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The world is absolutely chock full of systems composed entirely of perfectly sensible, well-considered decisions that nonetheless yield unexpected and undesirab

The world is absolutely chock full of systems composed entirely of perfectly sensible, well-considered decisions that nonetheless yield unexpected and undesirable effects.

msephton 2y ago
(author) I do mention this briefly in the article. Did you think I should have written more on this? I can't tell by your comment.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  It seems you're mostly referring to positive-outcome errors, which is not really what I'm referring to (i.e. emergent behaviors, and especially maladaptive emergent behaviors). For what it's worth I enjoyed the article and am mostly taking issue with the implication of the last section: > The fundamental truth remains: behind every line of code, every pixel, and every feature, there are human decisions shaping our experiences. This is true, but does not mean that those human decisions intended to shape our experiences actually ended up shaping them in the intended way, especially in aggregate.
  - msephton 2y ago
    Right, but they were still shaped by human decisions.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      It reads to me like you're saying, "fret not, even mostly inscrutable things were shaped by human decisions." Is that right? The more correct statement is: "You might need to fret even if inscrutable things were shaped by human decisions, because outcomes frequently end up unrelated or totally contrary to the human intent behind those decisions even in total absence of malice or even mistakes."
      - msephton 2y ago
        I think we're talking about your personal take after reading of the post? Maybe. I specifically mention bugs and glitches, unintended consequences, happy accidents (unintended things that become intended by virtue of them being kept rather than discarded), unequal weight given to decisions, and more. Of course I don't use your exact wording, but it's all there. I try to keep it neutral, rather positive vs negative outcomes, just "decisions".
        spacebacon 2y ago
        I have a feel for the tone llamaimperative is referencing. The choice to reflect from a more critical point of view has inspired further useful dialog in interpreting your contents for me personally. Good work, do better may be the deeper message here. In a nice way.
        msephton 2y ago
        Thanks, I think! :) I am a glass half full kind of guy so perhaps the text is a little more positive than neutral.
kevincox 2y ago
Reminds me of a bug that I field for my podcatcher. It has an automatic playlist feature where it automatically queues up next episodes based on some simple rules. One of the rules is "alternate podcasts" to ensure that you rotate through podcasts rather than listening ot just one because it happens to be the oldest or similar. I noticed that I was always listening to the same two podcasts despite having this feature enabled. It turns out that whenever it downloaded a new episode it would regenerate the playlist and forget about where it was in the rotation. So when I finished and episode it would download the next one and reorder the queue, putting the other podcast next. I filed that to the developer and they said "working as intended", when you change the set of downloaded podcasts the playlist is regenerated. And said they wouldn't fix it. But this behaviour is clearly not what it should be, it defeats most of the point of the "alternate podcasts" flag (It only works correctly if you only ever have two eligible podcasts or disable auto-download)
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Yep! That's an excellent example of how this can happen even with a very small system with very few people/motivations/constraints interacting.
- Nannooskeeska 2y ago
  I had literally this exact same scenario happen but with Podcast Addict. It's still my favorite podcast app by far but the auto re-sorting threw me off for a while until I got used to it.
  - kevincox 2y ago
    This was Podcast Addict.

The world is absolutely chock full of systems composed entirely of perfectly sensible, well-considered decisions that nonetheless yield unexpected and undesirable effects.

msephton 2y ago

(author) I do mention this briefly in the article. Did you think I should have written more on this? I can't tell by your comment.

llamaimperative 2y ago
It seems you're mostly referring to positive-outcome errors, which is not really what I'm referring to (i.e. emergent behaviors, and especially maladaptive emergent behaviors). For what it's worth I enjoyed the article and am mostly taking issue with the implication of the last section: > The fundamental truth remains: behind every line of code, every pixel, and every feature, there are human decisions shaping our experiences. This is true, but does not mean that those human decisions intended to shape our experiences actually ended up shaping them in the intended way, especially in aggregate.
- msephton 2y ago
  Right, but they were still shaped by human decisions.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    It reads to me like you're saying, "fret not, even mostly inscrutable things were shaped by human decisions." Is that right? The more correct statement is: "You might need to fret even if inscrutable things were shaped by human decisions, because outcomes frequently end up unrelated or totally contrary to the human intent behind those decisions even in total absence of malice or even mistakes."
    - msephton 2y ago
      I think we're talking about your personal take after reading of the post? Maybe. I specifically mention bugs and glitches, unintended consequences, happy accidents (unintended things that become intended by virtue of them being kept rather than discarded), unequal weight given to decisions, and more. Of course I don't use your exact wording, but it's all there. I try to keep it neutral, rather positive vs negative outcomes, just "decisions".
      - spacebacon 2y ago
        I have a feel for the tone llamaimperative is referencing. The choice to reflect from a more critical point of view has inspired further useful dialog in interpreting your contents for me personally. Good work, do better may be the deeper message here. In a nice way.
        msephton 2y ago
        Thanks, I think! :) I am a glass half full kind of guy so perhaps the text is a little more positive than neutral.

kevincox 2y ago

Reminds me of a bug that I field for my podcatcher. It has an automatic playlist feature where it automatically queues up next episodes based on some simple rules. One of the rules is "alternate podcasts" to ensure that you rotate through podcasts rather than listening ot just one because it happens to be the oldest or similar. I noticed that I was always listening to the same two podcasts despite having this feature enabled. It turns out that whenever it downloaded a new episode it would regenerate the playlist and forget about where it was in the rotation. So when I finished and episode it would download the next one and reorder the queue, putting the other podcast next. I filed that to the developer and they said "working as intended", when you change the set of downloaded podcasts the playlist is regenerated. And said they wouldn't fix it. But this behaviour is clearly not what it should be, it defeats most of the point of the "alternate podcasts" flag (It only works correctly if you only ever have two eligible podcasts or disable auto-download)

llamaimperative 2y ago
Yep! That's an excellent example of how this can happen even with a very small system with very few people/motivations/constraints interacting.
Nannooskeeska 2y ago
I had literally this exact same scenario happen but with Podcast Addict. It's still my favorite podcast app by far but the auto re-sorting threw me off for a while until I got used to it.
- kevincox 2y ago
  This was Podcast Addict.