[stbede]

The irony of the quoted Robert Frost poem

> Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

is that Frost's line is sarcastic. He wrote this poem about a friend that would endlessly analyze his choices, fretting about not choosing the optimal choice. He'd always be in decision paralysis. Frost was actually saying that either path would have been fine and you should just make a choice instead of wasting all your time overthinking it.

[tchalla]

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don't much care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go. Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere. The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

[anthilemoon]

Author of the article here. I did not know that – thank you for sharing. This makes the poem even better but definitely not the best choice for the article!

[moffkalast]

Since you're here, I wanted to ask if you've looked into military decision making. This may be anecdotal, but one can often see officers making split second choices with far reaching consequences without too much deliberation. Not sure if that's something that's specifically trained for or just a result of the uh, working conditions.

[anthilemoon]

I'm actually in the process of interviewing my dad about that! He's an engineer and used to be sent to war zones to assess local military airport infrastructures. He was sometimes dropped there with a military unit just for a few days. There were time when they didn't all make it back.

I always thought there was a certain coldness to the way he was making decisions, but it all makes much more sense now that I know more about those past experiences. He seems to think it's the result of the working conditions. I have tons of notes and audio recordings which I want to clean up and publish at some point.

[jvm___]

It's about a guy bragging about it later.

Some day ages and ages hence, I made an inconsequential choice, and THAT made all the different.

[andsoitis]

worth reading an explanation - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/89511/robert-frost...