The world is not an engineering problem • Hacker News Board

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#41

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

compiler-guy wrote: post #10

pmarreck wrote: post #2

Public policy should only be based on objective truths and not evidenceless beliefs or feelings. It's one thing to be for or against marijuana usage; it's another to still have a law on the books banning its use and sale when a growing plethora of science says it's far safer than substances already legalized and regulated (such as alcohol) and actually therapeutic in some cases (such as cancer). It's one thing to be…

"Damming this river will hurt the surrounding ecosystem" and "Damming this river will provide power for thousands of people" are both objective truths. The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things like how we value fish and the services provided by electricity. Do we value keeping fish alive more than keeping old people alive via power-hungry air conditioning? There are millions of simil…

> The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things like how we value fish and the services provided by electricity.

Seriously, a better way would be to start doing 5-whys on this, instead of going for "non-objective things". A quick attempt will tell you that we care for both ecosystem and power, but depending on the local context, we might care more about one or the other. Maybe we can import power from elsewhere, or put a dam in a place where it won't disturb ecosystem so much. Maybe the ecosystem can handle the dam, or really the power is desperately needed.

You can quantify this all if you bother. Problem is, most people don't bother, they very quickly stop thinking about it, and start going by their gut.

(I'd say, they stop behaving like adults, but since a lot of adults have this problem, I guess we need a different phrase.)

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#42

Post by naasking » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

compiler-guy wrote: post #10

pmarreck wrote: post #2

Public policy should only be based on objective truths and not evidenceless beliefs or feelings. It's one thing to be for or against marijuana usage; it's another to still have a law on the books banning its use and sale when a growing plethora of science says it's far safer than substances already legalized and regulated (such as alcohol) and actually therapeutic in some cases (such as cancer). It's one thing to be…

"Damming this river will hurt the surrounding ecosystem" and "Damming this river will provide power for thousands of people" are both objective truths. The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things like how we value fish and the services provided by electricity. Do we value keeping fish alive more than keeping old people alive via power-hungry air conditioning? There are millions of simil…

> The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things like how we value fish and the services provided by electricity.

Why are those non-objective?

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#43

Post by jm__87 » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

nateabele wrote: post #19

chrispeel wrote: post #6

The idea here is something we've lost from our thinking, one of those virtues Deirdre McCloskey writes about, the idea of faith, that there are things we have to take as felt not as demonstrated by science. Even if we don't understand everything scientifically now, even some things that we feel , does not mean that we cannot try to do so in the future. I accept faith only as a step towards scientific understanding.

My favorite part of Antifragile was where the author defines the 'Soviet-Harvard delusion' as "the unscientific overestimation of the reach of scientific knowledge". Let us know when you find formal proofs for human values or systems of morality. That's almost certainly Nobel Prize-worthy.

I mean, it seems a bit obvious to me that human values and morality are going to be reflections of fundamental human drives (i.e. to survive and procreate). The cultural, legal and economic environment can change a lot of variables as to how we achieve these two goals, as can our perception of the environment which we live in, but at the end of the day people are still going to be acting in accordance with their evoluationarily programmed drives within the context of their environment. I don't see how we could do any differently.

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#44

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

Like hell it isn't.

At the risk of going "no true scottsman", I hate this kind of anti-intellectual nonsense. The methods of science, engineering and rational reasoning are the best tools we have for solving world problems. They were literally invented for it. They're reified applied reasoning. You eschew them at your own peril.

Now of course to solve problems involving humans, you have to factor in the human element - the complexity of our individual emotions, and of the societal interplay. This is where a lot of attempts at solving problems fail, and it's appropriate to criticize that. But that doesn't give you a free pass to go by your gut in contexts our monkey brains have never experienced in the past. This means we need to double-down and carefully, rationally, find out what works and what doesn't.

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#45

Post by swagasaurus-rex » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

comonad-colaboy wrote: post #24

thfuran wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science isn't about formal proofs

Science is about verifiable proofs (verifiable within reasonable time limits) which somewhat means the same thing as formal proofs in the grand scheme of things. Correct me if I am wrong Edit: forgot to put in time limits

You're getting a lot of flak for conflating verifiability with formal proofs.

In your defense, science appears to follow formality, though we run into often run into holes in our theory when a confounding number of variables are in play.

Me, personally, I don't know what that difference really is. Science is science because it works. If it didn't work, it wouldn't be science.

