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Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

psyche.co

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Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#71

Post by Jtsummers »

milesskorpen wrote: post #52
Taek wrote: post #46

This comment thread is making me realize we don't have a good word to distinguish between efficiency as in "we only have 7 hospital beds because that's all we need on 99% of each day" and efficiency as in "we replaced steps X,Y,Z with just step X', because we found that X' could accomplish everything that XYZ could accomplish but it's faster, more accurate, and cheaper". One makes a tradeoff by reducing overheads and…

I don’t know if those two things are as different as you suggest. Multiple steps add redundancy, if you fail one step you can get much of the value from other steps. More steps are frequently added in response to edge cases. Could be a Chesterton’s Fence scenario Instead of bemoaning efficiency, it’d be interesting to reward/value redundancy and antifragility, at least at the system level. I think this could mean tru…

Multiple steps don't always add redundancy, sometimes they're just noise or artifacts. I had a colleague who, when opening a file, would first click on the Windows desktop, then "My Computer", then navigate to the directory, open the file, and close the Explorer window.

There was zero redundancy versus leaving the directory open so they could open the next file (or using the application's "Open File" dialog).

That is a perfect example of wasteful motion (in their case due to a poor mental model of how computers worked, as I learned through later discussions) that could be simplified significantly without loss of quality or redundancy in the system.

Contrast this with: The surgical office called me this morning and stated, "The surgery is for a ganglion cyst on your left wrist." Which I confirmed. When I go in on Tuesday for the surgery this will be repeated, and a mark will be made on the area to be cut open (though in this case it'd be really hard to screw up and open the right wrist, as there is no, quite visible, cyst there). That is useful redundancy of the sort you describe. Removing any step (the initial visit a week ago, the call today, the check when I arrive, the mark on the wrist) and you increase the risk of error.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#72

Post by SlavikCA »

shoo wrote: post #42
yathern wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

this way of framing things is only valid if outcomes of events are somewhat linear, but in real life this isn't true at all: some uninsured bad events can wipe you out completely, whereas insured bad events might not wipe you out. it doesn't matter if your expected value of not being wiped out was predicted to be 0.1 if you've gotten wiped out. the decision of purchasing insurance or not depends more on how many reso…

> for individuals with limited resources who will be wiped out if uninsured

Usually, individuals with limited resources can't really be wiped out: there is not much to wipe out.

Here is my perspective: I consider myself typical individual with limited resources: I'm mostly live on the my salary (Software dev), I don't really have major assets (20k car bought for cash, renting a house), have some savings (~30k cash). And I only have minimal car liability insurance, as required by law.

So, what kind of "wipe out" event can happen to me / my family? And what kind of insurance do I need to get for that?

Let's say I have auto accident and I'm liable for million dollars. The likelihood of such event is low. Such event probably would result in bankruptcy, but it's not much worse, then constantly paying extra for insurance. So, there is "no wiping out" in this seemingly catastrophic event.

So, what I'm saying is "individuals with limited resources" often doesn't have much to wipe out, so they don't have to worry about insurance.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#73

Post by r00fus »

brentjanderson wrote: post #24

Reminds me of this piece from Seth Godin on the importance of building slack into our lives: https://seths.blog/2019/06/investing-in-slack/ (Not the chat app)

One of my RSS feeds is Seth's Blog. Nice mindfulness tips and perspective tehre.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#74

Post by markrages »

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…

The rule holds true for switchmode power supplies.

Sometimes you have to add a resistance (inefficiency!) in series with the output capacitor to achieve stability.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#75

Post by pottertheotter »

pdonis wrote: post #50
yathern wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You'll also lose money paying for insurance. Only if you put zero value on the peace of mind that comes with having insurance against risks that, if they happened, would bankrupt you. But if you put zero value on that, you wouldn't buy insurance.

It's the same with the lottery. If you understand that the cash expected value is lower than the cost of the ticket, but you get some value from having "played" and the net is at least equal to the price of the ticket, it's not irrational to buy a lottery ticket.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#76

Post by cinntaile »

genghisjahn wrote: post #7
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…

That’s one of the points of “The Goal”. As in you need slack to be more productive over time. https://www.ebay.com/p/117280427 I leave the eBay link because last I checked used copies on amazon were very pricey.

