Flip your way to freedom
How to use coin flips in your day to day
What are you willing to do for freedom? I’m willing to flip a coin. Over and over.
To generate randomness my go-to tool is a coin flip. It yields a 50/50 outcome, as both sides of the coin are equally likely to show. If I have to bet on one of two outcomes and I have zero information, I should bet on one or the other with 50% probability. The moment I assign more probability to one outcome it implies that I have information of some kind.
For example, if I bet on the next white or red car passing by my window being red or being white, I would flip a coin to choose the color I bet on. Were I to tend towards white, or say I’ll only bet on red if a die rolls to six (with 1/6 probability) it means I have some kind of experiential information or an intuition that white cars are more common than red (and I don’t. I don’t know so I see it as 50/50 unless I do some research).
Where to find randomness
My favorite place to flip a coin is the random.org mobile app. The free version is great for flipping coins and if you are willing to pay a small amount for the app you can roll dice, pick cards, randomize lists and generate random numbers.
In fact, in order to write this article I wrote the potential section names down in a list in the random.org app and instead of deciding the order I randomized the list using this handy paid feature.
An important reason I like random.org is that it uses atmospheric noise to generate its numbers and I simply like that thought. A downside is that you need an internet connection to flip.
If we want to avoid technology, a real coin flip works, of course, but might inhibit you from flipping a lot, since in public spaces people will see you doing it and it’ll be especially awkward if you drop the coin (I always dream of being a master coin-flipper who uses a special rare coin and catches it from spinning high in the air, but it’s not a high priority dream). I’m still exploring other ways to get some 50/50 randomness without technological aid, let me know if you know any! One way that works for me if I haven’t looked at my watch for a while: If the second counter is left the moment I look at it, it’s Heads, and if the second counter is right it’s Tails.
The fight against short-term determinism
Philosophers have long debated determinism versus free will and I won’t convince Baruch Spinoza that I can make my own choices, nor can I depress Jean-Paul Sartre by showing him that free will is just an illusion. I see the assumption of free will as the practical assumption to live by. I need to believe I can make things happen, and that they’re not just happening to me.
Then again… If the chocolate cookies are in the pantry and I know they’re there, things can get depressingly philosophical very fast in my head, while I’m stuffing my face with said cookies: How much free will did I have there? My conclusion after years of eating cookies is that in the medium and long term we have free will: My vision of moving to another country in a year is my choice, and all the steps I take to make it happen are out of free will. I do, however, question the free will in the short-term: Often I attribute short-term actions more to a biological determinism dictated by my body, including my brain’s chemistry, rather than a conscious choice to eat cookies.
Flipping a coin on short-term decisions is a decision that I feel control over. And IF I follow the outcome of the coin I have overcome my biology’s own determinism. My body cannot control the outcome of that flipped coin that determines whether I can indulge in a cookie or not.
You’re in charge: Ignore the outcome
Let’s say I flipped the coin, it came up Tails (meaning “No”) and yet… Those cookies are right there calling for me. I want to have one, urgently. Well, if the want is so strong, I will follow my instinct and ignore the flip. Take a cookie.
Now why would I indulge in the cookie after all? Doesn’t it render the whole coin flip exercise moot?
I would take the cookie because I don’t want the notion of self-discipline to destroy my system. If I suppress a cookie-desire too strongly it will disincentivize future coin flips. I’d rather consciously ignore the outcome, and eat the cookie while the misused flip weighs on my mind (and yes, it weighs, even if just a little). If I’m thinking about a second cookie I will flip again and if the outcome is “no” I’m now more likely to not eat that second cookie.
But hey, if you’re a coin flip purist and you hate the idea of ignoring the outcome of a flip, you can instead adjust the probabilities in a tough cookie situation: For instance, define that you need three Tails in a row to say no to the first cookie and two Tails in a row to say no to the second one. This means that yes, you can have that first cookie with 87.5% probability and that second one with 75% probability. For me, if I do get those unlikely, cookie-blocking three Tails in a row I feel such a gamblers rush that I avoid the cookie altogether.
