People outsource their thinking all the time. You. Me.

Partly because we need to (there’s too many decisions to make daily) and partly because we’re lazy.

Sometimes we outsource our thinking and mistakenly think we’re embracing the so-called ‘Wisdom of the Crowd‘.

A quick example.

Two Asian noodle places are located nearby. One has a big queue outside and the other has no queue at all. People will join the one with the queue because they think (I assume) they’ll get better food – believing the crowd knows best. They outsource their thinking.

I’m trying to test this ‘wisdom’ when I can.

For example, picking the option with no queue. My thinking is that if they’re terrible, they probably won’t survive anyway. More often than not, they are pretty good. Service is prompt, the food is fresh, and they haven’t run out of anything.

Sometimes, as I’m finished and leaving, I see people still waiting in the queue at the other place - they’ve been waiting this entire time.

I wonder if they ever test their assumptions. Or are there other reasons (a new dish not available anywhere else, a recent review, etc)?

To be fair, I’ve sometimes chosen the no queue option and had a bad meal. But then again, I’ve also waited in queues to end up with a bad meal.

Google reviews tell a mixed story as well. I’ve seen queues for places with low scores (often people complaining about the wait ironically), and high scoring places have no queue, and empty inside.

And what if one of the reviewers is actually a chef, compared to all the consumers. There’s no easy way to highlight the actual experts.

It seems the signals are hard to interpret most of the time.

And it’s not just food of course, my point is about life in general really.

I’m trying to challenge my own habits of outsourcing my thinking, and instead test and measure more.

Especially in important areas.

Blindly waiting for food when we don’t need to, isn’t too much of an impact.

But what about in matters of health, or career choices, or who we vote for… some areas are better served with real thinking and not outsourcing to the crowds.

Streamlined

The Empty Restaurant Paradox