It's still in print so you can just get a new copy instead.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#77

Post by Taek »

milesskorpen wrote: post #52
Taek wrote: post #46

This comment thread is making me realize we don't have a good word to distinguish between efficiency as in "we only have 7 hospital beds because that's all we need on 99% of each day" and efficiency as in "we replaced steps X,Y,Z with just step X', because we found that X' could accomplish everything that XYZ could accomplish but it's faster, more accurate, and cheaper". One makes a tradeoff by reducing overheads and…

I don’t know if those two things are as different as you suggest. Multiple steps add redundancy, if you fail one step you can get much of the value from other steps. More steps are frequently added in response to edge cases. Could be a Chesterton’s Fence scenario Instead of bemoaning efficiency, it’d be interesting to reward/value redundancy and antifragility, at least at the system level. I think this could mean tru…

There are obvious cases where you are improving efficiency without eliminating slack. I'm not making my application more fragile by rewriting an n^2 operation over a large dataset to an n*log(n) operation that provides the same output. It's a win without tradeoffs.

This type of example exists in all industries. For example, finding a new alloy that has strictly superior properties across all dimensions for a specific use case. Or upgrading mail delivery routes using better pathfinding algorithms. Etc.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#78

Post by hinkley »

I think we need more hobbies. Maybe some anthropology classes as well.

There is, for instance, a certain give-and-take in classical Japanese garden aesthetics. In a formal English or French garden, almost all you can see, everywhere you look, is evidence of human hands. Since no plant is in anything you could mistake for its natural state, you are practically beaten over the head by the presence of the unseen gardener. Look at what I made nature do. What piece of work is a man.

It's a dynamically unstable system.

Meanwhile the Japanese garden is a dynamically stable system. The plants are allowed to 'win' in many cases that either support the gardener's goals, or are simply not worth the effort required to win the argument. It's more efficient to let the system do what is in its nature than to try and stop it.. If you know how to look, you can see the gardener everywhere, over-emphasizing what would have happened without them, in such a way that you see the plant first, and the work second. It is organic, with an editor.

You might see a similar philosophy in Judo. You are steering what is there, letting the subject of your efforts do most of the heavy lifting for you. It is quite efficient, but not in the antiseptic way we sometimes imagine that efficiency should possess.

TL;DR: most of us have no idea what efficiency looks like, and we make a mockery of it while trying to pursue it.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#79

Post by triceratops »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #45
triceratops wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance protects you from low-probability downsides you can't afford. Lottery tickets are about buying into low-probability upsides. If the loss from not having insurance is bearable, you're better off not buying the insurance. If it's not, it's worth the money even if you'd lose out on average. That's why phone or car insurance (collision and comprehensive) is a waste of money for the average person, but health or…

The loss from not having car insurance is not bearable for most people, and therefore is not a waste of money. First, your own car can be tens of thousands of dollars. Most people can't take that hit. Then, even if you drive a pile of junk, the car you hit may be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Finally, there's medical bills if you injure someone. Oh, yeah, and then there's legal requirements that you have car in…

I should've specified, I meant collision and comprehensive insurance. Liability insurance is legally required, as you said, and I personally take the maximum my insurer offers. Personal liability in an accident is potentially unbounded. This is an example of an unbearable loss that must be protected against, even if it costs money on average.

(If there's an outstanding loan on the car, the lender requires collision and comprehensive to cover their asset. Something to consider when financing a car - it's not just the car payment, but also the additional insurance you have to carry)

Used cars usually are not "tens of thousands of dollars". If one can't afford even a few thousand dollars in a pinch to buy a used car to replace one's current ride, then one probably needs collision and comprehensive too.

Re: Efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

#80

Post by r00fus »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #16

Of course not trying cram as much in as possible makes life better. However tell that to a CEO who has built a business off an unsustainable, for a normal person who wants to have a life outside of work, efficiency mindset.

This was me a few years ago. Hyper-efficient, doing 60+h weeks + workouts + family. Couldn't imagine it differently.

Then I had a medical condition that required me to slow down, changing my lifestyle completely.

Only in retrospect do realize my situation was extremely fragile.

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