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Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

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Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#41

Post by toasterlovin »

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.

I’m remembering reading once that cities are incredibly efficient in how they use resources (compared to the suburbs and rural areas, I guess), and, in light of your comment about waiting time, I’m realizing why now why they’re so unpleasant: constant resource contention.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#42

Post by Jerrrrrrry »

nradov wrote: post #34
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.

Everyone wants to be happy, and we can't all be right, right?

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#44

Post by moefh »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #33
eventuallylive wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes, a corollary can be just the contrapositive of something you just proved. Sometimes it's even more trivial, like a special case of a general theorem you proved.

A very common use is to re-state something so it's in the exact form of something you said you'd prove. Another common case is to highlight a nice incidental result that's a bit outside the path towards the main result -- for example, it immediately follows (perhaps logically equivalent to) something that's been proven, but it's dressed in a way that catches the attention of someone who's just skimming.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#45

Post by [deleted] »

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."

[deleted]

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#46

Post by dangitman »

dooglius wrote: post #12

Overfitting may be a special case of Goodhart's Law, but I don't think Goodhart's Law in general is the same as overfitting, so I don't think the conclusion is well-supported supported in general; there may be plenty of instances of proxy measures that do not have issues. I'll also quibble with the example of obesity: the proxy isn't nutrient-rich good, but rather the evaluation function of human taste buds (e.g. sug…

[dead]

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#47

Post by hinkley »

usaphp wrote: post #40

I think it also applies to when managers try to overoptimize work process, in the end creative people lose interest and work becomes unbearable...little chaos is necessary in a work place/life imo...

I kill my desire to work on a lot of side projects by trying to over optimize the parts I’m not going to like doing. I should just do the yucky parts and get past them. But at least nobody is paying me to spiral.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#49

Post by hinkley »

eru wrote: post #28
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.

You can add a measure of robustness to your optimization criteria. You can explicitly optimise for having enough slack in your utilisation to handle these unforeseen circumstances. For example, you can assign priorities to the loads on your systems, so that you can shed lower priority loads to create some slack for emergencies, without having to run your system idle under during lulls. I get what the article is tryin…

The problem is that people who agree to a task being low priority still expect it to be done in nine months and all of a sudden they become high priority if that doesn’t happen.

So you’re fixing the micro economics of the queue but not the macro. Queues still suck when they fill up, even if they fill with last minute jobs.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#50

Post by hinkley »

I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: post #37
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.

Solution: everything is a P0!
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