6 ms·

Bleh, there’s enough efficiency porn out there already. There is such a thing as balance and it’s important. To me the society we live in that’s all about optim

Bleh, there’s enough efficiency porn out there already. There is such a thing as balance and it’s important. To me the society we live in that’s all about optimization and the management of the world/life as some technical apparatus or system is quite empty and I think a big reason a lot of people who are extremely “successful” sometimes grapple with severe depression and dissatisfaction in spite of all their material success. George Bataille had a theory that excess and pointless expenditure was actually integral to the well being of human societies (his explanation for why ancient societies participated in practices that were, from an economic standpoint, totally wasteful, such as extreme rituals of extravagance, sacrifice, etc.) humans need a release valve, and I think “wasted energy”, debauchery, etc. is precisely this mechanism—even in minor ways. > 80% of every proof is garbage - it’s a series of mindless algebra, and doing the obvious thing. When my goal is to learn, I want to find that 20% that is insightful, the steps that I would struggle to come up with myself Right, once we do something long enough, it’s easy to take all the bits that are the foundation for what we’re doing for granted—but not everything is about returns, there is such a thing as discipline, rigor, the traditions of the art—and while the steps are tedious, they subtly reinforce core tenants when you encounter them, and that’s important.

donw 6y ago
I came here, apparently, to agree with you strongly. The ceiling in my house is, upstairs, roughly one meter above my head. Downstairs, I've got maybe two? That is "wasted space". It takes more energy to heat, and uses more building materials. Efficiency dictates that I do not need that extra airspace above my noggin, and thus it should not exist. But it feels better. When I lived in Berlin, the doors and ceilings felt as if they were built for a race of giants -- much taller, and much wider, then they needed to be. And it was wonderful. It took some getting used to, but I could feel the difference. Japan is full of inefficiency. There are people, human beings in pressed shirts and white gloves, that manually clear trains for departure on crowded platforms. Even when things aren't crowded, there is almost always a person on every train platform in Tokyo. And that feels better, too. Yes, the automated systems -- which exist! -- probably do more for safety. But I really like knowing that I can scream out for help, and another human being has a job description that involves "hear me" and "send aid." Because I'm an engineer, and I know full well how often we miss edge cases. And, yes, this is less efficient. And my ticket might be a little cheaper if we had robots doing all the work. But those people do an important job. I am glad they are there, doing that job. I really don't want to those jobs "efficiented" away by a bunch of management experts who are chauffeured about in cars with tinted windows, and never ride the trains anyway. Games are inefficient. But they make us happy. Love is inefficient. One could make he argument that it would be better for society if computers assigned relationships based genetic/personality/economic/whatever criteria. But I don't think any of us want that, either. Gattica was a dystopia. I'm not sure how, but we need to capture the idea that human happiness requires that every system have, built-in, a certain amount of inefficiency.
- kiba 6y ago
  Yes, the automated systems -- which exist! -- probably do more for safety. But I really like knowing that I can scream out for help, and another human being has a job description that involves "hear me" and "send aid." Because I'm an engineer, and I know full well how often we miss edge cases. Uh, no? Maybe humans actually add in safety. Why do you think we have pilots in airplanes? Humans are underrated. I really don't want to those jobs "efficiented" away by a bunch of management experts who are chauffeured about in cars with tinted windows, and never ride the trains anyway. I am sure if you listen to beancounters, you won't save money and actually drive the system to the ground and make people unhappy. I'm not sure how, but we need to capture the idea that human happiness requires that every system have, built-in, a certain amount of inefficiency. You exclude human happiness from the definition of efficiency. Love is inefficient. One could make he argument that it would be better for society if computers assigned relationships based genetic/personality/economic/whatever criteria. But I don't think any of us want that, either. Gattica was a dystopia. Why would anybody think this would be efficient or that it works at all?
  - donw 6y ago
    > Humans are underrated. Absolutely. > I am sure if you listen to beancounters, you won't save money and actually drive the system to the ground and make people unhappy. Yes and no. Economic realities are a thing. Organizations that stop producing enough income to cover their expenses soon stop being organizations. The problem isn't necessarily the counting of beans, but rather how beans distribute over time. There's a balance to strike there, and both the cultural and regulatory environments in the US push very strongly towards "acquire beans today, regardless as to what this does to tomorrow's bean-acquisition capabilities". So, yes, the Counters of Beans get a say. Their input matters. But it's not the only thing that needs to be factored.
  - ilammy 6y ago
