Fyi... submitter put "not zero" instead of original title of "non-zero" which causes the "past" link's search algorithm to not list this previous discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32701913
The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
11–20 of 203 posts
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#12Anti-fraud departments have apparently not gotten the memo, and the whole situation has gotten obscene in the last few years. I regularly travel for work and it's impossible for me to make any purchases on major sites like Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Costco, etc. They all will accept an order, charge my card, and then randomly cancel the order some hours to days later, and refund me. Similarly when traveling internati…
out of curiosity, are you "privacy conscious", as in minimize sharing your location, personal information, etc?
I have a pet hypothesis that a lot of the security heuristics they use are based on being able to spy on you everywhere you go, and the trail of digital litter you leave behind "confirms" it's you where you are.
It's difficult to draw conclusions from my own experience because the security landscape changes and I don't know what other people encounter. I do know people who spend their lives online on the phone and they don't complain about having problems blowing their whole paycheck every week; like for instance my assistant who doesn't either have trouble purchasing things for me.
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#13I believe this is a trivial thing with a misleading title. Of course the optimal amount of fraud for a business is zero. A world with zero fraud would be optimal for them. And (also of course) given that combating fraud has costs, there is a level at which investing more money and effort into anti-fraud has diminishing returns. Therefore it is not worth it to go all in into the fight against fraud, but accept that so…
It's very unintuitive. It's come up on threads here several times, with people incredulous about the statement.
It has ramifications for the kinds of discussions we have on HN, because the primary stimuli we get are news anecdotes, and anecdotes about fraud can be galling but still under some sane noise floor that organizations don't bother to stop.
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#14I believe this is a trivial thing with a misleading title. Of course the optimal amount of fraud for a business is zero. A world with zero fraud would be optimal for them. And (also of course) given that combating fraud has costs, there is a level at which investing more money and effort into anti-fraud has diminishing returns. Therefore it is not worth it to go all in into the fight against fraud, but accept that so…
[deleted]
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#15I believe this is a trivial thing with a misleading title. Of course the optimal amount of fraud for a business is zero. A world with zero fraud would be optimal for them. And (also of course) given that combating fraud has costs, there is a level at which investing more money and effort into anti-fraud has diminishing returns. Therefore it is not worth it to go all in into the fight against fraud, but accept that so…
It's very unintuitive. It's come up on threads here several times, with people incredulous about the statement. It has ramifications for the kinds of discussions we have on HN, because the primary stimuli we get are news anecdotes, and anecdotes about fraud can be galling but still under some sane noise floor that organizations don't bother to stop.
Is it unintuitive?
The concept of diminishing returns applies to everything any living thing does. I think it's very natural, even in the 'our brains are wired for this' sense.
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#16Just like everything. The optimal amount of crime, unemployment, accidents, deaths, etc... is not zero.
For example, when building a road, there is a certain chance that an accident will happen, that some people will die, and that could have been prevented. For example, by installing a guard rail, enforcing speed limits, or by taking a different path.
But installing that guard rail for a one in a million chance that something bad happens is money better spent elsewhere, like improving safety where it matters more, and people tend to dislike the resulting taxes. Enforcing speed limits have a cost too, that can be recovered from the fines that result from it. But the goal is not to bankrupt your citizens with fines, and constant surveillance is not very popular. And the different path you are planning may go though people homes, relocating people is also expensive, and usually not very popular for the people in question.
So, we tolerate a few accidents and deaths over a dystopian society.
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very unintuitive. It's come up on threads here several times, with people incredulous about the statement. It has ramifications for the kinds of discussions we have on HN, because the primary stimuli we get are news anecdotes, and anecdotes about fraud can be galling but still under some sane noise floor that organizations don't bother to stop.
Is it unintuitive? The concept of diminishing returns applies to everything any living thing does. I think it's very natural, even in the 'our brains are wired for this' sense.
The optimal amount of airline catastrophes is non-zero.
The optimal amount of pollution is non-zero.
The optimal amount of [insert almost anything bad] is non-zero.
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very unintuitive. It's come up on threads here several times, with people incredulous about the statement. It has ramifications for the kinds of discussions we have on HN, because the primary stimuli we get are news anecdotes, and anecdotes about fraud can be galling but still under some sane noise floor that organizations don't bother to stop.
Is it unintuitive? The concept of diminishing returns applies to everything any living thing does. I think it's very natural, even in the 'our brains are wired for this' sense.
It is unintuitive. It hits some primal part our brain, the same as is isolated in that capuchin monkey experiment where two monkeys get varying levels of grapes. People get either really excited or really pissed off when they see people getting away with something; at the same time, when we read stories about bureaucracy --- a perennial bête noire on HN --- we rarely think in terms of the fraud we should be accepting. We just think fraud is bad, and anti-fraud is bad.
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it unintuitive? The concept of diminishing returns applies to everything any living thing does. I think it's very natural, even in the 'our brains are wired for this' sense.
The optimal amount of airline catastrophes is non-zero. The optimal amount of pollution is non-zero. The optimal amount of [insert almost anything bad] is non-zero.
The optimal amount of X under the assumption that it costs more and more resources to reduce X is non-zero. It's this middle part that you omitted that turns an unintuitive statement into an obvious one.
Re: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very unintuitive. It's come up on threads here several times, with people incredulous about the statement. It has ramifications for the kinds of discussions we have on HN, because the primary stimuli we get are news anecdotes, and anecdotes about fraud can be galling but still under some sane noise floor that organizations don't bother to stop.
Is it unintuitive? The concept of diminishing returns applies to everything any living thing does. I think it's very natural, even in the 'our brains are wired for this' sense.
Yes, it's counterintuitive to many people that "the optimal amount of $BAD_THING is non-zero" for a rather large set of possible values for BAD_THING.
"You can't put a price on human life" is one common occurrence of this. I thought it was just a throwaway phrase, or a wish of how things could be, but I've regularly run into people who don't understand why we would ever fail to spend absurdly large amounts of money to save a single life.
I have had people say "Is the only reason we aren't doing something about X money" for various forms of X. I personally spent over an hour walking one such person through the concept of opportunity costs, the fact that money is representative of value, &c. with the conversation ending with them still certain that the US Government could just print a trillion dollars and solve the problem.
I have talked to people who honestly think that every person with depression should be forcibly committed to prevent them from committing suicide and respond to the "but only a fraction of those people have suicidal ideation, and only a fraction of those commit suicide" with a "if it saves just one life, it's worth it!" So forcibly committing 8% of the adult population is not too high a cost in their minds.