Is the sunk cost fallacy always a fallacy?

[BaronOfHell]

The Red Cloak suffers from sunk cost fallacy, meaning it cannot disregard previously invested resources when taking future actions into consideration.

In the case of the goblin puppet master, it means anything that is not the plan, is not an option.. at least not if it goes against the plan. I suppose mentally, his conscience just wouldn't be able to bear it.

I believe the story truly does portray a fallacy, because there seems to have been many better options RC could have chosen than to follow the plan.
Like... until the secret mercenaries of Shojo (no not the boys in blue, except one of those did so too) began blowing up Gates like there is no tomorrow, RC's time did seem pretty unlimited. Xykon didn't have to be the be all end all, but I suppose now he can't ditch the lich anymore, or he might as well give up his life and the plan altogether.

Anyway what I wonder is if sunk cost doesn't have a value if you do have limited time? A scenario where you invest resources for some gain, and based on what you get, you make your next decision. The alternative of ignoring whatever you got seems unlikely to be better?

Here is an example. In a game of chess you have 2.5 hours to finish a game, so does your opponent, so in total of 5 hours. The game may be 50 moves long, that means each player makes 50 moves for a total of 100 moves... 5 hours for a 100 moves may sound like a lot, but you actually only have 3 minutes per move in average.
With sound time investment, a large part of the moves does not require 3 minutes, but even if we eliminate half the moves it still leaves out 6 minutes per move.
Now I won't go into chess terminology, but imagine you have a position that requires you to think a lot.. So far you have invested your time well, so you can afford at least 30 minutes to consider your options, but then you get absorbed in a specific line of moves for the majority of the duration and now you really cannot spend any more time considering the position. Yet all you have for the time spend is a very deep understanding of one move and the variations which follows, and a very shallow understanding of perhaps two other moves.
You have realized that the move you spend the most time on will give you a position from which you have to fight for a draw if your opponent plays correctly, and you also know there are many ways your opponent can go wrong (perhaps the very reason you were lured to spend so much time on this particular move). However, presently, you see nothing wrong with one of the other moves you considered, and the third you decided to disregard completely, as it doesn't seem to be any good. Also you just discovered a fourth move that you haven't really looked at, but at first glance it does look like a forced win for you, or close to at least.

So what do you do? Please have in mind all moves are supposed to be very complicated, so you cannot be very confident in any other move than the one move you don't think is very good if your opponent plays well against it.

In my opinion the resources spend, is what should determine the outcome. In the chess example, if you know little to almost nothing of other candidate moves than the one you spend so much time on, isn't it a much larger risk to go for any other move then?
Sometimes people play dubious openings in chess knowing they can be punished, but have so much preparation in hand, that it is unlikely to happen based on their current opponent. If this is a valid strategy, is it not also better to go for where your resources went, than to invest in avenues you haven't explored properly, even though at first sight they look so much more promising?

[Kish]

Calling a person "The [name split in two]" and "it" is almost always two fallacies.

[WanderingMist]

Considering that "sunk cost fallacy" includes "fallacy" in its name, yes, it is always a fallacy.

Definition from Wikipedia:

People demonstrate "a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made." This is the sunk cost fallacy, and such behavior may be described as "throwing good money after bad", while refusing to succumb to what may be described as "cutting one's losses".

The whole point is you would be better off if you stopped at any point and the longer you continue, the higher the cost will grow.

[hroþila]

The sunk cost fallacy involves sticking with the worse option because you've already invested resources in it. If there truly are no better alternatives than continuing the Plan in its current form (i.e. working with Xykon), then there's no sunk cost fallacy, just a rational assessment of possibilities. What you are describing isn't a sunk cost fallacy, they're just gambles and calculated risks.

[Fyraltari]

Calling a person "The [name split in two]" and "it" is almost always two fallacies.

And yet, according to Vortigaunts the Free Man shows his excellence in all things.

[BaronOfHell]

The sunk cost fallacy involves sticking with the worse option because you've already invested resources in it. If there truly are no better alternatives than continuing the Plan in its current form (i.e. working with Xykon), then there's no sunk cost fallacy, just a rational assessment of possibilities. What you are describing isn't a sunk cost fallacy, they're just gambles and calculated risks.

Well doesn't the sunk cost situation often develop because at one point something which either seemed like a good idea or went well, slowly became worse, yet you kept disregarding other alternatives which may or may not have been better, because you already had invested so much into this one thing?

