Time Preference & Commitment Costs

Primes about how the value of resources and commitments shifts across time: discounting and time preference (time value of money, temporal inconsistency, discounting), and the costs of committing to or reversing a course of action (sunk cost, lock-in, technical debt, reversibility horizon, optionality).

15 primes in this family — primes that sit near one another in abstraction space (k-means over structural-signature embeddings). Each is shown with its short description.

• Cost–Benefit Analysis — Evaluate decisions.
• Discounting (Present Value) — Present value calculation.
• Escalation of Commitment — Persist beyond justification.
• Gains from Trade — Mutual benefit exchange.
• Lazy Evaluation — Defer work until its result is actually demanded.
• Lock-In — Forward-looking cost of switching exceeds the forward-looking cost of staying, even when a superior alternative exists.
• Optionality — The asymmetric value of having a choice—bounded downside, unbounded upside—without obligation to act.
• Reversibility and Irreversibility — Actions or transitions may or may not be undone or reverted.
• Reversibility Horizon — Temporal threshold where reversal cost exceeds forward commitment.
• Sunk Cost and Irreversible Commitment — Expended resources create psychological barriers to reversal.
• Technical Debt — A present expedient choice imposes a future cost that compounds with system growth until it is paid down, with a principal, an interest payment, and a pay-down.
• Temporal Inconsistency and Preference Reversals — Preference orderings reverse as decision horizon approaches.
• Time Preference (Discounting Future) — Present vs future value.
• Time Value of Money — Present vs future value.
• Transaction Costs — Frictions in exchange.