Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#351

Post by triceratops » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 4:04 PM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #99

vishnugupta wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that a 100% efficient system is not resilient. Even minor disruptions in subsystems lead to major breakdowns. There’s no room to absorb shocks. We saw a drastic version of this during COVID-19 induced supply chain collapse. Car manufacturers had built near 100% just in time manufacturing that they couldn’t absorb chip shortages and it took them years to get back up. It also leaves no room for experimentation.…

This is coincides with my headcannon cause of the business cycle. 1. Firms compete 2. Firms either increase their efficiency or die 3. Efficient firms are more susceptible to shocks 4. Firm shutdown and closures are themselves shocks 5. Eventually the system reaches a critical point where the aggregate susceptibility is higher than the aggregate of shocks that will be generated by shutdowns and closures 6. Any extern…

*head canon

Something you personally (in your head) believe to be a general law, or rule, or truth (canon). It's roughly synonymous with "mental model".

A cannon is a weapon.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#352

Post by anthonypasq » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 5:31 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #311

bob1029 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean & jerk is one of those movements that I would almost consider "complete". Especially if you are going to mix in variants of the squat. Not sure these are the best example. I don't know of anyone who can C&J more than their body weight for multiple repetitions who isn't also an absolute terminator at most other meaningful aspects of human fitness. Human body is one machine. Hormonal responses are global. Enduran…

IMO deadlift is another good one. If you could only do a single lift, I think you could make a pretty good case that it should be deadlift. Works damn near every muscle in your body, and gets your heart going pretty good too.

the deadlift has no pushing component and no coordination component. Clean and jerk is probably strictly superior

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#353

Post by nradov » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #349

nradov wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patients have time to shop for most healthcare services. Only a small fraction of healthcare spending is for emergencies. The highest cost stuff is mostly elective procedures. If you need a colonoscopy or hip replacement then you have time to shop around. Socialized healthcare has its advantages and is probably more cost effective on average. But we also see affluent Canadians coming to the USA as medical tourists an…

> Patients have time to shop for most healthcare services. Patients have the time but rarely have the actual ability to shop around outside asking "is this provider in my coverage plan?" They demand me to sign a document stating I'm willing and able to pay while often never being able to actually tell me what the procedure will actually cost. Often, they won't even know that same day the procedure is done, it'll be w…

It's unreasonable for you to expect a cost estimate on knee pain. You can ask the provider organization how much they charge for a regular office visit, and then check your coinsurance or copay amount. During the initial office visit the doctor is likely to recommend follow-up tests, imaging scans, medications, and/or physical therapy; you can then ask for price estimates on those additional services.

The No Surprises Act does give patients some protection against high charges for out-of-network services.

https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/no-surprises-unders...

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#354

Post by bmicraft » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 5:39 PM UTC

naming_the_user wrote: post #167

bmicraft wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to put it so bluntly, but you're basically saying: "I don't care it the climate's fucked, I want to live away from civilization and drive 100 miles a day everywhere" Of course we shouldn't hyper-optimize everything, but sooner people realize our environment depends on not everyone getting exactly what they want whenever they want the better. Living in a (walkable) city is just one such concession towards the en…

Or we could just compete with each other for resources as we have since forever. I’d rather do that than have no choice but to live in Kowloon. Just whack an externality tax on fossil fuels and things like cutting down wilderness, job done.

We're already competing under capitalism, and clearly the end-state isn't who'll get the most of what we already have, but who'll get the most of what's yet to get exploited. This competition doesn't have any upper bounds.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#355

Post by its_bbq » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 6:57 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #159

its_bbq wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean I'm general, I'd rather buy fewer of the same things no matter if it's cheap or expensive if I didn't have to, and it would use less resources. Juicing someone's quarterly sales report is no good reason for me to buy a refrigerator, yet here we are.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#356

Post by RGamma » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 7:20 PM UTC

refibrillator wrote: post #55

I recognize the author Jascha as an incredibly brilliant ML researcher, formerly at Google Brain and now at Anthropic. Among his notable accomplishments, he and coauthors mathematically characterized the propagation of signals through deep neural networks via techniques from physics and statistics (mean field and free probability theory). Leading to arguably some of the most profound yet under-appreciated theoretical…

Brilliant enough to know he's helping build another atom bomb (presumably for peanuts)? And the nuclear briefcase is gonna be controlled by the ultrarich.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#357

Post by toasterlovin » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

nuancebydefault wrote: post #124

toasterlovin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the other hand, in cities people are queueing up and talking at the bakery counter. While people in the suburbs are listening to the radio while driving to the bakery. I guess you choose to live where you feel most comfortable.

FWIW, my experience is that people are friendlier and more likely to make conversation outside of urban areas.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#358

Post by toasterlovin » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 7:46 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #85

toasterlovin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The efficiency results in abundance not possible in less dense areas, you are waiting for things that are simply not available elsewhere.

It allows for a greater variety of things (museums, concerts, etc.), but to get that you have to deal with higher contention and, thus, costs across all things (whether in terms of time spent waiting or money spent outbidding others), including, crucially, the things you consume the most of (roads, housing, etc.). So maybe a good way to think about it is: if you have a lifestyle that requires a modest amount of most resources, then the variety provided by density may be worth the increased resource contention, but if you have a lifestyle that requires a lot of certain resources (like space for kids), then the tradeoff may no longer make sense.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#359

Post by nuancebydefault » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 9:17 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #357

nuancebydefault wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, in cities people are queueing up and talking at the bakery counter. While people in the suburbs are listening to the radio while driving to the bakery. I guess you choose to live where you feel most comfortable.

FWIW, my experience is that people are friendlier and more likely to make conversation outside of urban areas.

In fact that is also my experience but while urban people driving in the car they typically aren't talking to strangers

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#360

Post by vel0city » Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 9:41 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #353

vel0city wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Patients have time to shop for most healthcare services. Patients have the time but rarely have the actual ability to shop around outside asking "is this provider in my coverage plan?" They demand me to sign a document stating I'm willing and able to pay while often never being able to actually tell me what the procedure will actually cost. Often, they won't even know that same day the procedure is done, it'll be w…

It's unreasonable for you to expect a cost estimate on knee pain. You can ask the provider organization how much they charge for a regular office visit, and then check your coinsurance or copay amount. During the initial office visit the doctor is likely to recommend follow-up tests, imaging scans, medications, and/or physical therapy; you can then ask for price estimates on those additional services. The No Surprise…

> It's unreasonable for you to expect a cost estimate on knee pain

Ok, but then it goes back to this idea of queueing and the "free market". Ok, so it'll take me a few weeks to go to the first doctor just to get his paid estimate. If I don't like whatever estimate he gives (which once again he probably won't directly) what am I to do? Start calling around, make another appointment with someone else several weeks later and pay yet another appointment fee? Hope his prices are better? Rinse and repeat to get a few quotes?

And so continuing the burger example, you call ahead to book a time well in advance and pay $2 just to be able to look at the menu. What a free market.

One of my kids had to get tubes in his ears. I didn't actually get a good faith estimate of cost until that morning in the hospital despite calling several times. I had to schedule, wait weeks, show up early in the morning, and refuse to sign for the financial liability until I got an actual estimate. Free markets at work here guys, totally not a broken system, easily just shop around. And yeah, sure, I could have gone to see a different audiologist and then gone through scheduling it all again and waiting another few months and a couple hundred dollars. After all its just my kid's speech development, no big deal delaying that another month or two (or three).

At least it's good to see this No Surprises Bill solved at least that one example of the healthcare industry screwing people over. Thanks for sharing that.