3 ms·

I don't understand the relevance of that Wikipedia article

• LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  That nerve is a popular example of an optimization process that produced a local maximum which is highly sub-optimal. For various evolutionary reasons, a nerve routing that was direct and sensible when the aorta passed to, say, the gills of a fish, now makes a silly, circuitous route in modern mammals from the brain, down under the aorta near the heart, and back up into the neck...close to the brain. Natural selection has proven incapable of fixing this tangle. Similarly, organizational budgets that departments need to spend any way they can or suffer cuts next year seem silly. But they stem from reasonable policies, gradually changing and improving over time. Just like an organism can't sever its aorta and have a better routing of the nerve, organizations are incapable of getting from the current budget situation to a better one.
  • _bxg1 8y ago
    Thanks for the context.
  • sneak 8y ago
    Wow, that’s a great explanation, and I hadn’t even thought of it that way, myself. My take was a much simpler “just because there is a better way that exists doesn’t make it practically relevant, because entrenched tradition is usually more popular/widespread than efficiency”... but your boiling the frog idea shows even better how the mess comes about in the first place.