3 ms·
This phenomenon is a symptom of the Relevance Paradox [1]: people trying to solve a problem try to minimize how much information they get (seeing most of it as
by gpcz 12y ago
This phenomenon is a symptom of the Relevance Paradox [1]: people trying to solve a problem try to minimize how much information they get (seeing most of it as irrelevant), when a seemingly-inconsequential piece of information may be the solution. It's also a major factor of Hierarchical Incompetence [2] and part of why one really needs to think about the costs and benefits of establishing a hierarchy to achieve a goal. Hierarchies can be efficient for solving some problems and devastating for others.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance_Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance_Paradox
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_incompetence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_incompetence
- stared 12y agoIt's true that certain top-down structures are great at coordination and increasing efficiency for small changes, but at the same time are creativity killers (because ideas need to go past a few layers, because most new things are not beneficial from the first second thus can be "optimized" by elimination). Or putting things in a different way - we need "noise" to get further of a local optimum, so we can explore more distant (and perhaps: better) optima.