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A pattern that you see almost everywhere is: imperfect incentives/objectives + strong competition = perverse outcomes Over the last decades, we're increasingly
by smallnamespace 10y ago
A pattern that you see almost everywhere is: imperfect incentives/objectives + strong competition = perverse outcomes
Over the last decades, we're increasingly seeing this in academia (publish or perish), the corporate world (boost the bottom-line at the expense of everything else), politics (win the election even if you have to burn your own party to the ground), and many other walks of life, as the world has gotten more competitive.
To fix this, you can either fix the objective (which may be very difficult), or you can reduce the level of competition.
- Retric 10y agoThis also causes some odd results. If the MIT/Caltech/Harvard/etc student bodies are generally less intelligent than you might expect and often boring people. You see the same thing at most national level high school competitions. The surface details may seem very diverse, but underneath that they tend to have a lot in common.
- baq 10y ago> imperfect incentives/objectives + strong competition = perverse outcomes if you think about it, it's just a rephrasing of 'survival of the fittest'.