In the example I tried to make, this is a point where you have to either go with your investment or try for something else. In the case of the sunk cost fallacy a person would keep going for their investment, and I tried to think of a situation where that could be a rational decision.
Is it not a possible for it to be the right decision to continue to follow up with previous bad decisions, simply because of what it has gained you so far compared to what other alternatives may provide?

[Jasdoif]

In the example I tried to make, this is a point where you have to either go with your investment or try for something else. In the case of the sunk cost fallacy a person would keep going for their investment, and I tried to think of a situation where that could be a rational decision.
Is it not a possible for it to be the right decision to continue to follow up with previous bad decisions, simply because of what it has gained you so far compared to what other alternatives may provide?

The sunk cost fallacy is, at its core, making decisions based on how much you've invested already that you can't recover, instead of how likely the decisions are to actually accomplish what they're meant for...that is, ignoring the circumstances of a decision you're making in favor of decisions you've already made, no matter how different the circumstances have gotten.

The impact of your earlier decisions is already reflected in the circumstances of the decision you're making; if doubling down is the most logical option, then that choice is the most logical option regardless of how much you've specifically invested in it already.

[A.A.King]

It's also important to keep in mind that just because that your logic was based on a fallacy that you didn't still stumble upon the right conclusion. You can be right for the wrong reasons.

Sometimes it can be best to keep going the way you are already going, but if you decide not to go for a different strategy just because you already started doing it a certain way and to change strategies would feel like a fast of effort already put in that would still be considered the Sunk Cost Fallacy. A fallacy is bad logic and while bad logic often is followed by a bad conclusion it isn't a guarantee for it.

[BloodSquirrel]

Yes, it is always a fallacy, because the way it is formally defined is that it means that it involves picking the worse option.

It doesn't just mean taking already invested resources into account- in some cases, those resources will mean that one of your available options is better than if you hadn't invested those resources into it. You can think of three simple cases:

You need a new computer. You spend $500 on a motherboard and graphics card (which you can't re-sell for some reason). The rest of the components will cost you another $1000. You then see that there is a pre-built computer for sale with the exact components that you wanted.

Case 1: The pre-built computer costs $1600. Building your own is still cheaper no matter what.
Case 2: The pre-built computer costs $1400. It would have been cheaper to buy the pre-built computer from the start, but the current cost to finish your self-built computer is only $1000. You would be better off finishing your self-built computer.
Case 3: The pre-built computer costs $900, which is less than the components you would need to finish your self-built computer. You would be better off buying the pre-built computer, even if it means completely wasting the motherboard and graphics card that you already bought.

Neither case 1 (for obvious reasons) nor case 2 would qualify as a sunken cost fallacy if you decided to continue building your own computer. In case 2, it's still the cheapest option, even if that's only because you made a non-optimal decision in the first place.

A sunken cost fallacy, by definition, means that you are irrationally treating that $500 as if it will have only been "really wasted" if you buy the $900 computer, leading you to waste another $100 that you don't have to. In case #2, you aren't doing that. You're looking purely at the costs moving forward- $1000 versus $1400- and picking what is still the best option, even if it means that you wasted $100 overall.

EDIT: I'll note that, in the real business world, "We know that thing really well and have built our systems around it" is a perfectly good reason not to jump from new tech to new tech as soon as they pop up, even if the new tech is strictly better. I work in the electric power industry, and we are an extremely conservative bunch in that regard, because the cost of making mistakes is very high, while the benefit from new tech or design improvements is usually marginal. We've invested a lot of time and energy in vetting the most critical pieces of equipment we buy, and things like "lab testing", "training our technicians to work with new equipment", "redesigning our standards", and "finding out what flaws/quirks/workarounds the new equipment has/requires" are very real costs that we take very, very seriously.

[brian 333]

I agree with those saying that for a sunk cost fallacy to exist, there must be a fallacy.

A better option can be less costly to implement without rendering the first option a fallacy. For it to be a fallacy it must be something which will not work in the first place.

Redcloak and TDO's Plan is a fallacy because it has several points of failure which are known to Redcloak, and yet he keeps investing in it because of his previous investments. He handwaves away the likelihood of failure, even when presented with a winning option, because he cannot admit his original investment was a bad decision.

"It will all be worth it. You'll see."

