I think the standard human incentive in groups and tribes is to go big, fast; this is the direction of entropy, and must be pushed against (or at least as a first order factor).
In the world where we’re growing very slowly already and this advice will not be helpful, it’s at least true that growth should at least never be in our top 5 metrics for success (to be contrasted with measures of how much intellectual progress we are making e.g. how often we’re having valuable insights, how efficient our communication is, how easy it is to find the best rebuttals to arguments, etc).
I agree that growth shouldn’t be a big huge marker of success (at least at this point), but even if it’s not a metric on which we place high terminal value, it can still be a very instrumentally valuable metric—for example, if our insight rate per person is very expensive to increase, and growth is our most effective way to increase total insight.
So while growth should be sacrificed for impact on other metrics—for example, if growth is has a strong negative impact on insight rate per person—I would say it’s still reasonable to assume it’s valuable until proven otherwise.
I think the standard human incentive in groups and tribes is to go big, fast; this is the direction of entropy, and must be pushed against (or at least as a first order factor).
In the world where we’re growing very slowly already and this advice will not be helpful, it’s at least true that growth should at least never be in our top 5 metrics for success (to be contrasted with measures of how much intellectual progress we are making e.g. how often we’re having valuable insights, how efficient our communication is, how easy it is to find the best rebuttals to arguments, etc).
I agree that growth shouldn’t be a big huge marker of success (at least at this point), but even if it’s not a metric on which we place high terminal value, it can still be a very instrumentally valuable metric—for example, if our insight rate per person is very expensive to increase, and growth is our most effective way to increase total insight.
So while growth should be sacrificed for impact on other metrics—for example, if growth is has a strong negative impact on insight rate per person—I would say it’s still reasonable to assume it’s valuable until proven otherwise.