Total indifference between all options makes optimization impossible or vacuous. An optimization criterion which assigns a total ordering between all possibilities makes indifference vanishingly rare. So these notions are dual in a sense.
This gap may be bridged by measuring the difference in value/expected value of 2 actions given a utility function. In order to find the exact utility of an action, we must invest the time necessary to calculate it, and acquire the information necessary to so. In order to make the best decision (given a set of decisions), we need only work out the ordering on actions (their relative utility). However, the value in determining the optimal action is based on the difference between the utility of the actions. If there are 2 routes between A and B, and both of them take about 5 minutes, then investing the time to work out exactly how long they take (a la the distance) may not be worth it—ever*, or until we have optimized all the parts of our lives where more utility is at stake. (*The cost of optimizing may exceed the gain. This is an issue we don’t expect to run into if we haven’t optimized anything.)
You can get around this ambiguity in a political context by distinguishing natural from social barriers, but that’s not a particularly principled distinction.
Suppose, where you live, not smoking was made illegal, and all who do not do it, pay a tax of $10 per day. Intuitively, this seems very different from being unable to go to the moon, or do 1000 push ups.
Another issue with freedom-as-optimization is that it’s compatible with quite tightly constrained behavior, in a way that’s not consistent with our primitive intuitions about freedom.
Perhaps freedom is the freedom to optimize (as you see fit).
We have discretion that enables corruption and special privileges in cases that pretty much nobody would claim to be ideal — rich parents buying their not-so-competent children Ivy League admissions, favored corporations voting themselves government subsidies.
Woah, the first of those might be considered to be really efficient—the colleges don’t usually get that much money from a student. If a student “isn’t competent” but the college gets ample compensation, it’s unclear who is being harmed. (Also, people were surprised by this? I was surprised by the amount of money involved.) The second one is redirecting taxpayers’ dollars—as opposed to rich people spending their money how they please.
The rationale being, that being highly optimized at some widely appreciated metric — being very intelligent, or very efficient, or something like that — is often less valuable than being creative,
I think creativity is a widely appreciated metric, as evidenced by it being used as part of an argument here. It’s not clear how optimizing creativity would be bad. (To argue against optimization on the grounds that these things A are good to optimize, but not as good as these things B, is not an argument against optimization, but an argument for optimizing B rather than A.)
universal basic income, open borders, income-sharing agreements, or smart contracts
These are legibilizing policies that
allow little scope for discretion, so they don’t let policymakers give illegible rewards to allies and punishments to enemies.
They reduce the scope of the “political”, i.e. that which is negotiated at the personal or group level, and replace it with an impersonal set of rules within which individuals are “free to choose” but not very “free to behave arbitrarily” since their actions are transparent and they must bear the costs of being in full view.
The last sentence frames things differently than the sentences before it—costs being added, instead of a loss of power. It’s also not clear how, say, universal basic income makes people less free to choose.
“If you make everything explicit, you’ll dumb everything in the world down to what the stupidest and most truculent members of the public will accept.
Our legal system begs to differ—who has read the whole of that edifice? And who would claim that all citizens have read it? (And that it could not be improved through simplification?)
A related notion: wanting to join discussions is a sign of expecting a more cooperative world, while trying to keep people from joining your (private or illegible) communications is a sign of expecting a more adversarial world.
This made sense to me in a way that the dichotomy before it did not (the mapping between “you would/wouldn’t understand” and “optimization”/”illegibility”).
The basic argument for optimization over arbitrariness is that it creates growth and value while arbitrariness creates stagnation.
This makes it sound like the disagreement is over who gets to optimize/where optimization happens. In leaders/implementation or in rule makers/rules.
Sufficiently advanced cynicism is indistinguishable from malice and stupidity.
Stupidity is indistinguishable from lack of information?
it’s totally unnecessary to reject logic and justice in order to object to killing innocents.
One need only say “life should be preserved.” (See below.)
Not everything people call reason, logic, justice, or optimization, is in fact reasonable, logical, just, or optimal; so, a person needs some defenses against those claims of superiority.
Logic does not provide the direction, it only tells you where a direction goes.
This gap may be bridged by measuring the difference in value/expected value of 2 actions given a utility function. In order to find the exact utility of an action, we must invest the time necessary to calculate it, and acquire the information necessary to so. In order to make the best decision (given a set of decisions), we need only work out the ordering on actions (their relative utility). However, the value in determining the optimal action is based on the difference between the utility of the actions. If there are 2 routes between A and B, and both of them take about 5 minutes, then investing the time to work out exactly how long they take (a la the distance) may not be worth it—ever*, or until we have optimized all the parts of our lives where more utility is at stake. (*The cost of optimizing may exceed the gain. This is an issue we don’t expect to run into if we haven’t optimized anything.)
Suppose, where you live, not smoking was made illegal, and all who do not do it, pay a tax of $10 per day. Intuitively, this seems very different from being unable to go to the moon, or do 1000 push ups.
Perhaps freedom is the freedom to optimize (as you see fit).
Woah, the first of those might be considered to be really efficient—the colleges don’t usually get that much money from a student. If a student “isn’t competent” but the college gets ample compensation, it’s unclear who is being harmed. (Also, people were surprised by this? I was surprised by the amount of money involved.) The second one is redirecting taxpayers’ dollars—as opposed to rich people spending their money how they please.
I think creativity is a widely appreciated metric, as evidenced by it being used as part of an argument here. It’s not clear how optimizing creativity would be bad. (To argue against optimization on the grounds that these things A are good to optimize, but not as good as these things B, is not an argument against optimization, but an argument for optimizing B rather than A.)
The last sentence frames things differently than the sentences before it—costs being added, instead of a loss of power. It’s also not clear how, say, universal basic income makes people less free to choose.
Our legal system begs to differ—who has read the whole of that edifice? And who would claim that all citizens have read it? (And that it could not be improved through simplification?)
This made sense to me in a way that the dichotomy before it did not (the mapping between “you would/wouldn’t understand” and “optimization”/”illegibility”).
This makes it sound like the disagreement is over who gets to optimize/where optimization happens. In leaders/implementation or in rule makers/rules.
Stupidity is indistinguishable from lack of information?
One need only say “life should be preserved.” (See below.)
Logic does not provide the direction, it only tells you where a direction goes.