[TaiLiu]

As others have said: yes, by definition. You're right, though, that it may be the case that a decision that you've sunk the most resources into may be the best decision.

One difficulty with the sunk cost fallacy is that it's an informal fallacy, and informal fallacies have a tendency to be used without a serious understanding of what they are. (To the point where I'd say the informal fallacies are more harmful than useful.) Notably, people notice that an argument contains an aspect of an informal fallacy and then they decide that the whole argument must be wrong. As you point out, that's silly.

[halfeye]

The Red Cloak suffers from sunk cost fallacy, meaning it cannot disregard previously invested resources when taking future actions into consideration.

The cloak is an item that the goblin called Red Cloak wears, it makes very few decisions.

And yet, according to Vortigaunts the Free Man shows his excellence in all things.

That's a translation problem.

Yes, it is always a fallacy, because the way it is formally defined is that it means that it involves picking the worse option.

It doesn't just mean taking already invested resources into account- in some cases, those resources will mean that one of your available options is better than if you hadn't invested those resources into it. You can think of three simple cases:

You need a new computer. You spend $500 on a motherboard and graphics card (which you can't re-sell for some reason). The rest of the components will cost you another $1000. You then see that there is a pre-built computer for sale with the exact components that you wanted.

Case 1: The pre-built computer costs $1600. Building your own is still cheaper no matter what.
Case 2: The pre-built computer costs $1400. It would have been cheaper to buy the pre-built computer from the start, but the current cost to finish your self-built computer is only $1000. You would be better off finishing your self-built computer.
Case 3: The pre-built computer costs $900, which is less than the components you would need to finish your self-built computer. You would be better off buying the pre-built computer, even if it means completely wasting the motherboard and graphics card that you already bought.

Neither case 1 (for obvious reasons) nor case 2 would qualify as a sunken cost fallacy if you decided to continue building your own computer. In case 2, it's still the cheapest option, even if that's only because you made a non-optimal decision in the first place.

A sunken cost fallacy, by definition, means that you are irrationally treating that $500 as if it will have only been "really wasted" if you buy the $900 computer, leading you to waste another $100 that you don't have to. In case #2, you aren't doing that. You're looking purely at the costs moving forward- $1000 versus $1400- and picking what is still the best option, even if it means that you wasted $100 overall.

The motherboard may be a sunk cost, but a graphics card can be reused in any new build. If the graphics card is so cheap that it can be beaten by the one in a £900 factory build, you were seriously robbed on the motherboard, IMO.

[BloodSquirrel]

The motherboard may be a sunk cost, but a graphics card can be reused in any new build. If the graphics card is so cheap that it can be beaten by the one in a £900 factory build, you were seriously robbed on the motherboard, IMO.

I stipulated "can't be re-sold for some reason" because it makes the example less complicated. Picking realistic numbers and taking into account all possible alternative courses of action usually works directly against the goal of providing a simple and clear scenario to demonstrate the principle.

Otherwise, you'd just be comparing the cost of the pre-built against the cost of the new components plus whatever you could sell the motherboard and graphics card for.

[Murk]

Also, fallacies relate to logic and reason. The sunken cost fallacy is by definition a fallacy, but that doesn't necessarily apply to feelings or emotions. Just because something isn't logically sound doesn't mean it doesn't have emotional value.

That's the danger of fallacies, after all.

There are plenty of situations in which the sunken cost fallacy is indeed a fallacy, and rationally not a sound argument, but emotionally a good argument.
I use it a lot when I'm playing strategy games. If you find out halfway through the game that your strategy wasn't sound, the best course of action would be to change your strategy. But often it's more fun to stick with your original strategy and try to salvage it. Not because it's the best thing to do, but because seeing your plans come to completion can be more fun than changing plans halfway through.

Similarly, Redcloak's emotional assessment that the plan failing is a better outcome than having to admit it was a stupid plan is... logically maybe not sound, but emotionally it certainly is. Maybe Goblins would prefer to die for a hopeless cause rather than admit all previous deaths were in vain. That's not an uncommon sentiment.

So yeah, by definition it's always a fallacy. But just because it's a fallacy doesn't mean it's always wrong.

[halfeye]

I stipulated "can't be re-sold for some reason" because it makes the example less complicated. Picking realistic numbers and taking into account all possible alternative courses of action usually works directly against the goal of providing a simple and clear scenario to demonstrate the principle.

