We didn’t come in life out of our own choice but out of chance- out of our parent’s direct choices and indirectly by others choices & chances of nature. As we start growing, our life starts to take shape more by our own choices and less from others’ choices- more by the chances we take and less by the chances we are given. Hence, decisions become core part of human growth as better decisions by us and others in society enables us to live better.
The decisions that people make on their own and as a collective member of a group decides the outcome of their life. The control that people have over these decisions is like a concentric circle: in some cases, they have greater control while in some they have less; of-course they have maximum control over themselves followed by others. Similarly, it is also asymmetrically distributed among people across range of activities either by fair process of voluntary collective individual choices or otherwise arbitrary. Moreover, their decisions effect the decisions of others and vice-versa, i.e. there are multiple over-lapping concentric circles at any point of time & place. Our actions have some chance of affecting other’s actions and so does others actions affect us. We can both choose to be affected by it or not as well as by the degree of its affects.
The pursuit of happiness is also largely a matter of our choice as it doesn’t always happen to us by chance out of some random event but can be induced by our conscious choices to make it happen to us. Indeed, one of the major traits of happiest countries in the world is the freedom to make one’s own life’s decisions. This freedom gives one power as well as responsibility to make better decisions. Unsurprisingly, these countries are also most democratic societies & nations as the decision-making is decentralized to ensure equal chances and choices to each individual to make better collective decisions for solving different public problems of society.
Decision-making is crucial to solving many problems of society. The essence of subject of Economics is indeed about how people individually & collectively can make better decisions regarding optimal & sustainable use of resources for driving efficiency, equity, productivity, innovation, growth and development in society.
Humans are driven by both self-interest as well as self-less interest. They care for themselves as for others in their family, friends and social circles. They compete with each other at times as well as cooperate with each other at other times. Thus, people at times measure & assess personal costs & benefits of the outcomes of decisions before taking the decision whereas other times also consider and are required to consider social costs & benefits of their decisions. Thus, many human decisions are also driven by compassion in the spirit of altruism. Indeed, many people pursue many occupations out of this drive of self-less social service via whatever skills they are best suitable at and are needed by the society.
People make decisions based on their preferences, information and opportunities accessible to them. Better information or data provides better insights to make better decisions regarding more efficient allocation of resources. For instance, in the case of food, if all people have similar preferences and abilities to make decisions based on relative benefits/cost: than most people would make more optimal & healthy food decisions. The key here is the information & communication of relative food benefits/cost to each person based on which they can make better food decision which will drive better health of people
Ideology is another key driver in making decisions of human beings as individuals & groups; some of which are beneficial and some harmful for the human society. For instance, the social evil of terrorism is rooted in religious extremism- fundamental extreme ideological interpretation of supremacy of a specific religious law in governing human society. Similarly, many historical human social practices have been based on such ideologies which not only restricted human freedoms but also created human inequalities.
Technology has also important role to play in helping people make better decision. Machine Learning for instance involves teaching machines how human sense and make decisions in performing some of the repetitive work which machines can do faster than humans although those decisions may not be always entirely right & correct but overtime by continuous practice of learning by doing it minimizes the errors. However, still in many important realms of life machines cannot substitute humans in making better decisions.
Finally, time is also an important factor in making any decisions by humans. Both today & tomorrow together makes a total life although we humans on average give more weightage to today as we prefer instant gratification and are more certain and have greater control on today unlike tomorrow. At first- there may seem a trade-off between today & tomorrow but if we try to look deeper, we will see both as 2 sides of same coin of life. Today and tomorrow are 2 inter-connected time-zone of same circle of life. Humans must equate today with tomorrow for making more sustainable decisions and must work to maximize both today’s and tomorrow’s happiness.
