At the peak of the Balkans War in the early ‘90s, Joe Cusack and Graham Johnson sat cloistered in a compound with members of the Croatian Defense Force. Serbian fighters had the city surrounded and were shelling it relentlessly. All Joe, Graham, and their young Croatian friends could do was idle around, get high and shoot fruitlessly at the Serbs in the distant hills.
Only a few weeks earlier, Joe was working at a care home and Graham as an accountant. They had read the '70s counterculture novel “The Dice Man,” the story of a bored, disaffected psychiatrist who decides to make all of his life choices based on rolls of a die and were inspired to do the same. An improbable die roll decided that they would travel to Yugoslavia, cover the war there and interview soldiers. They created fake press cards, told their families that they were going on vacation and flew to the Balkans. Today, both men are successful investigative journalists.
Most people would call Joe and Graham crazy despite their eventual success. But the two journalists’ method of rolling a die to make major decisions is far less ridiculous than it seems. In certain situations, it may even be a surprisingly smart approach to life.
Many of our decisions are essentially random, or, at the very least, much less thought-out than we realize. Using a die to make decisions simply acknowledges this inherent randomness. In “The Righteous Mind,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains that most of our choices, particularly moral ones, are snap judgments. Many of our decisions are more thoughtless than we’d like to believe and many of our opinions are just post hoc justifications. Numerous studies support Haidt’s argument. We subconsciously choose which political candidate to support within seconds of seeing their faces, judge something as moral or immoral within half a second and quickly determine a person's competence based on their voice. Even incidental factors such as weather, temperature and time of day can heavily influence our choices.
Using a die to make decisions can also alleviate the hefty psychological burden of choice. In “The Paradox of Choice,” psychologist Barry Schwartz explains that the more choices we face, the greater our opportunity cost becomes. The potential for regret festers as we second-guess whether the alternatives might have led to better outcomes — leading to unhappiness and uncertainty. This paradox applies to everything from selecting cheese at the grocery store to picking a spouse to, in the case of a Brown student, navigating the Open Curriculum. Choosing based on a die roll can alleviate this regret and self-doubt by forcing immediate commitment to a choice and its consequences, relieving the stress of deliberation.
Using a die to make decisions has even more benefits. For one, dice rolls can illuminate what a person truly wants. If you roll a die and are disappointed with the result, it’s a clear sign that you never actually wanted that outcome in the first place. A die can also push you to make necessary decisions that you have been avoiding or help you escape your comfort zone. While on vacation, my friend used a dice roll to decide whether to approach an elderly couple and start a conversation — a task he was initially reluctant to do. He ended up chatting with them for nearly 30 minutes, receiving valuable tourist recommendations and making unexpected new friends.
There are two primary methods to use a die for decision-making. In the first, you write down six options and assign each a number from one to six. After rolling the die, you are obligated to follow through with the option corresponding to the number rolled no matter what. Crucially, there must be an option that you would like to avoid, and, if you roll it, you cannot opt out under any circumstances.
The second method involves quantifying how much you want to do a particular task and using a die to match those odds. You or your friend propose an activity and estimate your willingness to do it as a percentage. For instance, if I were asked, "What percentage of you wants to end this column without a conclusion?", I would say 0.5%. To match these odds, I would have to roll three sixes in a row, which has a 0.46% chance of occurring. This would mean I must end the column without a conclusion if the roll hits (luckily I rolled a one right away).
The decisions we make are less deliberate than we like to believe, and the process of making them can be stressful and fraught with regret. As absurd as it may seem, using a die to make choices can simplify decision-making, reduce self-doubt and reveal our true desires. It might even send us down unexpected and more interesting paths. I would not recommend being as committed to the die as Joe and Graham. Still, embracing chance and occasionally letting a die guide your choices can be a healthy exercise in spontaneity and open-mindedness.
Here is a quick game to get you started: Roll a die, and if it is a three or a five, scroll randomly on Brown’s list of student organizations and join the first one you land on — I rolled a four, so no Synergy Dance Company for me.
Ben Aizenberg can be reached at benjamin_aizenberg@brown.edu. Please send responses to this op-ed to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