There is, however, a more powerful reason for deciding to ignore a coin flip’s outcome. Most flip scenarios happen with decisions between two choices we’re rather indifferent about: Should I wear the green or the blue sweater today? Usually the flip will save us energy and the outcome will be easy to follow without much mental resistance. So if, surprisingly, the flip points to green, but I realize I’m strongly drawn to the blue sweater, that’s great: The coin flip gave me clarity in what I want, it did its job and I can ignore it now and go with blue. Knowing when to ignore the coin is a key part of the freedom coin flips bring.
Compound like Warren Buffett
If you’ve followed legendary investor Warren Buffett, you’ve probably heard about the power of compounding in long term investments. I think about it as the butterfly effect of money. A small investment today can yield a great return over the years thanks to the power of compounding: The good companies you invest in reinvest their earnings, innovate, grow and make you rich on a long enough time horizon, because their value rises in an unpredictable way that is closer to exponential than linear.
Every time you flip the coin on small decisions, you are posing little questions that are relevant to your life. And by letting the coin decide those little questions, you remove inherent biases, automatisms of your mind you may not be aware of when reacting to small, seemingly insignificant dilemmas. Over time this may compound into paths and opportunities that you might not have been exposed to otherwise, if you had just autopiloted through all these small decisions.
As an example, let’s say you have a habit of overspending on fine dining. You want to go to the fancy Italian restaurant around the corner every Friday and can’t help spending $100 on it with your significant other. If you now flip the coin between going there and having a candle-lit pasta dinner at home that costs $20, you have a pre-flip expected cost of the evening of ($100 + $20) / 2 = $60. You saved $40!
If you repeat this process every week, you lowered your dining costs significantly in the long term (over $2k in savings per year) and this practice is likely to have ripple effects: You might get used to flipping before other expenses, you might appreciate a home meal more, you might start eating healthier. Each one of these little ripples seems slow, but over time they will compound into a tsunami of goodness!
We never know which flip might make a big difference and most, on their own, likely won’t. But maybe wearing that blue sweater versus that green one you would’ve chosen instinctively on a particular day cascades into a happy marriage five years down the road. It’s impossible to tell. Bottom line is that with each flip you are butterfly-effecting your future over and over, and those little butterfly wing flaps are compounding over time.
Save your willpower for where it matters
Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney in their book “Willpower: Rediscovering our Greatest Strength” make a great case for willpower being like a muscle that needs to be trained and that can get exhausted if it’s made to do too many repetitions. While others have called this perspective too simplistic, I believe it is a good mental model to think about one’s willpower and the energy that is consumed by often unnecessary decisions. Flipping a coin on little daily actions can help relieve us from some of the anxiety these small decisions carry, speed them up and help you, the flipper, maintain a clearer head for other tasks.
Here’s the way I use a coin for texting (and emailing):
I get a text that seems important enough to answer or I think of a message I want to send someone else.
I flip a coin to decide whether I answer now or later. This way people will not have a predictable pattern of how fast I am at answering and hence I will train them not to expect availability from me, while still leaving the door open for a quick interaction if I want it or the coin dictates it.
Once I write a text and give it a scan, I flip a coin on the mental question “send as is?” If Heads, i.e. Yes, comes up, I press send without further thought. If Tails comes up I give it another proofread and make small corrections, shortenings, clarifying extensions or other iterative improvements to the text.
I flip the coin again and repeat step 3 over and over until Heads comes up, giving me the go to press “Send”.
When I send the text I’m either happy with how quick it went out or I’m happy how polished it is. Both variants are usually fine.
So I don’t overthink whether the text is well-written or whether it needs more work. I send it and I’m happy it’s out with minimal mental energy expenditure. Coin flips help you navigate small decisions while letting you give big decisions the energy and attention they need.
Flip for your soul’s freedom
I, personally, have a problem with authority. And I don’t just mean the government’s or my boss’. I have a problem with my own authority over myself. If I tell myself to do a quick 10 push-ups every morning, I can almost guarantee that after 3 mornings my entire being will rebel against that past me that tried to impose this stupid rule on me. Breaking that arbitrary rule will be a pleasure.
But once I bring flips into the push-up question, determining whether I do them at all, or whether I do 5 or 15… Then it’s a different story. I’m not following the authority of that old me from three days ago (who’s dead by now?!) I’m just conducting a little gamble and respecting the outcome.
You can also look at bar codes or number plates on the cars - even or odd, seems like 50/50 chance :)