Otherwise, you'd just be comparing the cost of the pre-built against the cost of the new components plus whatever you could sell the motherboard and graphics card for.

Who resells graphics cards? You can replace the graphics card in the £900 computer, unless you can't, in which case it's very probably very dire indeed.

[Jasdoif]

There are plenty of situations in which the sunken cost fallacy is indeed a fallacy, and rationally not a sound argument, but emotionally a good argument.
I use it a lot when I'm playing strategy games. If you find out halfway through the game that your strategy wasn't sound, the best course of action would be to change your strategy. But often it's more fun to stick with your original strategy and try to salvage it. Not because it's the best thing to do, but because seeing your plans come to completion can be more fun than changing plans halfway through.

I think that's more about identifying goals; "have fun" is an entirely viable goal for decision making to accomplish, and as you've noted that can diverge from "win the game".

[Murk]

I think that's more about identifying goals; "have fun" is an entirely viable goal for decision making to accomplish, and as you've noted that can diverge from "win the game".

Well, yes - and that's something fallacies don't always take into account. Because the same can apply to Redcloak: maybe his sense of shame, or honor, or image is more important than winning the game.
He's still knee-deep in a sunken cost fallacy, but a logical fallacy can emotionally still be the "better" choice.

[Jasdoif]

Well, yes - and that's something fallacies don't always take into account. Because the same can apply to Redcloak: maybe his sense of shame, or honor, or image is more important than winning the game.
He's still knee-deep in a sunken cost fallacy, but a logical fallacy can emotionally still be the "better" choice.

The thing is that Redcloak claims, and likely believes, "winning the game" is still the most important thing. The applicability of a fallacy would mean that doesn't logically follow: either he's acting counterproductively towards his goal, or his goal isn't what he says it is.

[MoiMagnus]

In my opinion the resources spend, is what should determine the outcome. In the chess example, if you know little to almost nothing of other candidate moves than the one you spend so much time on, isn't it a much larger risk to go for any other move then?

No, but somewhat yes in some circumstances.

No, because what matters is the cost of changing of plan. If the cost of changing your plan is greater than what changing your plan grants you, you should keep your old plan.

Somewhat yes because this cost is often similar (if not equal) to the amount of resource spent: all the preparatory work you did for the old plan, chances that you'll need to do them again for the new plan, etc. For example in Chess, you'll need to foolproof your new plan by making sure that you've not missed any trick from your opponent, while you've already did this work for your old plan.

However often is not always. Changing to the new plan can be pretty cheap. Taking Chess again, imagine that you had your long plan that required a lot of sacrifice, but at some point, you realise that instead of continuing your plan, you can do a simple move and end up in a situation that you studied the day before with your teacher and a computer, and realise that this situation is much better than your current plan. It doesn't matter what you sacrificed for your old plan, the new plan is something that put you in a much better situation, both in term of situation and in term of time remaining (because you've already studied this position in detail the day prior).

[BloodSquirrel]

Who resells graphics cards?

Have you not checked the news at all in the last 3 years?

[BloodSquirrel]

The thing is that Redcloak claims, and likely believes, "winning the game" is still the most important thing. The applicability of a fallacy would mean that doesn't logically follow: either he's acting counterproductively towards his goal, or his goal isn't what he says it is.

The problem with this logic is that Redcloak's emotional investment in the sunken costs is affecting his judgment regarding that the most important thing is. If The Plan isn't the right path forward, then he's wasted his life (and a lot of other lives). He can't admit that possibility, so he starts with the conclusion that The Plan must go on, and reasons backwards from there.

He's smart enough that he'll always be able to come up with an ostensive logical justification for continuing, but that logic is and will be increasingly tortured as the situation deteriorates.

If you find out halfway through the game that your strategy wasn't sound, the best course of action would be to change your strategy.

This is not correct. It may turn out, for example, that invading province A was a worse choice than invading province B, but the cost in time and resources of moving your troops from province A to province B may still be worse than continuing in province A. It only becomes a fallacy when continuing to pour resources into province A is a worse choice than retreating, but you continue to fight in province A because you've already lost a bunch of units fighting there and if you withdraw now their sacrifice will be meaningless!

