why smart people stay in situations that are destroying them

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Keir Starmer has just announced he's not resigning despite 70 of his own MPs telling him he has to go and his own aid starting to resign. Meanwhile, at Meta, following 8,000 redundancies, remaining staff have been told that new software will monitor their keystrokes, mouse movements, and screenshots in order to train AI agents to eventually take their jobs. And your best friend seemingly trapped in a relationship that stopped working 2 years ago. I'm Mike Baxter, a neuroscientist who specializes in human decision-making, and believe it or not, Keir Starmer, Meta staff, and your best friend all essentially face exactly the same question. Now, the correct answer for all three is probably to go, but there's three major behavioral economic forces pressing down on them. The first is sunk cost. In order to become Prime Minister, or developer at Meta, to get 2 years into a relationship, you've invested an awful lot of yourself to get there. The second is loss aversion. So, the fear that the thing you're going to do next isn't as big or good as the thing you're currently doing. There's no prospect of doing anything bigger or better than being Prime Minister, being a developer at the top of your game at Meta, or maybe being this relationship you're certain is perfect. The one after this can be terrible. And the third one is identity. These are things that are core to people's personalities. These aren't just job changes or like, you know, moving to someone else's home.

[00:01:13]This is an identity crisis wrapped up in a bow. So, here's the question. Have you ever been in a situation like this and how did you deal with it? Did you let it drag out for too long? Did you inevitably leave it to someone else to make decision for you?

[00:01:25]Let me know in the comments.