Mathematics can and will find ways to apply itself to the real world, no matter how approximately, as long as that difference matters to somebody.

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#46

Post by naasking » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

MereInterest wrote: post #4

pmarreck wrote: post #2

Public policy should only be based on objective truths and not evidenceless beliefs or feelings. It's one thing to be for or against marijuana usage; it's another to still have a law on the books banning its use and sale when a growing plethora of science says it's far safer than substances already legalized and regulated (such as alcohol) and actually therapeutic in some cases (such as cancer). It's one thing to be…

Taking that argument to its logical conclusion, there should be no public policy whatsoever. Every single policy has at its roots an evidenceless belief. As an extreme example, "Seat belts save lives" is an objective truth, but "Saving lives is a good thing" is an evidenceless belief. That is it believed by the vast majority of the human race in no way constitutes evidence. Evidenceless beliefs are what need to dicta…

> "Saving lives is a good thing" is an evidenceless belief.

Is it? Any kind of value system must presuppose the value of life because only life can hold something valuable. Value systems that do not are therefore inconsistent.

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#47

Post by Benjammer » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44

Like hell it isn't. At the risk of going "no true scottsman", I hate this kind of anti-intellectual nonsense. The methods of science, engineering and rational reasoning are the best tools we have for solving world problems. They were literally invented for it. They're reified applied reasoning. You eschew them at your own peril. Now of course to solve problems involving humans, you have to factor in the human element…

>This is where a lot of attempts at solving problems fail

I think this is where a lot of attempts at defining problems fail. I don't think this has any impact on the validity of the scientific method of problem solving, once you've clearly defined your problem.

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#48

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:10 PM UTC

compiler-guy wrote: post #30

steaknfries wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we value keeping fish alive more than keeping old people alive via power-hungry air conditioning? Consider the towns and cities by bodies of water that have either dried up or been polluted. It's financially ruinous because it either/or kills tourism and/or fishing industry; the salty dust left behind by water causes horrible health problems; there's natural brain/brawn drain that leaves only the older and sickl…

The grandparent is meant as an example of one of the many tradeoffs that are hard to decide via objective truths. The exact details are not significant to the larger point. But along the way to the unfortunate end you describe above, many good things came of the dam. Any calculus needs to evaluate the tradeoffs. "Were they worth it?" doesn't lend itself to objective-factual analysis, because "worth" is all about valu…

> one of the many tradeoffs that are hard to decide via objective truths.

Those tradeoffs are "hard to decide via objective truths" only because they haven't been decomposed enough. You have to dig deeper into them, split them apart, ask why do we care about something, and then ask again and again. It might get hard to keep track of the expanding tradeoff space, which is probably why people shy away from digging into things too deep. But if you do the work, you may find out that there is a way to solve the original problem in a way that satisfies everyone's low-level values.

Reminds me of essays of Bret Victor, who occasionally seems to be making a related point - a lot of policy debates quickly devolve into appeals to emotions, because we lack tools to effortlessly decompose and analyze actual problems. See e.g. http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#media for a good example.

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#49

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

Benjammer wrote: post #47

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44

Like hell it isn't. At the risk of going "no true scottsman", I hate this kind of anti-intellectual nonsense. The methods of science, engineering and rational reasoning are the best tools we have for solving world problems. They were literally invented for it. They're reified applied reasoning. You eschew them at your own peril. Now of course to solve problems involving humans, you have to factor in the human element…

>This is where a lot of attempts at solving problems fail I think this is where a lot of attempts at defining problems fail. I don't think this has any impact on the validity of the scientific method of problem solving, once you've clearly defined your problem.

That too. Not much good comes from efficiently "solving" what turns out to not be the real problem. You have to start factoring in the human element at the very top, at the level of problem discovery and definition.

Re: The world is not an engineering problem

#50

Post by compiler-guy » Thu, Nov 08, 2018, 10:15 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #42

compiler-guy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Damming this river will hurt the surrounding ecosystem" and "Damming this river will provide power for thousands of people" are both objective truths. The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things like how we value fish and the services provided by electricity. Do we value keeping fish alive more than keeping old people alive via power-hungry air conditioning? There are millions of simil…

> The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things like how we value fish and the services provided by electricity. Why are those non-objective?

Which is more valuable, a fish or a person's comfort?

There is no objective answer to that question.