    > Why do you think we have pilots in airplanes? For a number of reasons. First of all, to act as a backup, assistant, babysitter, and replacement for the autopilot in modern planes. Exactly what GP says: to cover up for missed edge cases and unimplemented features. Autopilots are great and can do much, but not everything (yet?) Then, there's a thing called “culpability”. You can’t blame a machine but you can blame a person when an accident does happen. Accidents can be happily resolved as “pilot error” without having to call back the entire fleet of aircraft. Also, human passengers usually feel much more safe and calm when they know that their potentially fatal transport is controlled by a fellow human, just like them, instead of some soulless machine that can murder you all without so much as a blink if it goes awry. Some time ago elevators were not that safe and had elevator attendants, now they are safe enough for passengers to be fine with a computer controlling them.
sifar 6y ago
In fact, it can be argued that hyper efficient systems are pretty fragile and hence should be avoided. Systems need some slack.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Similarly, too much slack can create its own problems. The real answer is that it depends.
  - vidanay 6y ago
    It's almost as if Real Life is analog and not digital.
m463 6y ago
> There is such a thing as balance and it’s important. That's ergonomics in a nutshell. Keep your head balanced on top of your shoulders, not tilted up or down, your shoulders relaxed, wrists supported and your torso and spine straight. :)
dmje 6y ago
Totally. Art and meaning doesn't come from "efficiency". And try stressing a totally "efficient" system - one which has no contingency. Take the uk school system, NHS or social care right now. These are systems that an "austerity" government has tried to make "efficient" by cutting down to bare bones. Add in a stressor like a pandemic? Things break very quickly. Same with individual mental health. We're here for a limited time. Enjoy it rather than optimising all the time. That doesn't mean sit on the sofa, it just means have balance.
- atoav 6y ago
  Interestingly these cuts always affect social things that exist for the benefit of all: healthcare, education, environmental protection, art. Meanwhile we truck our goods around while trains would be much more efficient. Trucks are only cheap because we subsidise them through the roads they are using. Few people are aware that road wear increases to the fourth (!) power with axle weight. That means cars or bicycles are even ignored in the calculation because they do so little damage, while trucks are responsible for nearly all of it. But they don't pay for nearly all of it – we do. In the meantime trains have to maintain their own rail system.
  - zdkl 6y ago
    That's a weird area to to want to de-socialise costs! If trucking costs go up to cover wear, urban end-users probably won't notice much cost difference (bit of change to last-mile infrastructure at most) while remote communities would be bled dry then cutoff (where the "last-mile" location is impractical for tracks). And probably the same fate for small and medium agricultural concerns who won't necessarily be able to privately link up to the network.
    - rini17 6y ago
      How comes 100yr ago it was practical to build narrow gauge everywhere (in the mountains nevertheless - in hungarian carpathians, to haul lumber and ore, but once built it was used for passengers too) but now suddenly it's a problem? Similarly with electricity - long time ago it was possible to electrify remote communities but now pulling fiber there is such a problem that we view satellites as better alternative?
neelnanda 6y ago
Hey! Author of the piece here Thanks for the feedback, this prompted me to add an afterword to the piece about the dangers of optimising too hard. To me there's a pretty important difference between 'it is systematically bad to do anything about inefficiency' and 'sometimes inefficiency is protecting something important'. I strongly agree with the second one, but strongly disagree with the first one. I think that, empirically, there often are free wins, such as making learning more efficient. And sometimes inefficiency and balance is important, but sometimes it's not, and the skill is telling the difference. For example, I think leisure time is great, but this is because it's time to relax, take breaks and do what I enjoy. Not just because it's time that I spend not being productive. If I notice a bunch of time in my schedule not being productive, but also not enjoying myself, eg commuting to work, finding ways to swap that for more true leisure time is a good way to reduce wasted motion You might enjoy a post I wrote on the importance of leaving Slack and spare capacity in your life: https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/38-slack https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/38-slack - essentially on the importance of leaving some inefficiency, so you can be flexible and reactive, and seize new opportunities.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Optimizing and efficiency/time management can be a form of mental masturbation/distraction, in itself. ...but I don't think that means it lacks value. I think it just means we haven't solved the problem yet, because it is as complex as our psyche is. I have found techniques that optimize my performance despite reading and testing techniques far more techniques that provided low-value. Maybe what's needed is a meta-analysis of the field, better descriptions/sub-divisions of the (similar) problems, and thereby more tailored approaches to efficiency management.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
Completely agree. Excess is not actually pointless: it makes people feel very good and comfortable. People say it's pointless because they're looking at the big picture and thinking "this is wasteful since it does not advance the family/corporation/nation/species". It does advance the person's individual goals and desires though. Humanity is not a Borg collective.
little_hills 6y ago
> George Bataille had a theory that excess and pointless expenditure... Have you got a link or reference for this that I can explore? I'd be interested in reading what he had to say here.