[gbaji]

I think that, objectively, a sunk cost fallacy is a fallacy if it's a fallacy. Which, yeah, is a somewhat meaningless statement. It's always going to be based on an external observers subjective analysis of the decision making process and declaring it fallacious or not. There are quite a number of cases where an observer might insist something is a sunk cost fallacy when it is actually not, however. In fact, there are a number of actions you absolutely should not take (pulling money out of an investment during the low point in an economic downturn for example), that can hurt you if you take action in the opposite direction when you shouldn't. Other cases (series of actions/investments via a scam say), where the entire "scam" rests on getting the mark to commit to it in some way which makes it difficult to admit they are being taken, so they keep putting more and more into it in the vain hope that "it'll be worth it in the end", when it should be incredibly obvious that it wont.

I think in the case of Redcloak, it's abundantly clear that he is operating on a sunk cost methodology. So while it's possible for actions to be incorrectly labeled as sunk cost fallacies, I don't think this is one of them. There's just been too many clear statements made in the comic detailing his actions and decisions and *why* he's doing those things that fit very clearly into sunk cost for it to be anything else. That doesn't mean that "the plan" is wrong (well, we know it is and why, but he doesn't believe it). But his thinking and rationale is absolutely about putting the previous cost spent ahead of any assessment of the success/reward of the actions he's taking today.

[BloodSquirrel]

In fact, there are a number of actions you absolutely should not take (pulling money out of an investment during the low point in an economic downturn for example),

This is also not correct. An investment that has gone down in value may or may not be worth continuing to hold. If a stock is down 50%, and another stock is down 75%, and you have good reason to believe both will recover to their previous value, selling the first stock to buy the second is the correct choice.

The only reason how much a stock has fallen in value should matter to your current decision making is in how much it can be considered an indicator of whether it is currently undervalued or not. If you think it has only fallen because of people panic selling, holding might be the better choice (dependent on other available alternatives). If you think that new information has come out that suggests that it was never worth it's original value in the first place, selling may be the correct action.

[skim172]

"Sunk cost fallacy" describes the error in logic that leads to a decision. it does not describe the decision itself.

In your example, the decision to pursue a prepared chess strategy which may be less advantageous is not a sunk cost fallacy. If your reasoning was "Because I spent so much time preparing - if I didn't use that strategy, then all that time was a waste!", then that logic is sunk cost fallacy.

If, however, your reasoning was, "Because I am better prepared to pursue this strategy than to switch now to a new strategy I am not prepared for," then that is not sunk cost fallacy.


Here's a simpler example: You have a major paper due for school. But just the day before it's due, only then do you realize that you were supposed to write about "War and Peace" by Tolstoy - and not the "Barbie Fairy Princess Picture Book Collection for Small and Illiterate Children".

But you decide to go ahead and present your report anyway because ...

• ... there's no way you can read War and Peace in that time. This way, at least you'll have something.
• ... you really, really like Barbie Fairy Princess. Even if it costs you, you can't bear to part with it now.
• ... you truly believe that your teacher and classmates will be impressed by your tight prose, your cutting insight, and your revolutionary thesis that the "Barbie Fairy Princess" is an allegorical representation of the prehistoric Mother Goddess.
• ... you spent 9 months reading and analyzing "BFPPBCSIC", dammit, and if you abandoned it now, then those 9 months would be a waste of time. You're going to give your presentation, in its entirety - and nobody better think about leaving their seats until all three hours of this Ph.D dissertation are completed.

The last is the sunk cost fallacy. The others - though they lead you to the same decision - are not. They may or may not be good reasons - but they're not sunk cost fallacy.

[gbaji]

This is also not correct. An investment that has gone down in value may or may not be worth continuing to hold. If a stock is down 50%, and another stock is down 75%, and you have good reason to believe both will recover to their previous value, selling the first stock to buy the second is the correct choice.

Sure. Was trying to avoid getting too far into specifics and cases. I was addressing the innate, almost knee jerk response of "OMG! My portfolio has lost 80% of its value. I must sell now!", which tends to grip many people. During the 2008 market crash, a billionaire was asked how it felt to have lost so much money. His response: "I haven't lost a penny". Losses aren't "real" until/unless you sell.

I guess my point isn't that you couldn't improve your gain from the current point by making adjustments, but simply abandoning "the plan" (investments in general) is not the correct course of action. The sunk cost fallacy would say that maintaining the investment would be the wrong choice because you'll just lose more of what you've already lost, but that's rarely the case in a general market downturn. Obviously, this is *not* the case with one specific investment that's failing because the thing invested in is failing (that is throwing good money after bad).

