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Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

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Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#371

Post by bumby »

xorcist wrote: post #361
bumby wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> private people) can decide to lower their risk exposure I think the complexities of modern societies make it too difficult to measure this risk adequately. We just don’t have the bandwidth to think about the second-and-third order effects for every social/financial interaction we encounter. And people are generally very poor at estimating high-consequence/low-probability events. This means people will often take ve…

It also doesn't strike me as very fair. If you smoke, should you not receive cancer care because you took unnecessary risk? I can see how you could arrive at similar conclusions from a risk management perspective, but it's not a morally just system. Within the system risk taking must be accepted.

Depending on your definition of “fair” this presupposes people are good at estimating risk. The above premise was is based on the fact that they are not. I think there’s a lot of behavioral research that backs that up.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#372

Post by xapata »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #370
xapata wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only that weren't called a "cycle" as if it had a predictable periodicity.

It has inevitability, but you're right, not predictable periodicity. Is predictable periodicity a necessary part of a cycle? I feel like the rise and fall of nations is a cycle, but not necessarily one of predictable periodicity.

If not predictability, then regularity, and I believe that's a fundamental misunderstanding -- the system is chaotic.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#373

Post by crazygringo »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #305
crazygringo wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they lock up the items that cumulatively lose the hardware store the most money, due to theft. > I doubt the optimization helped their bottom-line These seem to be in direct contradiction, unless you really think people have stopped going there because of it, to such an extent it outweighs the thefts . Especially when, if they stop going there, the competing local hardware superstore is probably doing the exact sam…

I doubt the optimization helped their bottom-line; I do not know it. It is possible for a business to make money without customers actually liking the company: hey, it works for some of the FA*NG companies! That said, there is something that feels 'off' about management obsessing over shrinkage to the point that the shopping experience begins to suck. It's not a truckstop or a drug store in a bad area... it's a hardw…

> It's not a truckstop or a drug store in a bad area... it's a hardware superstore.

I think that's where your misunderstanding might be.

Hardware superstores are extremely attractive targets for huge quantities of theft. You just seem to personally not be aware of it, and are under the mistaken impression that theft is something that happens mainly in truckstops in bad areas.

I think your suspicions are simply based on incorrect assumptions, both around the types of items that thieves steal, as well as the kinds of stores thieves target.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#374

Post by kjkjadksj »

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.

Maybe if you are a white male. Ever drive through a rural area a month out from this election? It’s a scary place, especially right now with the rhetoric being used just on the signs people are putting in their yards.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#375

Post by kjkjadksj »

consteval wrote: post #348
kortilla wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA has multiple of all of those and nearly entirely suburbs

Right, but if I had 1 hour in NYC versus 1 hour in LA how many clubs could I theoretically go to? Probably a dozen in NYC, provided I leave immediately. Probably about .5 in LA. So while what you're saying is true, it doesn't disprove anything. LA is much less dense and therefore has much less "stuff" available for its inhabitants. But it's still more than a rural area.

This might surprise the nyc residents on hn but you can find bars next to bars next to bars next to bars in LA too.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#376

Post by thomassmith65 »

crazygringo wrote: post #373
thomassmith65 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the optimization helped their bottom-line; I do not know it. It is possible for a business to make money without customers actually liking the company: hey, it works for some of the FA*NG companies! That said, there is something that feels 'off' about management obsessing over shrinkage to the point that the shopping experience begins to suck. It's not a truckstop or a drug store in a bad area... it's a hardw…

> It's not a truckstop or a drug store in a bad area... it's a hardware superstore. I think that's where your misunderstanding might be. Hardware superstores are extremely attractive targets for huge quantities of theft. You just seem to personally not be aware of it, and are under the mistaken impression that theft is something that happens mainly in truckstops in bad areas. I think your suspicions are simply based…

Great, the store is 100% justified. I'm still avoiding them, of course, because, given a choice, nobody wants to wait around ten minutes for an attendant.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#377

Post by throw10920 »

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…

This is a really manipulative way to categorically hand-wave away objections without actually responding to their content, in addition to having several logical fallacies (such as the appeal to emotion and the argument from authority). This is not in the spirit of intellectual curiosity that HN is for.
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