donw 6y ago

I came here, apparently, to agree with you strongly. The ceiling in my house is, upstairs, roughly one meter above my head. Downstairs, I've got maybe two? That is "wasted space". It takes more energy to heat, and uses more building materials. Efficiency dictates that I do not need that extra airspace above my noggin, and thus it should not exist. But it feels better. When I lived in Berlin, the doors and ceilings felt as if they were built for a race of giants -- much taller, and much wider, then they needed to be. And it was wonderful. It took some getting used to, but I could feel the difference. Japan is full of inefficiency. There are people, human beings in pressed shirts and white gloves, that manually clear trains for departure on crowded platforms. Even when things aren't crowded, there is almost always a person on every train platform in Tokyo. And that feels better, too. Yes, the automated systems -- which exist! -- probably do more for safety. But I really like knowing that I can scream out for help, and another human being has a job description that involves "hear me" and "send aid." Because I'm an engineer, and I know full well how often we miss edge cases. And, yes, this is less efficient. And my ticket might be a little cheaper if we had robots doing all the work. But those people do an important job. I am glad they are there, doing that job. I really don't want to those jobs "efficiented" away by a bunch of management experts who are chauffeured about in cars with tinted windows, and never ride the trains anyway. Games are inefficient. But they make us happy. Love is inefficient. One could make he argument that it would be better for society if computers assigned relationships based genetic/personality/economic/whatever criteria. But I don't think any of us want that, either. Gattica was a dystopia. I'm not sure how, but we need to capture the idea that human happiness requires that every system have, built-in, a certain amount of inefficiency.

kiba 6y ago
Yes, the automated systems -- which exist! -- probably do more for safety. But I really like knowing that I can scream out for help, and another human being has a job description that involves "hear me" and "send aid." Because I'm an engineer, and I know full well how often we miss edge cases. Uh, no? Maybe humans actually add in safety. Why do you think we have pilots in airplanes? Humans are underrated. I really don't want to those jobs "efficiented" away by a bunch of management experts who are chauffeured about in cars with tinted windows, and never ride the trains anyway. I am sure if you listen to beancounters, you won't save money and actually drive the system to the ground and make people unhappy. I'm not sure how, but we need to capture the idea that human happiness requires that every system have, built-in, a certain amount of inefficiency. You exclude human happiness from the definition of efficiency. Love is inefficient. One could make he argument that it would be better for society if computers assigned relationships based genetic/personality/economic/whatever criteria. But I don't think any of us want that, either. Gattica was a dystopia. Why would anybody think this would be efficient or that it works at all?
- donw 6y ago
  > Humans are underrated. Absolutely. > I am sure if you listen to beancounters, you won't save money and actually drive the system to the ground and make people unhappy. Yes and no. Economic realities are a thing. Organizations that stop producing enough income to cover their expenses soon stop being organizations. The problem isn't necessarily the counting of beans, but rather how beans distribute over time. There's a balance to strike there, and both the cultural and regulatory environments in the US push very strongly towards "acquire beans today, regardless as to what this does to tomorrow's bean-acquisition capabilities". So, yes, the Counters of Beans get a say. Their input matters. But it's not the only thing that needs to be factored.
- ilammy 6y ago
  > Why do you think we have pilots in airplanes? For a number of reasons. First of all, to act as a backup, assistant, babysitter, and replacement for the autopilot in modern planes. Exactly what GP says: to cover up for missed edge cases and unimplemented features. Autopilots are great and can do much, but not everything (yet?) Then, there's a thing called “culpability”. You can’t blame a machine but you can blame a person when an accident does happen. Accidents can be happily resolved as “pilot error” without having to call back the entire fleet of aircraft. Also, human passengers usually feel much more safe and calm when they know that their potentially fatal transport is controlled by a fellow human, just like them, instead of some soulless machine that can murder you all without so much as a blink if it goes awry. Some time ago elevators were not that safe and had elevator attendants, now they are safe enough for passengers to be fine with a computer controlling them.

