4 ms·

Causality Is an Underrated Concept

43 points by astonfred 4y ago

jschveibinz 4y ago
It is true that causal analysis (root cause analysis) can be helpful in debugging just about anything. But, it requires looking backwards, which people/organizations don’t really like to do, in my experience. “Who wants to focus on bad stuff? Just patch it and move forward.” The article mentions chaos in support of causality, but it is most likely a dead end for root cause analysis. For anyone interested, here are some free templates/examples for root cause analysis: https://www.smartsheet.com/free-root-cause-analysis-templates-complete-collection?amp https://www.smartsheet.com/free-root-cause-analysis-template... Edit: And here are a couple of additional resources (note that the author R. Cook of “How Complex Systems Fail” has recently passed away - https://twitter.com/lund_hfss/status/1568242140546744322 https://twitter.com/lund_hfss/status/1568242140546744322 ) 1. A past HN discussion on system failure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25550685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25550685 2. “How Complex Systems Fail” by Dr. R. Cook https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/
- tialaramex 4y ago
  I'm sure you know this already but: The idea isn't so much backward looking but forward looking. "Why this won't happen again". What are we going to do in the future which prevents this, or at least makes it far less likely to recur ? Because if we change nothing, it's going to happen again. That's how history got that reputation for repeating itself. But in order to prevent it, we need to understand the causual chain in order to break it. For investigators whose work feeds into regulators it's a bit sadder because instead of "Why this won't happen again" the results are usually recommendations which, if followed, would prevent it happening again but you get used to them not being followed, so you're repeating yourself. "Why our previous advice would have prevented this from happening again".
  - oblak 4y ago
    Thanks for writing all that instead of me. I've heard the "we are not looking for someone to blame, just fix it" too many times. That sort of reasoning strikes me as protecting people's egos as if that's more important than not repeating the same thing over and over again. Both positions have merits, of course.
roenxi 4y ago
1. This article combines vague connections between chess, Indian philosophy, chemistry, life advice, quantum, etc. While I support the author in writing about whatever they feel like, there is a question what the upvoters on HN see in this. 2. If we're discussing the title... the reason people "underestimate" causality is because they've tried to use it a few times, been really wrong and learned not to do that again because a rational person doesn't trust their own ability to reason causally. See also; chess. It is really hard to assign causality in a 40 move game with a relatively limited number of choices each move. Assigning causality in reality is even harder. Getting it right is a very specialist skill.
- fny 4y ago
  > there is a question what the upvoters on HN see in this There's a cadre of HN LSD-microdosers that probably see a lot of things.
  - archibaldJ 4y ago
    It is, however, true that with higher dosage causality starts to breakdown (at least conceptually): You didn't come to this world. It is this world which came to you. ... in the same way that you didn't take the LSD.. it was the LSD that took you. ------ Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure the article is generated by GPT3 :P
contravariant 4y ago
This article is all over the place. Chaos theory, Karma, Gaia theory, relationship advice, Einstein. It's got everything but a coherent story. Was this generated by an AI or something?
- causality0 4y ago
  Sadly "being utter drivel" is not on the flaggable rule list.
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    You can flag anything for any reason.
    - causality0 4y ago
      Making a habit of flagging things that don't break the guidelines is a good way to get dang to disable your ability to flag anything at all.
      - lostmsu 4y ago
        Usually when I feel that the article deserves to be flagged, it does turn out to violate guidelines. The main suspect is a low quality post with high number of upvotes. This one for instance is a self-promotion.
anotherOneSound 4y ago
i’m curious, do objects appear to your senses, or do your senses (and predilections) appear to objects? > rescues the a priori origin of the pure concepts of the understanding and the validity of the general laws of nature as laws of the understanding, in such a way that their use is limited only to experience, because their possibility has its ground merely in the relation of the understanding to experience, however, not in such a way that they are derived from experience, but that experience is derived from them, a completely reversed kind of connection which never occurred to Hume. (ibid.) > Appearances certainly provide cases from which a rule is possible in accordance with which something usually happens, but never that the succession is necessary; therefore, a dignity pertains to the synthesis of cause and effect that cannot be empirically expressed at all, namely, that the effect does not merely follow upon the cause but is posited through it and follows from it. [1]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-causality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-causality/
asplake 4y ago
Stopped after the first page. Uses ‘influence’ and ‘sequence’ interchangeably. Anyone interested in the philosophy of cause and complexity and ready for a challenging read could try Alicia Juarrero’s Dynamics in Action
probablypower 4y ago
There are some nice factoids in there, but it felt like someone just searched "causality" on tiktok, jotting down notes as they rode the algorithm. I don't think Judea Pearl would enjoy this article. Malcolm Gladwell might.
- leephillips 4y ago
  Saying that Malcolm Gladwell might enjoy an article is a superb putdown. I’m going to steal this.
revskill 4y ago
Yes! One real life example: One need to resolve tech debts before merging the PR. Else later on, 1 minute NOT resolving tech debt would cause hours of working hour to clean, refactor and working on new feature. OK, how to pay the tech debts? Relax your sprint and treat output as out of tech debt , not only the result.

