top | item 30186668 (no title) traviscj | 4 years ago Gotta love military-grade pragmatism. discuss order hn newest eru|4 years ago The military can be quite pragmatic, when they want to / need to.Compare https://www.gwern.net/BackstopBasically, war (or the threat of war) is what keeps militaries honest.Competition and the threat of bankruptcy keeps companies on their toes.Evolution keeps brains honest.But those forces are rather blunt, so the day to day optimization has to proceed by other means. medstrom|4 years ago I would counter your evolution point. Evolution hates brains and wants them to be as small as possible, because they cost a lot of energy. Saving energy is the reason our brains rely so much on biases and heuristics. load replies (2) einpoklum|4 years ago > Basically, war (or the threat of war) is what keeps militaries honest.It really does not.> Competition and the threat of bankruptcy keeps companies on their toes.Only some companies and some of the time.And from the article:> One defense of free markets notes the inability of non-market mechanisms to solve planning & optimization problems.s/notes/falsely claims/etc. load replies (2)
eru|4 years ago The military can be quite pragmatic, when they want to / need to.Compare https://www.gwern.net/BackstopBasically, war (or the threat of war) is what keeps militaries honest.Competition and the threat of bankruptcy keeps companies on their toes.Evolution keeps brains honest.But those forces are rather blunt, so the day to day optimization has to proceed by other means. medstrom|4 years ago I would counter your evolution point. Evolution hates brains and wants them to be as small as possible, because they cost a lot of energy. Saving energy is the reason our brains rely so much on biases and heuristics. load replies (2) einpoklum|4 years ago > Basically, war (or the threat of war) is what keeps militaries honest.It really does not.> Competition and the threat of bankruptcy keeps companies on their toes.Only some companies and some of the time.And from the article:> One defense of free markets notes the inability of non-market mechanisms to solve planning & optimization problems.s/notes/falsely claims/etc. load replies (2)
medstrom|4 years ago I would counter your evolution point. Evolution hates brains and wants them to be as small as possible, because they cost a lot of energy. Saving energy is the reason our brains rely so much on biases and heuristics. load replies (2)
einpoklum|4 years ago > Basically, war (or the threat of war) is what keeps militaries honest.It really does not.> Competition and the threat of bankruptcy keeps companies on their toes.Only some companies and some of the time.And from the article:> One defense of free markets notes the inability of non-market mechanisms to solve planning & optimization problems.s/notes/falsely claims/etc. load replies (2)
eru|4 years ago
Compare https://www.gwern.net/Backstop
Basically, war (or the threat of war) is what keeps militaries honest.
Competition and the threat of bankruptcy keeps companies on their toes.
Evolution keeps brains honest.
But those forces are rather blunt, so the day to day optimization has to proceed by other means.
medstrom|4 years ago
einpoklum|4 years ago
It really does not.
> Competition and the threat of bankruptcy keeps companies on their toes.
Only some companies and some of the time.
And from the article:
> One defense of free markets notes the inability of non-market mechanisms to solve planning & optimization problems.
s/notes/falsely claims/
etc.