sifar 6y ago

In fact, it can be argued that hyper efficient systems are pretty fragile and hence should be avoided. Systems need some slack.

koheripbal 6y ago
Similarly, too much slack can create its own problems. The real answer is that it depends.
- vidanay 6y ago
  It's almost as if Real Life is analog and not digital.

m463 6y ago

> There is such a thing as balance and it’s important. That's ergonomics in a nutshell. Keep your head balanced on top of your shoulders, not tilted up or down, your shoulders relaxed, wrists supported and your torso and spine straight. :)

dmje 6y ago

Totally. Art and meaning doesn't come from "efficiency". And try stressing a totally "efficient" system - one which has no contingency. Take the uk school system, NHS or social care right now. These are systems that an "austerity" government has tried to make "efficient" by cutting down to bare bones. Add in a stressor like a pandemic? Things break very quickly. Same with individual mental health. We're here for a limited time. Enjoy it rather than optimising all the time. That doesn't mean sit on the sofa, it just means have balance.

atoav 6y ago
Interestingly these cuts always affect social things that exist for the benefit of all: healthcare, education, environmental protection, art. Meanwhile we truck our goods around while trains would be much more efficient. Trucks are only cheap because we subsidise them through the roads they are using. Few people are aware that road wear increases to the fourth (!) power with axle weight. That means cars or bicycles are even ignored in the calculation because they do so little damage, while trucks are responsible for nearly all of it. But they don't pay for nearly all of it – we do. In the meantime trains have to maintain their own rail system.
- zdkl 6y ago
  That's a weird area to to want to de-socialise costs! If trucking costs go up to cover wear, urban end-users probably won't notice much cost difference (bit of change to last-mile infrastructure at most) while remote communities would be bled dry then cutoff (where the "last-mile" location is impractical for tracks). And probably the same fate for small and medium agricultural concerns who won't necessarily be able to privately link up to the network.
  - rini17 6y ago
    How comes 100yr ago it was practical to build narrow gauge everywhere (in the mountains nevertheless - in hungarian carpathians, to haul lumber and ore, but once built it was used for passengers too) but now suddenly it's a problem? Similarly with electricity - long time ago it was possible to electrify remote communities but now pulling fiber there is such a problem that we view satellites as better alternative?

neelnanda 6y ago

Hey! Author of the piece here Thanks for the feedback, this prompted me to add an afterword to the piece about the dangers of optimising too hard. To me there's a pretty important difference between 'it is systematically bad to do anything about inefficiency' and 'sometimes inefficiency is protecting something important'. I strongly agree with the second one, but strongly disagree with the first one. I think that, empirically, there often are free wins, such as making learning more efficient. And sometimes inefficiency and balance is important, but sometimes it's not, and the skill is telling the difference. For example, I think leisure time is great, but this is because it's time to relax, take breaks and do what I enjoy. Not just because it's time that I spend not being productive. If I notice a bunch of time in my schedule not being productive, but also not enjoying myself, eg commuting to work, finding ways to swap that for more true leisure time is a good way to reduce wasted motion You might enjoy a post I wrote on the importance of leaving Slack and spare capacity in your life: https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/38-slack https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/38-slack - essentially on the importance of leaving some inefficiency, so you can be flexible and reactive, and seize new opportunities.

koheripbal 6y ago
Optimizing and efficiency/time management can be a form of mental masturbation/distraction, in itself. ...but I don't think that means it lacks value. I think it just means we haven't solved the problem yet, because it is as complex as our psyche is. I have found techniques that optimize my performance despite reading and testing techniques far more techniques that provided low-value. Maybe what's needed is a meta-analysis of the field, better descriptions/sub-divisions of the (similar) problems, and thereby more tailored approaches to efficiency management.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

Completely agree. Excess is not actually pointless: it makes people feel very good and comfortable. People say it's pointless because they're looking at the big picture and thinking "this is wasteful since it does not advance the family/corporation/nation/species". It does advance the person's individual goals and desires though. Humanity is not a Borg collective.

little_hills 6y ago

> George Bataille had a theory that excess and pointless expenditure... Have you got a link or reference for this that I can explore? I'd be interested in reading what he had to say here.