[kc0bfv]

Sure.

"I'm tired because - I stayed up all night playing games", or, "I'm tired - because my child screamed all night long," are more along the lines of what the post suggests are useful, and I can see how they're fundamentally more useful to getting at the root cause than the counterfactual, "I'm tired because I didn't sleep."

But this example is very simple and makes the argument less important I'd say.

[yorwba]

All three statements using "because" are counterfactual. If you said "I'm tired and I stayed up all night playing games." you're only making a factual claim. But using "X because Y" implies that Y matters for X, i.e. in the counterfactual situation where Y is not true, X wouldn't be true either.

The author of TFA seems to suggest that explanations where Y is "not Z" are inherently less useful (I don't think so) and also calls them "counterfactual" even when "not Z" is a fact, which is confusing.

[kc0bfv]

'All three statements using "because" are counterfactual.'

No - the definition the article refers to is this: adjective - relating to or expressing what has not happened or is not the case.

I used "because" to illustrate the "looking for root cause" use case, like what the article was referring to. Regardless, that doesn't make it counterfactual per the definition the author is using.

To me the part that makes the counterfactual less useful when determining root causes is the human element the author mentions - looking for root cause tends to stop once they're brought up (they're the end of the causal chain in discussion), and blame starts to get assigned. I've seen that happen, and it hasn't helped resolve the issue, so avoiding that seems useful. I don't see a problem with using a counterfactual statement if it really is the root cause and I'm blaming myself for something.