43 points by astonfred 4y ago

It is true that causal analysis (root cause analysis) can be helpful in debugging just about anything. But, it requires looking backwards, which people/organizations don’t really like to do, in my experience. “Who wants to focus on bad stuff? Just patch it and move forward.” The article mentions chaos in support of causality, but it is most likely a dead end for root cause analysis. For anyone interested, here are some free templates/examples for root cause analysis: https://www.smartsheet.com/free-root-cause-analysis-templates-complete-collection?amp https://www.smartsheet.com/free-root-cause-analysis-template... Edit: And here are a couple of additional resources (note that the author R. Cook of “How Complex Systems Fail” has recently passed away - https://twitter.com/lund_hfss/status/1568242140546744322 https://twitter.com/lund_hfss/status/1568242140546744322 ) 1. A past HN discussion on system failure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25550685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25550685 2. “How Complex Systems Fail” by Dr. R. Cook https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/

tialaramex 4y ago
I'm sure you know this already but: The idea isn't so much backward looking but forward looking. "Why this won't happen again". What are we going to do in the future which prevents this, or at least makes it far less likely to recur ? Because if we change nothing, it's going to happen again. That's how history got that reputation for repeating itself. But in order to prevent it, we need to understand the causual chain in order to break it. For investigators whose work feeds into regulators it's a bit sadder because instead of "Why this won't happen again" the results are usually recommendations which, if followed, would prevent it happening again but you get used to them not being followed, so you're repeating yourself. "Why our previous advice would have prevented this from happening again".
- oblak 4y ago
  Thanks for writing all that instead of me. I've heard the "we are not looking for someone to blame, just fix it" too many times. That sort of reasoning strikes me as protecting people's egos as if that's more important than not repeating the same thing over and over again. Both positions have merits, of course.

roenxi 4y ago

1. This article combines vague connections between chess, Indian philosophy, chemistry, life advice, quantum, etc. While I support the author in writing about whatever they feel like, there is a question what the upvoters on HN see in this. 2. If we're discussing the title... the reason people "underestimate" causality is because they've tried to use it a few times, been really wrong and learned not to do that again because a rational person doesn't trust their own ability to reason causally. See also; chess. It is really hard to assign causality in a 40 move game with a relatively limited number of choices each move. Assigning causality in reality is even harder. Getting it right is a very specialist skill.

fny 4y ago
> there is a question what the upvoters on HN see in this There's a cadre of HN LSD-microdosers that probably see a lot of things.
- archibaldJ 4y ago
  It is, however, true that with higher dosage causality starts to breakdown (at least conceptually): You didn't come to this world. It is this world which came to you. ... in the same way that you didn't take the LSD.. it was the LSD that took you. ------ Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure the article is generated by GPT3 :P

contravariant 4y ago

This article is all over the place. Chaos theory, Karma, Gaia theory, relationship advice, Einstein. It's got everything but a coherent story. Was this generated by an AI or something?

causality0 4y ago
Sadly "being utter drivel" is not on the flaggable rule list.
- lostmsu 4y ago
  You can flag anything for any reason.
  - causality0 4y ago
    Making a habit of flagging things that don't break the guidelines is a good way to get dang to disable your ability to flag anything at all.
    - lostmsu 4y ago
      Usually when I feel that the article deserves to be flagged, it does turn out to violate guidelines. The main suspect is a low quality post with high number of upvotes. This one for instance is a self-promotion.

anotherOneSound 4y ago

i’m curious, do objects appear to your senses, or do your senses (and predilections) appear to objects? > rescues the a priori origin of the pure concepts of the understanding and the validity of the general laws of nature as laws of the understanding, in such a way that their use is limited only to experience, because their possibility has its ground merely in the relation of the understanding to experience, however, not in such a way that they are derived from experience, but that experience is derived from them, a completely reversed kind of connection which never occurred to Hume. (ibid.) > Appearances certainly provide cases from which a rule is possible in accordance with which something usually happens, but never that the succession is necessary; therefore, a dignity pertains to the synthesis of cause and effect that cannot be empirically expressed at all, namely, that the effect does not merely follow upon the cause but is posited through it and follows from it. [1]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-causality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-causality/

asplake 4y ago

Stopped after the first page. Uses ‘influence’ and ‘sequence’ interchangeably. Anyone interested in the philosophy of cause and complexity and ready for a challenging read could try Alicia Juarrero’s Dynamics in Action

probablypower 4y ago

There are some nice factoids in there, but it felt like someone just searched "causality" on tiktok, jotting down notes as they rode the algorithm. I don't think Judea Pearl would enjoy this article. Malcolm Gladwell might.

leephillips 4y ago
Saying that Malcolm Gladwell might enjoy an article is a superb putdown. I’m going to steal this.

revskill 4y ago

Yes! One real life example: One need to resolve tech debts before merging the PR. Else later on, 1 minute NOT resolving tech debt would cause hours of working hour to clean, refactor and working on new feature. OK, how to pay the tech debts? Relax your sprint and treat output as out of tech debt , not only the result.