7 ms·
This is a thought-provoking essay by Dan Luu, whose essays I always find thought-provoking. I'm surprised Dan didn't make the connection that the webs of mistr
by cs702 2y ago
This is a thought-provoking essay by Dan Luu, whose essays I always find thought-provoking.
I'm surprised Dan didn't make the connection that the webs of mistrust between fiefdoms that form inside organizations as they grow are... Nash equilibria.[a]
Organizational webs of mistrust are nothing more than complicated versions of the Prisoner's Dilemma.[b]
Unless you have a CEO actively enforcing trust and collaboration, different fiefdoms naturally evolve behaviors that ensure they can survive and thrive in the face of possible betrayal by any other untrustworthy fiefdoms in the organization. We see similar behavior in natural ecosystems, which tend to evolve toward suboptimal equilibria that is robust to betrayal between groups, instead of global optima that requires perpetual honesty between them.[c] In many settings, robustness against betrayal is an evolutionary advantage.
---
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
[b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
- mixmastamyk 2y agoHis stuff is usually quite interesting, but in dire need of an editor. I often get lost in the details and tangents of the piece and lose the point.
- cs702 2y agoMaybe. I'm not so sure. My take is, he's trying to be thorough. The lack the formatting sometimes makes his posts feel like a wall of uninterrupted text. When reading his stuff, I find it helpful to put my browser in "reader" mode, which narrows text width.