Commitment and Consistency

Biological Parallel

Total commitment mechanisms evolved when abandonment wastes more than persistence. Emperor penguin males incubate eggs alone through Antarctic winter, fasting for 120 days and losing 40% of body weight—abandoning midway kills the chick and wastes three months of starvation. Pacific salmon swim 900 miles upstream against rapids, expend all energy reserves, spawn, and die—the migration is physiologically irreversible once begun, with programmed organ deterioration ensuring no retreat. However, research shows animals don't commit the Concorde fallacy that humans do: birds abandon nests rationally when remaining clutch size falls below thresholds, ignoring sunk costs. The difference matters: emperor penguins and salmon evolved irrevocable commitment for situations where partial investment has zero value. Humans misapply this mechanism to projects where cutting losses would be rational—we inherited commitment machinery but lost the adaptive triggers.