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But that only values short-term profit which is not necessarily the best for a business. There is a problem in simplifying the value of a worker to a single num

But that only values short-term profit which is not necessarily the best for a business. There is a problem in simplifying the value of a worker to a single number. Always.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
If you can't reduce your options to a single number each, your decisionmaking process will be either inconsistent or subjective. This is elementary topology - I sketch a proof here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404964 So which are you advocating? Inconsistency, subjectivity or both? It's certainly possible that Spooky is wrong, and the right metric might have been a time-discounted approximation of long term profit, rather than simply short term profit. I doubt that - most companies tend to overvalue the long term. But that's a secondary point.
- Avshalom 12y ago
  In terms of your sketched proof he's advocating that "<" ">" and "=" are not defined over the set "business metrics" so you can't assume a total ordering.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    If you don't have a total order then there are decisions you simply can't make.
    - Avshalom 12y ago
      No there's just decisions that you can't make well.
      - yummyfajitas 12y ago
        The equation A < B holds anytime you would choose B over A (and vice versa). If neither A < B nor B < A, that's the definition of making no decision. If you advocate making an arbitrary choice, your decision process is either a total order (if you don't break transitivity), inconsistent (if you do break transitivity) or subjective (if the choice is nondeterministic).
        Avshalom 12y ago
        Noticing that reality is under no particular obligation to be sortable is not the same as advocating a particular strategy to deal with it. It's just admitting that yeah sometimes subjective decisions (gasp?) will be made and yeah sometimes inconsistent decisions (gasp?) will be made. And as long as you aren't an evil computer in Star Trek:TOS that's not actually a problem.
        SamReidHughes 12y ago
        It doesn't mean subjective or inconsistent decisions have to be made, it just means you need to learn to get comfortable with degrees of uncertainty.

But that only values short-term profit which is not necessarily the best for a business. There is a problem in simplifying the value of a worker to a single number. Always.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

If you can't reduce your options to a single number each, your decisionmaking process will be either inconsistent or subjective. This is elementary topology - I sketch a proof here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7404964 So which are you advocating? Inconsistency, subjectivity or both? It's certainly possible that Spooky is wrong, and the right metric might have been a time-discounted approximation of long term profit, rather than simply short term profit. I doubt that - most companies tend to overvalue the long term. But that's a secondary point.

Avshalom 12y ago
In terms of your sketched proof he's advocating that "<" ">" and "=" are not defined over the set "business metrics" so you can't assume a total ordering.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  If you don't have a total order then there are decisions you simply can't make.
  - Avshalom 12y ago
    No there's just decisions that you can't make well.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      The equation A < B holds anytime you would choose B over A (and vice versa). If neither A < B nor B < A, that's the definition of making no decision. If you advocate making an arbitrary choice, your decision process is either a total order (if you don't break transitivity), inconsistent (if you do break transitivity) or subjective (if the choice is nondeterministic).
      - Avshalom 12y ago
        Noticing that reality is under no particular obligation to be sortable is not the same as advocating a particular strategy to deal with it. It's just admitting that yeah sometimes subjective decisions (gasp?) will be made and yeah sometimes inconsistent decisions (gasp?) will be made. And as long as you aren't an evil computer in Star Trek:TOS that's not actually a problem.
        SamReidHughes 12y ago
        It doesn't mean subjective or inconsistent decisions have to be made, it just means you need to learn to get comfortable with degrees of uncertainty.