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Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

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Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#31

Post by eventuallylive »

whack wrote: post #18
raister wrote: post #8

This reminds me of Eli Goldratt's quote: "Tell me how you measure me, I will tell you how I behave."

Corollary: "If you do not measure me, I will not behave"

Strictly speaking this is not the contrapositive and therefore the proof is yet to be seen. A sound corollary: "If I do not behave, it is because you did not measure me."

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#33

Post by lotsofpulp »

eventuallylive wrote: post #31
whack wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corollary: "If you do not measure me, I will not behave"

Strictly speaking this is not the contrapositive and therefore the proof is yet to be seen. A sound corollary: "If I do not behave, it is because you did not measure me."

Is a contrapositive a corollary? P implies Q is logically equivalent to Not Q implies Not P.

A corollary would be some other relation that can be deduced as a result of P implies Q, not simply a restatement of P implies Q.

(Using the discrete math definition of imply, not the colloquial definition of imply).

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#34

Post by nradov »

Trasmatta wrote: post #29

From a social / emotional / spiritual/ humanistic perspective, this is what I see in the "productivity" and "wellness" spaces. "Ahh, if only I hyperoptimize all aspects of my existence, then I will achieve inner peace. I just need to be more efficient with my time and goals. Just one more meditation. One more gratitude exercise. If only I could be consistent with my habits, then I would be happy." I've come to see th…

Some of us are trying to optimize for things other than happiness. An occasional bit of happiness can be a nice side effect of certain types of optimization but happiness isn't a reasonable goal to focus on by itself.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#35

Post by georgeburdell »

remram wrote: post #24

Those are great points! Another related law is from queuing theory: waiting time goes to infinity when utilization approaches 100%. You need your processes/machines/engineers to have some slack otherwise some tasks will wait forever.

Yep, I used to work in a factory. Target utilization at planning time was 80%. If you over-predict your utilization, you waste money. If you under-predict, a giant queue of “not important” stuff starts to develop

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#36

Post by ryandv »

whack wrote: post #18
raister wrote: post #8

This reminds me of Eli Goldratt's quote: "Tell me how you measure me, I will tell you how I behave."

Corollary: "If you do not measure me, I will not behave"

This is coming very close to denying the antecedent, one of the most basic formal logical fallacies.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#37

Post by I_AM_A_SMURF »

remram wrote: post #24

Those are great points! Another related law is from queuing theory: waiting time goes to infinity when utilization approaches 100%. You need your processes/machines/engineers to have some slack otherwise some tasks will wait forever.

That tracks. I worked at a lot of places/teams where anything but a P0 was something that would never be done.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#38

Post by projektfu »

And that's leaving out Jevon's paradox, where increasing efficiency in the use of some scarce resource sometimes/often increases its consumption, by making the unit price of the dependent thing affordable and increasing its demand. For example, gasoline has limited demand if it requires ten liters to go one km, but very high demand at 1 L/10km, even at the same price per liter.
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