What gets measured gets optimized
Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
151–160 of 377 posts
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#152See also antifragility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragility
In short, efficiency is fragile. If you want your thing to be be stronger after a shock (instead of falling apart), you must design it to be antifragile.
Note: it's hard to build antifragile physical things or software, but processes and organizations are easier. ML models can be antifragile if they're constantly updating.
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#153Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#154I have a pet theory that the state-planned economies failed not because they were inefficient (as neoclassical economics claims), but rather because they attempted to be too efficient. They tried to exactly calculate which producer needs what inputs, what they should produce and when, and a little deviation from the plan caused big cascading failures.
Free market is actually less efficient than direct control, but it is correspondingly more robust. This is evidenced in the big companies, which also sometimes try to control things in the name of "efficiency" and end up being quite inefficient. And also small companies, which are often competing and duplicating efforts.
The optimum (I hesitate it call that because it's not well-defined, it is in some sense a society's choice) seems to be somewhere in the middle - you need decent amount of central direction (almost all private companies have that) and redundancy (provided by investment funds on the free market).
(As aside, despite me being democratic socialist, I don't believe the democracy matters that much for economic development, but is desirable from a moral perspective. You can have a lot of economic development under authoritarian rule, there are examples on both sides, as most private companies are also actually small authoritarian fiefdoms.)
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#155There is a book on this topic, "Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned" https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-15524-1
There are many youtube videos where Ken explain those ideas, this one for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2I4E_UINRo
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#156“Though this pheonomenon is often discussed, it doesn't seem to be named. Let's call it the strong version of Goodhart's law“ I wonder why the author called it that way when this seems to me clearly derived from Ross Ashby‘s law of Requisite Variet[1], predating Goodhard by 20 years. As I see it, it is not even necessary to put more meaning it Goodhard as there actually is. Requisite Variety is sufficient. Going by h…
Love myself some cybernetics! All engineers are doing themselves a disservice by sitting here writing smooth-brained rants about “dumb MBAs making my job hard” instead of reading up on this field and understanding the true complexities that are inherent in people working together.
Agreed. I wonder if this is still the aftermath of the chasm which resulted when ‘Marvin Minsky et al‚ disowned Cybernetics, took some parts out of it and gave it a shiny new name.
Especially Systems Theory in its second manifestation (Maturana, Luhmann, von Förster, Glasersfeld - and Ackoff) is extremely powerful, deep and, reasons beyond me, totally overlooked.
Have to say tho, most MBA‘s I encountered sadly never ever heard of Cybernetics or Systems Theory. :-(
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#157I have a pet theory that the state-planned economies failed not because they were inefficient (as neoclassical economics claims), but rather because they attempted to be too efficient. They tried to exactly calculate which producer needs what inputs, what they should produce and when, and a little deviation from the plan caused big cascading failures. Free market is actually less efficient than direct control, but it…
> I have a pet theory that the state-planned economies failed not because they were inefficient
Well, a lot of it was corruption. A sufficient level of corruption can destroy almost any system, even if it had a well-meaning leader at the top.
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#158See also antifragility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragility In short, efficiency is fragile. If you want your thing to be be stronger after a shock (instead of falling apart), you must design it to be antifragile. Note: it's hard to build antifragile physical things or software, but processes and organizations are easier. ML models can be antifragile if they're constantly updating.
Yes, extending the idea more broadly to society, health, politics, etc. sounds pretty much was Taleb has been doing.
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be specific: if you can find a way to make fridges for half the previous cost, and you can sell them for three quarters the previous price, you don't want to talk people out of buying more fridges. In fact, them buying vastly more fridges is exactly what you want.
And not necessarily the long term result anybody wants
Same happened with Walkmans or desktop computer, or mobile phones etc.
It's pretty normal that people want less of stuff when it's expensive, and more when it's cheap.
Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)
#160I have a pet theory that the state-planned economies failed not because they were inefficient (as neoclassical economics claims), but rather because they attempted to be too efficient. They tried to exactly calculate which producer needs what inputs, what they should produce and when, and a little deviation from the plan caused big cascading failures. Free market is actually less efficient than direct control, but it…
On this side track to the discussion, I think that a major factor there was the location of decision making vs. where the action took place. Too much control was taken away from the location where it was needed.
Centralization does that, in general, not just in those countries.
There is a reason octopuses have sub-brains in their arms, and that some of our reflexes are controlled from neurons in the spine and not from all the way up in the brain, and why small army units have some autonomy.