111–120 of 137 posts
This is probably where I should mention my two longer articles that discuss this in depth; https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/06/09/goodharts-law-and-why-... https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/09/29/soft-bias-of-underspec... As well as my more recent paper categorizing the different ways it occurs; https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.04585
Since you’re here, what does the following property stand for in your second paper? s ∈ AifM(s)/gec
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> interviewer replied "that's a dumb answer a bit ot, but was that the actual response? personally, stuff like this would have me ending the interview early.
And what is your gentle phrasing for that action?
During the Vietnam War, it was body count. That turned out to be a great way of incentivizing the most murderous troops.
Probably more of an incentive for NCO's and Officers to overclaim the results, so they look good to their superiors.
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So then you add “size of customer base” to your metrics!
Doing so in a large software company would likely result in Sales & Marketing being empowered. Which in turn will likely lead to technical debt (as the company stretches to meet impractical promises), as well as stagnation in Engineering (S&M are delivering on the metrics, so they get promoted). In general, large organizations are like an AI. In this case, making a goal that won't backfire when applied without though…
This works great up until it doesn't.
And as soon as a measure becomes known, it becomes the target. IMO, the law ought to be "As soon as a measure becomes known it ceases to become a good measure." "I'm fat because I can't touch my toes? Hang on, I'll be back in three weeks." "What's that? Your measure for gas consumption and co2 emissions has you go exactly 35 MPH for 10 minutes? Hmm....."
More than that, CAFE standards have become the ceiling for fuel economy rather than the envisioned floor. Manufacturers game the system by classifying certain cars as SUVs, claiming extra credit for the ability to run E85, or practically giving away efficient but undesirable vehicle configurations in order to just meet the target and avoid the gas guzzler tax.
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If the North didn't have a capable fighting force any more, and still overwhelmed the South shortly after the US withdrew, that means the US did not actually establish a "a viable and increasingly democratic society" during the time it had a military presence there. Societal viability includes, at a minimum, being able to survive one's enemies. Enemies that were already drastically weakened during the period of US in…
Societal viability includes, at a minimum, being able to survive one's enemies. By that argument, all of western Europe didn't save a viable society since Germany was able to defeat them. I don't agree with that.
France today is not the same as France in 1939 - the period from 1870-1940 is generally considered the French Third Republic, and they're on the Fifth Republic now. Poland today is not the same as Poland in 1939. Germany today is certainly not the same as Germany in 1939. Not only are the people in charge different, but the whole system of government is different, the cultural values are different, and many of the cities were rebuilt from the ground up.
Just because a society collapses doesn't mean the people disappear, or even that they start to think of themselves as a different nationality. Society is all of the organizational superstructure on top of that, and barring rare cases like governments-in-exile-that-can-pick-up-where-they-left-off-when-liberated, that usually doesn't survive being defeated in warfare.
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I'm sorry but this is a serious (and arguably offensive) falsehood. A 'free fire' zone is an area wherein there is no requirement for soldiers to coordinate heavy arms fire with other units via HQ etc.. This is a very reasonable policy in jungle fights where units can come under ambush at any time, i.e. "We're in an ambush and we're about to die, can you ring up HQ to see if we can shoot back?" But the notion that US…
I'm sorry but this is a serious (and arguably offensive) falsehood. I'm sorry, but I will show you to be mistaken below. But the notion that US forces would just designate an area where everyone including civilians are to be killed is an outright and offensive lie. Then you should have an issue with the Ken Burns documentary. I think I got the terminology wrong; "free fire zone" means something else. However, the pra…
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>The US handily won the Vietnam war, full stop. >In classical terms is was a clear and unambiguous outright victory. The only measure of success is whether or not you accomplish your objectives. The US did not accomplish its objectives in Vietnam of keeping a US-friendly government in power. Regardless of tactical measures of success, the US failed in its strategic objectives. I agree that popular culture has not acc…
" The US did not accomplish its objectives in Vietnam of keeping a US-friendly government in power" Yes. They did. While there was conflict. Then they left, and effectively abandoned those objectives. When the North Vietnamese rebuilt it's army and re-invaded the South - propping up the S. Vietnamese government was obviously no longer a military objective, and barely a political one. So the US won a war, withdrew, an…
Until such was achieved, we had _always_ lost the war. Winning battles, paid for with American blood, was only a means of temporarily staving off the likely collapse for another year or two.
As for "abandoned", what does that even mean? The South had: large material advantages in artillery, vehicles, and AFVs; a significant air force (2000 craft), plus >10 years of a huge US training effort.
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I'm not making any contradictions. The Americans defeated the Viet Kong insurgency and the North Vietnamese, and then withdrew shortly thereafter. After a few years, the North Vietnamese were able to rebuild their Army. They invaded and toppled South Vietnam. Again, my point: people don't seem to have any idea of what actually happened.
I think Goodhart's law gives us a good insight. If the actual goal was to ensure the long term viability of a democratic South Vietnam, the endeavor failed. So what happened, is that the US government "gamed" it by targeting "Body Count" and "winning all the battles." In doing so, it failed to achieve the actual goal in its long term interest.
The military objectives were 'gamed' by using 'body count' which mislead us in terms of progress.(Actually, they were not 'gamed' so much as the old metric of 'body count' was not useful in this type of insurgency - so more a matter of 'lack of insight').
BUT - the strategic objectives did not fail for this reason.
The military objectives of defeating the VC and North Vietnamese were still outright successful. Despite all the challenges, it was a definitive military victory for the US: VC wiped out, North Vietnamese totally neutralized. The North Vietnamese basically surrendered their objectives and a 'peace treaty' was signed.
The 'failure' in Vietnam was a geopolitical one - once the US withdrew, the North Vietnamese rebuilt their army and waltzed into the South.
My point is - the two are separate issues.
The now accepted view of 'body count was misleading' actually did not fundamentally affect military outcomes. It was a bad measure, but the US still one. It affected some things, maybe a 'shock' to public opinion, but it was not existential in terms of changing the military outcomes.
The 'failed objectives' were simply due to (arguably premature) US withdrawal. You can see from US casualties [1] during the war that the war was 'won' (about mid 1970) several years before US withdrawal and even longer before a resurgent North Vietnamese invasion after US withdrawal.
Hence the confusion.
There were so many civilian casualties, so many geopolitical bits of ugliness, the US casualty rate was high enough, the terrible massacres on both sides - that all of this leaves us with a clouded view of the events.