3 ms·

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? Th

by 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.
  - donw 6y ago
    > some soulless machine that can murder you all without so much as a blink if it goes awry. I believe this is called a "Porsche".
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    > Autopilots are great and can do much, but not everything (yet?) Biggest issue with autopilots is that, well, they're part of the machine, the human comes in very important when the machine is partially crippled - we've already seen what happens to automation when critical sensors fail in the 737 Max. > 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. That's not really the case, air accident investigations won't blame the pilots just because they're there. They'll happily point out design defects, or maintenance failures, or pilot error, if it was actually a contributing cause. Of course, plane manufacturers love being able to blame the pilots when their autopilot engages Kill All Humans mode.
porknubbins 6y ago
I think that the reason those examples of purposeful inefficiency are comforting is that they subtly signal our brains that resources are relatively abundant. When things are perfectly optimized and scheduled even though you rationally know that there is leeway it somehow trains your brain to feel like you are always on the edge of deprivation.
- donw 6y ago
  Interesting! I didn't think about things this way, but I suspect you are right.
WanderPanda 6y ago
Who decides what kinds of inefficiency are admitted? Sounds utterly dystopian to me too if some (small) group gets to decide what inefficiencies the society should pay for to satisfy their personal vanities. I believe if you go down that rabbit hole, you will find that there is not a single inefficiency that would be appreciated by a majority (if they were asked if they are willing to pay more). So in my opinion it needs to be bottom up with all power to the customer and not centrally assigned
- donw 6y ago
  > Who decides what kinds of inefficiency are admitted? Sounds utterly dystopian to me too if some (small) group gets to decide what inefficiencies the society should pay for to satisfy their personal vanities. Oh, absolutely. I would struggle to think of a worse way to do things. :) "Acceptable inefficiency" is a coordination problem, which are nominally solved via protected markets. To provide an example: let's say that you want all battery factories to operate cradle-to-grave with zero pollution. This is way more expensive than just dumping manufacturing byproducts into the nearest river. No one manufacturer is going to do this on their own, because it'll put them at a substantial disadvantage compared to their peers. However, if the market imposes that cost as an entry requirement -- to sell batteries, you must be certified pollution-free -- now you've leveled the playing field. Every player has the same requirements. This isn't a trivial thing, of course. You can't allow the shortcut of "move manufacturing to a place where we can fill the rivers with lithium and nobody in power is going to care". This also introduces two new problems: regulatory capture and corruption. If it's all-in cheaper to bribe, blackmail, or infiltrate the regulators, then that'll happen. And regulation is often used as a weapon against smaller or newer players. But I'd wager those are easier problems to solve.
SkyMarshal 6y ago
>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. Fwiw I concur, this was my first impression of Berlin the first time I went there too, and it felt amazing. Compared to NYC or the SF Bay Area where space is more at a premium. Berlin has the ability to build outwards and use space generously, where the other two are horizontal space-constrained and can only build upwards (and SF chooses not to).
coldtea 6y ago
>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. As long as it doesn't give you an urge to invade Poland, it's fine!
FriedrichN 6y ago
Efficiency is death of the soul because it tries to operationalize all aspects of life and when it can't it simply chooses to ignore it or undervalue it. It shouldn't be a big surprise that all things we enjoy are incredibly inefficient. But even when you can operationalize it, it doesn't account for the chaos. If every car was made exactly so to be able to carry an exact amount of weight (max. passengers * median baggage) you would be in trouble when you went out to get some bags of cement for example. The obsession with efficiency can become very inefficient very quickly.
thatcat 6y ago
It's not inefficient if you think of it as a larger gas reservoir, so the O2 and CO2 levels would stay stable for longer intervals without requiring circulation.

by donw 6y ago

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.
- donw 6y ago
  > some soulless machine that can murder you all without so much as a blink if it goes awry. I believe this is called a "Porsche".
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  > Autopilots are great and can do much, but not everything (yet?) Biggest issue with autopilots is that, well, they're part of the machine, the human comes in very important when the machine is partially crippled - we've already seen what happens to automation when critical sensors fail in the 737 Max. > 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. That's not really the case, air accident investigations won't blame the pilots just because they're there. They'll happily point out design defects, or maintenance failures, or pilot error, if it was actually a contributing cause. Of course, plane manufacturers love being able to blame the pilots when their autopilot engages Kill All Humans mode.

porknubbins 6y ago

I think that the reason those examples of purposeful inefficiency are comforting is that they subtly signal our brains that resources are relatively abundant. When things are perfectly optimized and scheduled even though you rationally know that there is leeway it somehow trains your brain to feel like you are always on the edge of deprivation.

donw 6y ago
Interesting! I didn't think about things this way, but I suspect you are right.

WanderPanda 6y ago

Who decides what kinds of inefficiency are admitted? Sounds utterly dystopian to me too if some (small) group gets to decide what inefficiencies the society should pay for to satisfy their personal vanities. I believe if you go down that rabbit hole, you will find that there is not a single inefficiency that would be appreciated by a majority (if they were asked if they are willing to pay more). So in my opinion it needs to be bottom up with all power to the customer and not centrally assigned

donw 6y ago
> Who decides what kinds of inefficiency are admitted? Sounds utterly dystopian to me too if some (small) group gets to decide what inefficiencies the society should pay for to satisfy their personal vanities. Oh, absolutely. I would struggle to think of a worse way to do things. :) "Acceptable inefficiency" is a coordination problem, which are nominally solved via protected markets. To provide an example: let's say that you want all battery factories to operate cradle-to-grave with zero pollution. This is way more expensive than just dumping manufacturing byproducts into the nearest river. No one manufacturer is going to do this on their own, because it'll put them at a substantial disadvantage compared to their peers. However, if the market imposes that cost as an entry requirement -- to sell batteries, you must be certified pollution-free -- now you've leveled the playing field. Every player has the same requirements. This isn't a trivial thing, of course. You can't allow the shortcut of "move manufacturing to a place where we can fill the rivers with lithium and nobody in power is going to care". This also introduces two new problems: regulatory capture and corruption. If it's all-in cheaper to bribe, blackmail, or infiltrate the regulators, then that'll happen. And regulation is often used as a weapon against smaller or newer players. But I'd wager those are easier problems to solve.

SkyMarshal 6y ago

>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. Fwiw I concur, this was my first impression of Berlin the first time I went there too, and it felt amazing. Compared to NYC or the SF Bay Area where space is more at a premium. Berlin has the ability to build outwards and use space generously, where the other two are horizontal space-constrained and can only build upwards (and SF chooses not to).

coldtea 6y ago

>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. As long as it doesn't give you an urge to invade Poland, it's fine!

FriedrichN 6y ago

Efficiency is death of the soul because it tries to operationalize all aspects of life and when it can't it simply chooses to ignore it or undervalue it. It shouldn't be a big surprise that all things we enjoy are incredibly inefficient. But even when you can operationalize it, it doesn't account for the chaos. If every car was made exactly so to be able to carry an exact amount of weight (max. passengers * median baggage) you would be in trouble when you went out to get some bags of cement for example. The obsession with efficiency can become very inefficient very quickly.

thatcat 6y ago

It's not inefficient if you think of it as a larger gas reservoir, so the O2 and CO2 levels would stay stable for longer intervals without requiring circulation.