If the alternatives are killing 10 people efficiently at a cost of $100 a head vs. killing ten people inefficiently at a cost of $1000 a head, then killing them inefficiently is worse: I’ve not only killed 10 people, I’ve wasted $9000 worth of resources that could have been used to do something actually useful.
But if I’ve been given a $10,000 killing budget, then it’s clearly better for the world if I spend this inefficiently and only manage to kill 10 people rather than 100.
this seems to convolute the example with personal moralities that have no bearing on the actual, objective “task” and how efficiently or inefficiently it is accomplished. if the goal is to kill people, your moral qualms don’t make it “better” to kill less. you are still performing poorly relative to the task.
this does highlight a problem with the original quote. “useless” is rather ambiguous as the reader has to decide whether to tie “use” to the utility of the task relative to what it is trying to accomplish versus the reader’s personal goals. the same applies to the equally ambiguous word, “should.”
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”—Peter Drucker
Surely it’s at least as useless to do it inefficiently?
Depends what “it” is.
If the alternatives are killing 10 people efficiently at a cost of $100 a head vs. killing ten people inefficiently at a cost of $1000 a head, then killing them inefficiently is worse: I’ve not only killed 10 people, I’ve wasted $9000 worth of resources that could have been used to do something actually useful.
But if I’ve been given a $10,000 killing budget, then it’s clearly better for the world if I spend this inefficiently and only manage to kill 10 people rather than 100.
this seems to convolute the example with personal moralities that have no bearing on the actual, objective “task” and how efficiently or inefficiently it is accomplished. if the goal is to kill people, your moral qualms don’t make it “better” to kill less. you are still performing poorly relative to the task.
this does highlight a problem with the original quote. “useless” is rather ambiguous as the reader has to decide whether to tie “use” to the utility of the task relative to what it is trying to accomplish versus the reader’s personal goals. the same applies to the equally ambiguous word, “should.”
Doing it efficiently turns you into a dangerous paperclip monster, while doing it inefficiently makes you a mere harmless rock.
I guess it implies the extra cost of optimizing the useless task. Mostly agreed, though.