Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
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Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#2With all due civility, this is stupid. The fact that we as a species are short staffed and short on time doesn't mean that engineering strategies are inappropriate. On the contrary, they're the only game in town. Triage and problem selection are themselves algorithms with defined optimisation criteria. That you take issue with the selection of those criteria (e.g. elegance, aesthetics) by people trying to solve their personal pain points doesn't repudiate the framework.
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#3With all due civility, this is stupid. The fact that we as a species are short staffed and short on time doesn't mean that engineering strategies are inappropriate. On the contrary, they're the only game in town. Triage and problem selection are themselves algorithms with defined optimisation criteria. That you take issue with the selection of those criteria (e.g. elegance, aesthetics) by people trying to solve their…
IF engineering strategies are not always inappropriate, does that necessarily imply that they are always appropriate?
I think the point of the post is that there's more to life than "frameworks". Not every problem is worth solving, and not every problem is an engineering problem.
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#4Not a very convincing article.
"Love, or happiness, and free will certainly aren’t. Or for
that matter, a lot of other “problems” being solved on the
internet today. Simply put, we can’t dedicate our energy to
fixing it all. Nor should we.
Sloppy, sloppy.
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#5With all due civility, this is stupid. The fact that we as a species are short staffed and short on time doesn't mean that engineering strategies are inappropriate. On the contrary, they're the only game in town. Triage and problem selection are themselves algorithms with defined optimisation criteria. That you take issue with the selection of those criteria (e.g. elegance, aesthetics) by people trying to solve their…
IF engineering strategies are not always inappropriate, does that necessarily imply that they are always appropriate? I think the point of the post is that there's more to life than "frameworks". Not every problem is worth solving, and not every problem is an engineering problem.
What's a non-engineering problem? The examples given in the article, love and happiness (I don't believe in free will), certainly are engineering problems; or rather, treating them as engineering problems (the "lifehacker" approach) will generally lead to greater success.
As for some problems not being worth solving, sure. But that's a key facet of the engineering/lifehacking approach: don't prematurely optimize, and don't try and optimize anything until you've figured out how to measure your goal.
So unless you have an example of a problem where engineering strategies don't apply, I'm going to keep applying them.
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#6 If developers tried to solve every problem the
way that life hackers try to add shortcuts to
their life, they would get nothing done.
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
IF engineering strategies are not always inappropriate, does that necessarily imply that they are always appropriate? I think the point of the post is that there's more to life than "frameworks". Not every problem is worth solving, and not every problem is an engineering problem.
What's a non-engineering problem? The examples given in the article, love and happiness (I don't believe in free will), certainly are engineering problems; or rather, treating them as engineering problems (the "lifehacker" approach) will generally lead to greater success. As for some problems not being worth solving, sure. But that's a key facet of the engineering/lifehacking approach: don't prematurely optimize, and…
The question isn't whether problems should be solved using engineering strategies -- in general, I agree that they should. Rather, it's whether everything in life is an engineering problem.
Here's an example: When I was 18 I wanted to listen to some new music. This was when we got our music on CDs, and we didn't have algorithms like iTunes Genius to help us find something we might like. I bought something just because I liked the cover art. Fortunately I ended up liking the album. (It was this one: http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/dink/dink/)
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's a non-engineering problem? The examples given in the article, love and happiness (I don't believe in free will), certainly are engineering problems; or rather, treating them as engineering problems (the "lifehacker" approach) will generally lead to greater success. As for some problems not being worth solving, sure. But that's a key facet of the engineering/lifehacking approach: don't prematurely optimize, and…
The question isn't whether problems should be solved using engineering strategies -- in general, I agree that they should. Rather, it's whether everything in life is an engineering problem. Here's an example: When I was 18 I wanted to listen to some new music. This was when we got our music on CDs, and we didn't have algorithms like iTunes Genius to help us find something we might like. I bought something just becaus…
Which shows... what, exactly? That a non-engineering approach to music discovery is better? No, you got lucky. That your music discovery procedure was adequate and not worth investing time to optimize? Sure, but that's an engineering judgement.
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#9This reminds me of Hamdy Taha and his textbook on Operations research, who proposed that simpler approaches should be approached first:
Responding to complaints of slow elevator service in a large office building, the OR team initially perceived the situation as a waiting-line problem that might require the use of mathematical queuing analysis or simulation. After studying the behavior of the people voicing the complaint, the psychologist on the team suggested installing full-length mirrors at the entrance to the elevators. Miraculously the complaints disappeared, as people were kept occupied watching themselves and others while waiting for the elevator.
update: fixed formatting.
Re: Life is Not Always An Engineering Problem.
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
IF engineering strategies are not always inappropriate, does that necessarily imply that they are always appropriate? I think the point of the post is that there's more to life than "frameworks". Not every problem is worth solving, and not every problem is an engineering problem.
What's a non-engineering problem? The examples given in the article, love and happiness (I don't believe in free will), certainly are engineering problems; or rather, treating them as engineering problems (the "lifehacker" approach) will generally lead to greater success. As for some problems not being worth solving, sure. But that's a key facet of the engineering/lifehacking approach: don't prematurely optimize, and…
I'm not looking for official citation, but it seems unjustified to state that "treating [love and happiness] as engineering problems will generally lead to greater success." I am open to that possibility, but it doesn't seem at all obviously true to me. For many people, I feel like letting there brains run on instinct works well for many problems. I feel confident there are certain problems where conscious decision making can actually get in the way.