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> [...] until their internal bureaucracy strangles them. I think that standard microeconomics textbooks state empirical efficiency curves tend to have an inver

by nextos 4y ago

> [...] until their internal bureaucracy strangles them. I think that standard microeconomics textbooks state empirical efficiency curves tend to have an inverted U shape, so beyond certain size things get more and more inefficient. Bureaucracy, politics and communication play a significant role here. This is also what I have observed in academic and industrial labs, which scale far less than companies. Beyond certain size, quite small in fact, most managers become rent seekers and the whole thing collapses in slow motion. I think that this is a significant problem for society, as it leads to a massive waste of resources. There should be better ways to scale up organizations, or to build federated ones. Biological organisms are much better organized than us. We can do better.

nneonneo 4y ago
> Biological organisms are much better organized than us. We can do better. If you’re referring to the fact that an organism like a human body can function with trillions of individual cells, it is indeed marvelous and quite well organized. But, cells and people are different. Cells in your body are all genetically identical, and lack any form of “individuality”. Indeed, they possess genetic fetters that will cause them to commit suicide should they become too unique, and should a cell manage to throw off all of those limitations they will become cancerous and potentially kill the entire host. Regulating a large and diverse set of individuals is a much harder problem than regulating an army of clones, after all.
- dekhn 4y ago
  I disagree with your assertion that cells in a body are all genetically identical- in addition to any cell-specific mutations (which occur any time cells divide) and epigenetics (which provides every cell with unique modifications), at any time a particular cell's RNA complement is unique and this can be used to cluster cells in a high dimensional space. If you just mean "all cells in a body have chromosomes ultimately descended from the gamete", then yeah, sure, but that doesn't really say anything about the full state of a complex organism (which depends on the instantaneous protein concentrations, damage, etc).
prng2021 4y ago
What do you mean by biological organisms? Don’t humans fall under that category? Saying bureaucracies are inefficient is just stating stating very common knowledge. Yes, large systems are difficult to control. Especially so when we’re talking about creatures like us with emotions, desires, a need to socialize with others, etc. I’d love to hear what better structure/design you have in mind that would scale better and be less inefficient. Fundamentally, groups of people need to have a leader in order to cooperate towards achieving some goal that each individual by themselves cannot achieve. And groups of leaders need a higher leader. The optimum group size is up for debate but not this fundamental requirement for this general structure. How do you make sure you don’t have bad leaders? Sorry you can’t. That’s an inevitable byproduct of being humans and not machines you can precisely measure and score.

by nextos 4y ago

nneonneo 4y ago

> Biological organisms are much better organized than us. We can do better. If you’re referring to the fact that an organism like a human body can function with trillions of individual cells, it is indeed marvelous and quite well organized. But, cells and people are different. Cells in your body are all genetically identical, and lack any form of “individuality”. Indeed, they possess genetic fetters that will cause them to commit suicide should they become too unique, and should a cell manage to throw off all of those limitations they will become cancerous and potentially kill the entire host. Regulating a large and diverse set of individuals is a much harder problem than regulating an army of clones, after all.

dekhn 4y ago
I disagree with your assertion that cells in a body are all genetically identical- in addition to any cell-specific mutations (which occur any time cells divide) and epigenetics (which provides every cell with unique modifications), at any time a particular cell's RNA complement is unique and this can be used to cluster cells in a high dimensional space. If you just mean "all cells in a body have chromosomes ultimately descended from the gamete", then yeah, sure, but that doesn't really say anything about the full state of a complex organism (which depends on the instantaneous protein concentrations, damage, etc).

prng2021 4y ago

What do you mean by biological organisms? Don’t humans fall under that category? Saying bureaucracies are inefficient is just stating stating very common knowledge. Yes, large systems are difficult to control. Especially so when we’re talking about creatures like us with emotions, desires, a need to socialize with others, etc. I’d love to hear what better structure/design you have in mind that would scale better and be less inefficient. Fundamentally, groups of people need to have a leader in order to cooperate towards achieving some goal that each individual by themselves cannot achieve. And groups of leaders need a higher leader. The optimum group size is up for debate but not this fundamental requirement for this general structure. How do you make sure you don’t have bad leaders? Sorry you can’t. That’s an inevitable byproduct of being humans and not machines you can precisely measure and score.