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https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-limits-of-opt...
HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27671502
This is a great heuristic for life. The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics does not apply to human behaviour and simple answers to social problems are almost always oversimplified.
If people use your system then get comfortable with many levels of adjustments and tweaks. y=mx+c isn't gonna cut it.
This cognitive bias often manifests as a desire to do a greenfield refactor of an old system, ignoring the value of all the tweaks and shims added over the years to accomodate the real world.
>> if a thing is made straight it will be because humanity has been stripped out of it This is a great heuristic for life. The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics does not apply to human behaviour and simple answers to social problems are almost always over simplified. If people use your system then get comfortable with many levels of adjustments and tweaks. y=mx+c isn't gonna cut it. This cognitive bias often…
>> if a thing is made straight it will be because humanity has been stripped out of it This is a great heuristic for life. The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics does not apply to human behaviour and simple answers to social problems are almost always over simplified. If people use your system then get comfortable with many levels of adjustments and tweaks. y=mx+c isn't gonna cut it. This cognitive bias often…
Reductionism is a hazard, but overcomplication can also be an unhealthy sign. Epicycles come to mind.
For minds trained on physics and chemistry where mathematics is unreasonably effective, epicycles are a 'code smell' to be eliminated — there must be a simpler expression of the system.
This instinct has to be discarded when working with messy complex human beings.
Sympathize with view in article. But straight things can be made from crookedness. Classic example: Single cake. Two crooked children. Greedy. But rule is one cuts; other chooses. Perhaps argue that humanity stripped. I think not. Of course, meta-problem: how to ensure that is technique? How to ensure exploitation of technique: "you cut" (because I know you can't cut straight). Still, meaningless for technocrat to fe…
> Single cake. Two crooked children. Greedy. But rule is one cuts; other chooses. Unlike a lot of more complex models, that one really works in practice. Game theory rises to the level of Solomon. Has it ever failed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reductionism is a hazard, but overcomplication can also be an unhealthy sign. Epicycles come to mind.
Perfect example. For minds trained on physics and chemistry where mathematics is unreasonably effective, epicycles are a 'code smell' to be eliminated — there must be a simpler expression of the system. This instinct has to be discarded when working with messy complex human beings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I’d similarly argue that some people are much more good (in the sense that their work actively makes society better). Their concentration is also higher near the centers of power. An awful lot of people go into government out of a genuine love of their country.
I understand your point, but strong disagree from experience. What do you think happens to people who want to do good by approaching positions of power? In my experience, friends who became teachers or cops, they either became evil/abusive themselves, or they were pushed into depression by social exclusion and either left or killed themselves. These are some of the jobs with the highest suicide levels, precisely beca…
What data are you using please?
Sympathize with view in article. But straight things can be made from crookedness. Classic example: Single cake. Two crooked children. Greedy. But rule is one cuts; other chooses. Perhaps argue that humanity stripped. I think not. Of course, meta-problem: how to ensure that is technique? How to ensure exploitation of technique: "you cut" (because I know you can't cut straight). Still, meaningless for technocrat to fe…
> Single cake. Two crooked children. Greedy. But rule is one cuts; other chooses. Unlike a lot of more complex models, that one really works in practice. Game theory rises to the level of Solomon. Has it ever failed?
There’s a reason we study the Prisoner’s dilemma and its failure modes.
With regards to the cake example more specifically, what makes it somewhat trivial is that the state of the world is fully observable, utilities are easily computable (volume of cake), etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. There is a spectrum and some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I suspect that many of the attempts at social cleansing are natural (though not necessarily just) reactions to other less visible evils carried out over longer periods of time by those in power. Clearly the Bolsheviks in Russia were n…
I think you’re mistaken, at least about the French revolution. It was carried out by rich people, looking for more power, making use of a common and regular occurence of popular uprising (Jacqueries, in political science, is the name of those quite common « revolutions »). Royalty does not necessarily cause misery, Sweden, Spain, the UK are all monarchies. Colbert and Louis XIV built a lot of foundations that you kno…
It is always thus; one must belong in order to revolt. In fact that was successfully exploited by the Swedish King in the mid 16th century by wiping out a significant chunk of disaffected aristocrats to form a moat between the monarchy and the classes that couldn't afford to revolt. A similar strategy was taken by Louis XIV by forcing the aristos to move to Versailles away from their intrinsic power bases. Of course in bot cases this just delayed things and the middle classes formed alliances with aristos and overthrow those regimes too.
You see this also in both competing sides of the Chinese civil war, Viet Nam's and India's independence movements, the Bolsheviks, US revolution and its civil war, etc. The hagiographic retellings always emphasize of the popular underpinnings in order to try to establish or maintain legitimacy, but it is never the case.
Wonderful post. I have this loose hypothesis that stacking a lot of crooked timber builds something that you could almost call straight. But it takes time and it may not be stable. In any case if biology gives you crooked timber you better become an expert carpender.