Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better • Hacker News Board

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#31

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

alexpetralia wrote: post #4

bschne wrote: post #2

I've found "efficiency as the opposite of stability" a very powerful concept to think about - even though it's fairly simple, it seems to be almost a fundamental law. Whether it's about the economy at large, your own household, a supply chain, what have you - as soon as you optimize for efficiency by removing friction, you take all the slack/damping out of the system and become instantly more liable to catastrophic f…

I think this is probably better characterized as "efficiency erodes resilience". You can have stability if there are no perturbations. However, if there are, and you have optimized for a regime where there are not, you are very exposed to risk. This is pretty much Table's notion of antifragility as well as the study of resilience engineering.

There's an engineering version of "stable" that might be useful here to draw lines between the three or so different concepts being discussed. A "stable" system is one that will return to the same resting state when perturbed. One can have "equilibrium" in an unstable system, e.g. balancing a broomstick on one's hand, but the system will not return to that equilibrium if perturbed.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#32

Post by austinl » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

One of my favorite quotes on this topic comes from Aurelius' description of his adopted father in Meditations.

[Y]ou would never say of him that he "broke out a sweat": but everything was allotted its own time and thought, as by a man of leisure - his way was unhurried, organized, vigorous, consistent in all.

I feel like I spend a lot of time rushing from one thing to the next, constantly questioning whether I'm spending time wisely. And then I end up accomplishing less because I lack focus in one area. I've instead been trying to relax, slow down, and take tasks one at a time until completion. I'd also recommend Cal Newport's book, Deep Work, on this.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#33

Post by ghaff » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #21

ghaff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two are certainly related but it feels like optimization is a bit different. Maybe the efficiency equivalent for personal finance would be an example like keeping your bank balance at a minimum and immediately transferring any spare cash to paying down a mortgage or otherwise into a fairly illiquid investment because thet's where the best returns are. But now if you have an unexpected expense you have to scramble…

Ah yes, I think that makes it more clear. In this case, efficiency might be automating bill payments, but then you don't catch price changes, and depending on your other systems in place, you might miss overdrawing your account.

The colloquial words may not be the best. It seems like it's a distinction between optimizing things for which there is essentially no meaningful downside except maybe a bit of thought and time. Versus setting things up so that they're the most efficient system in the current environment but may not handle unexpected events well and therefore might not be the best choice.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#34

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

bschne wrote: post #2

I've found "efficiency as the opposite of stability" a very powerful concept to think about - even though it's fairly simple, it seems to be almost a fundamental law. Whether it's about the economy at large, your own household, a supply chain, what have you - as soon as you optimize for efficiency by removing friction, you take all the slack/damping out of the system and become instantly more liable to catastrophic f…

Yes it's basically a myopic under-appreciation of the current system. I was guilty of that, many are I believe, we all strive for better but sometimes our perspective is off. (not to bring him up on every topic but Alan Kay said that perspective was worth a lot of IQ points)

In the list of anti-perfection patterns there's mechanical jitter.. a catastrophe avoiding relaxation.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#35

Post by geewee » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

david_draco wrote: post #27

Insurance is the opposite of a lottery. If you think buying lottery tickets are a waste of money because you lose out in the long run, the same argument should lead you to think having insurance is a good thing.

Why? I'd think the whole point of insurance is that everyone (as an average) loses out in the long run?

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#36

Post by devilduck » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

bschne wrote: post #2

I've found "efficiency as the opposite of stability" a very powerful concept to think about - even though it's fairly simple, it seems to be almost a fundamental law. Whether it's about the economy at large, your own household, a supply chain, what have you - as soon as you optimize for efficiency by removing friction, you take all the slack/damping out of the system and become instantly more liable to catastrophic f…

Pace layering is a very interesting idea here and is almost a conceptually musical composition kind of idea for me. Perhaps conducting working teams as an orchestra, each playing their part, would be an interesting management technique.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#37

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

austinl wrote: post #32

One of my favorite quotes on this topic comes from Aurelius' description of his adopted father in Meditations . [Y]ou would never say of him that he "broke out a sweat": but everything was allotted its own time and thought, as by a man of leisure - his way was unhurried, organized, vigorous, consistent in all . I feel like I spend a lot of time rushing from one thing to the next, constantly questioning whether I'm sp…

I'm still stumped over the fact that humans are behind Antique Roma existentialism on average.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#38

Post by yathern » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

david_draco wrote: post #27

Insurance is the opposite of a lottery. If you think buying lottery tickets are a waste of money because you lose out in the long run, the same argument should lead you to think having insurance is a good thing.

I think you have it backwards - insurance and lottery are (sort of) equal. In the long term, you'll lose money in the lottery. You'll also lose money paying for insurance.

If you have extraordinary "good luck", you may come out ahead in the lottery. And if you have extraordinary "bad luck" you may come out ahead in insurance.

Insurance of course has a more practical value, and a much better return on investment (even if it averages negative returns)

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#39

Post by maest » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

david_draco wrote: post #27

Insurance is the opposite of a lottery. If you think buying lottery tickets are a waste of money because you lose out in the long run, the same argument should lead you to think having insurance is a good thing.

This does not sit nicely with the fact that there are many large and successful insurance companies.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#40

Post by bschne » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #10

bschne wrote: post #2

I've found "efficiency as the opposite of stability" a very powerful concept to think about - even though it's fairly simple, it seems to be almost a fundamental law. Whether it's about the economy at large, your own household, a supply chain, what have you - as soon as you optimize for efficiency by removing friction, you take all the slack/damping out of the system and become instantly more liable to catastrophic f…

When I think about personal finance, I often think about efficiency. The obvious examples include buying in bulk, avoiding finance charges to optimize what you get for your money, paying insurance up front when the payment options charge extra, and just plain having fewer subscriptions to keep monthly expenses lower and easier to track. All of this efficiency increases financial stability. I suppose if we argue that…

It increases your financial stability under the assumption that your life situation evolves in a predictable way. Say you need to cover unforeseen medical expenses, or you develop an allergy to one of the foods you bought in bulk (sorry, that one was a bit contrived), etc. - well, then you'd suddenly wish you'd held off on buying that pallet of canned soup.

On the other hand, if you only buy your food day to day, that is certainly more like JIT logistics, prevents waste & storage space needs, etc., but it screws you if you can't leave your house and the stores get closed due to some... ahem... what might possibly happen that forces you to stay inside.

So it's always a matter of your frame of reference, I guess.