Real-world complexity is a lot like pollution and like a lot like taxes.
Pollution because it’s often an unintended negative externality of other decisions and agreements.
Whenever you write a new feature or create a new rule, that’s another thing you and others will need to maintain and keep track of. There are some processes that pollute a lot (messy bureaucratic systems producing ugly legislation) and processes that pollute a little (top programmers carefully adding to a codebase).
Taxes, because it introduces a steady cost to a whole bunch of interactions. Want to hire someone?
You need to pay a complexity tax for dealing with lawyers and the negotiation. Want to decide on some cereal to purchase? You need to spend some time going over the attributes of each option.
Arguably, complexity is getting out of hand internationally. It’s becoming a major threat.
Complexity pollution and taxes are more abstract than physical types of pollution and taxes, but it might be more universal, and possibly more important too. I’d love to see more work here.
Real-world complexity is a lot like pollution and like a lot like taxes.
Pollution because it’s often an unintended negative externality of other decisions and agreements.
Whenever you write a new feature or create a new rule, that’s another thing you and others will need to maintain and keep track of. There are some processes that pollute a lot (messy bureaucratic systems producing ugly legislation) and processes that pollute a little (top programmers carefully adding to a codebase).
Taxes, because it introduces a steady cost to a whole bunch of interactions. Want to hire someone?
You need to pay a complexity tax for dealing with lawyers and the negotiation. Want to decide on some cereal to purchase? You need to spend some time going over the attributes of each option.
Arguably, complexity is getting out of hand internationally. It’s becoming a major threat.
Complexity pollution and taxes are more abstract than physical types of pollution and taxes, but it might be more universal, and possibly more important too. I’d love to see more work here.
Almost like there’s an Incompleteness Theorem somewhere in there or something?