4 ms·

I think the article doesn't say that the counterfactuals are not useful, it explicitly mentions they can be used as recommendations, as in "do not forget to mon

by js8 5y ago

I think the article doesn't say that the counterfactuals are not useful, it explicitly mentions they can be used as recommendations, as in "do not forget to monitor your disk space". What they say is that counterfactuals stop the search for the root cause. Not monitoring disk space isn't a root cause of the filled disk. The root cause might be "application has suddenly written too many logs". This gives another set of counterfactuals, like "if your application was configured properly, it would write less logs". But it also gives an option of continuing the search for the root cause, which might be, for example, "there is a bug in the application which triggered the log writes". I think the point of methods like 5 whys is not to stop at the first set of counterfactuals and deepen the search.

cycomanic 5y ago
Let's take a different example, the plane crashed because the landing gear did not retract. This is a counterfactual according to the article, do you really believe it stops us for looking at the root cause for why the landing gear didn't retract? In fact, I don't think we would be able to even investigate the root cause if we hadn't first identified the cause of the landing gear not retracting.
- js8 5y ago
  I think your example is not a counterfactual, because in your world, landing gear actually didn't retract. Remember, whether something is counterfactual or not depends on what the facts are. Had the landing gear been retracted in your hypothetical world, then it would be a counterfactual, but it probably wouldn't arise because it's not something out of ordinary - the landing gear retracting is a usual procedure. I think humans are more prone to make the mistake that is described in the article (stopping to search for the root cause) when they see a counterfactual conditional which premise is, in the factual, a procedural error (for example, "operator failed to monitor the disk space"). We see an error and mistake it for the root cause.

by js8 5y ago

cycomanic 5y ago

Let's take a different example, the plane crashed because the landing gear did not retract. This is a counterfactual according to the article, do you really believe it stops us for looking at the root cause for why the landing gear didn't retract? In fact, I don't think we would be able to even investigate the root cause if we hadn't first identified the cause of the landing gear not retracting.

js8 5y ago
I think your example is not a counterfactual, because in your world, landing gear actually didn't retract. Remember, whether something is counterfactual or not depends on what the facts are. Had the landing gear been retracted in your hypothetical world, then it would be a counterfactual, but it probably wouldn't arise because it's not something out of ordinary - the landing gear retracting is a usual procedure. I think humans are more prone to make the mistake that is described in the article (stopping to search for the root cause) when they see a counterfactual conditional which premise is, in the factual, a procedural error (for example, "operator failed to monitor the disk space"). We see an error and mistake it for the root cause.