Alternative paths

What it is

Judging a risky choice only by what happened, not by the other outcomes that could have happened. Surviving Russian roulette does not make it safe.

Related

• Outcome bias bias
  Judging only the outcome that occurred ignores the alternative outcomes that could have.
• Survivorship bias bias
  We only see the path that survived, not the many that didn't.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#39: Alternative paths

References

• Wikipedia: Alternative paths en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

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