Knowing the difference is the trick.

The only reason how much a stock has fallen in value should matter to your current decision making is in how much it can be considered an indicator of whether it is currently undervalued or not. If you think it has only fallen because of people panic selling, holding might be the better choice (dependent on other available alternatives). If you think that new information has come out that suggests that it was never worth it's original value in the first place, selling may be the correct action.

Yup. Hence my point that this is subjective. In the case of Redcloak this is less a "general trend of failure across the board" as, mounting evidence that the specific thing you are trying to do is a really really bad idea and will fail spectacularly, yet he's continuing on. And he's doing so very much due to past costs he's already spent. Which puts it squarely in this fallacy.

[Jasdoif]

Sure. Was trying to avoid getting too far into specifics and cases. I was addressing the innate, almost knee jerk response of "OMG! My portfolio has lost 80% of its value. I must sell now!", which tends to grip many people. During the 2008 market crash, a billionaire was asked how it felt to have lost so much money. His response: "I haven't lost a penny". Losses aren't "real" until/unless you sell.

I guess my point isn't that you couldn't improve your gain from the current point by making adjustments, but simply abandoning "the plan" (investments in general) is not the correct course of action. The sunk cost fallacy would say that maintaining the investment would be the wrong choice because you'll just lose more of what you've already lost, but that's rarely the case in a general market downturn. Obviously, this is *not* the case with one specific investment that's failing because the thing invested in is failing (that is throwing good money after bad).

Knowing the difference is the trick.

It's probably worth noting that what makes a cost a sunk cost is that you can't recover the expenditure you've made.

[Gurgeh]

And yet, according to Vortigaunts the Free Man shows his excellence in all things.

The Vortigaunts insist on definite articles, but they don't break names in half; the only character who ever uses "free man" is Breen, and only in reference to resistance propaganda.

[gbaji]

It's probably worth noting that what makes a cost a sunk cost is that you can't recover the expenditure you've made.

In many cases, that's true. Certainly where the cost is something like lives lost, or time spent. In those cases, the fallacy represents a desire to "make the sacrifices/cost worth it". Which is where we're at with Redcloak.

The definition of a "sunk" cost gets a bit squirrely when it's just money IMO. And frankly depends on knowledge that we usually don't have (at least not absolutely and objectively). So whether a decision to move forward with something you've previously invested money into is fallacious or not is often not actually known until after the fact (and sometimes not even then). And in many cases in the real world, it's not as clean cut as the hypothetical logical examples may suggest. It's not wrong at all, for example, to consider the costs you've already invested in a project with a known, low (but still positive) ROI when considering an alternative project which will incur a new (possibly unknown) initial investment and has another mostly unknown (but hoped for better) ROI.

There's also an effect I call the "new and shiny" principle, where in an effort to avoid sunk cost driven decisions, you instead constantly shift from the current known solution/plan to the "new and shiny" one, with eternal promises of "better ROI" down the line. You can literally get yourself in a condition where you never actually ever have a completed product because you keep changing to "something better" mid stream. In that case, you should have just stuck with the decision you initially made to completion, see what you get at the end, and then loop back to an assessment and potential (re-)development cycle decision.

So yeah. In the real world, it's trickier and a bit of a balancing act between sunk cost calculations and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Fortunately, our heroes don't live in our world though.

[halfeye]

Have you not checked the news at all in the last 3 years?

I've been annoyed about the way cryptocurrency miners have been inflating the prices of graphics cards for probably five years. If you mean you could maybe sell a card second hand for more than you paid, I hope that that will end soon with a cryptocurrency bust. Then, some good cards might appear on the market for not half as much as they used to be.

[brian 333]

An example of sunk cost fallacy is, "I have smoked cigarettes for x years so it's no use quitting now."

Why it's a fallacy is obvious with even a casual study of the available literature. What makes it a sunk cost fallacy is using the years of doing it as an excuse to continue. The past 'investment' would rapidly prove to have been wasted resources, (money, health,) and the imagined future benefits, (I haven't gotten sick yet, I might get run over by a train before I get emphysema,) are unrealistic.

Admitting that the cost already paid exceeds any potential benefit is the way out. Redcloak does not do this. Instead, he doubles down on his investment and ignores possible alternatives which may achieve his stated goals while performing acts which make his stated goals more difficult to achieve.

"How many goblins have you killed?"

"Na as many as ye."