
The world is not an engineering problem - jajag
http://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-world-is-not-engineering-problem.html
======
TeMPOraL
Like hell it isn't.

At the risk of going "no true scottsman", I hate this kind of anti-
intellectual nonsense. The methods of science, engineering and rational
reasoning are the best tools we have for solving world problems. They were
literally invented for it. They're reified applied reasoning. You eschew them
at your own peril.

Now of course to solve problems involving humans, you have to factor in the
human element - the complexity of our individual emotions, and of the societal
interplay. This is where a lot of attempts at solving problems fail, and it's
appropriate to criticize that. But that doesn't give you a free pass to go by
your gut in contexts our monkey brains have never experienced in the past.
This means we need to double-down and carefully, rationally, find out what
works and what doesn't.

~~~
marchenko
I don't think this essay is anti-intellectual at all. I think it is an
exploration of the longstanding philosophical problem of trying to rationally
design a world for irrational beings. The excerpt from Dillow on
consequentialism brings to mind an idea from James Scott: that elites control
policy discussions by limiting the accepted terms of the argument to legible,
rationalizable factors - generally economic and technocratic variables visible
from a top-down view. This can place serious limits on our access to the store
of human knowledge embedded in emotion and practice. What we consider
"irrational" impulses are sometimes the products of generations of
evolutionary tuning that would seem to be feats of engineering brilliance if
they came with the proper documentation. Meta-rationality includes exploring
the bounds and the weaknesses of the tools in our contemporary rationalist
arsenal, as well as searching under the couch cushions of irrationality for
the occasional bit of value.

~~~
gglitch
Thanks for the succinct account of irrational impulses, and for the James
Scott ref. Can you recommend any particular book of his? My local library
appears to have _Against the Grain_ on hand.

~~~
marchenko
_Against the Grain_ is great. I'm drawing upon _Seeing Like A State_ and _The
Art of Not Being Governed_.

------
Nasrudith
The Brexit rhetoric even though it probably was meant in abstract terms seemed
rather romanticist which I see as a danger in itself - dogmatically clinging
to abstract ideas because of feelings regardless of outcomes.

One thing that I feel is always missed in discussions of consequentialism are
second order effects which are what make decisions untenable. While the
classic "murder a stranger for organs" might technically save more lives it
causes all sorts of nasty ripple effects - people would rightfully become more
paranoid or take measures to ensure uselessness of their organs after death
for sheer strategic spite. Taking a stand for principles is still possible in
that framework - the goal being to make bad actions more expensive or good
actions cheaper.

Still there are certainly good points about needing to choose how one wants to
shape society while setting goals - as well as recognizing that society
doesn't go as planned or projected and it changes in response to your actions.

~~~
dvtrn
_probably was meant in abstract terms seemed rather romanticist which I see as
a danger in itself - dogmatically clinging to abstract ideas because of
feelings regardless of outcomes._

Found myself in a perplexing discussion not long ago that-after a lot of words
that seemed to operate similarly to what you're describing here.

The topic was over banning plastic bags versus something with more politically
loaded outcomes like Brexit, though. The argument the other person brought up
was to equivocate banning plastic bags with banning plastic straws and how
this constituted a real harm to the disabled community and those who may have
a valid need for straws--forcing me to ask if a better outcome for someone
with a physical impairment would be to promote durable, fabric bags that are
less like to suffer to sudden structural failure (overfilling a plastic bag
that rips open unexpectedly), and where the logical limit was in comparing the
harm of removing plastic straws and removing plastic bags.

They clung to the comparison that banning bags was equivalent to robbing the
physically disabled from needed resources but couldn't really articulate any
position beyond that emotional appeal to a community who-I conceded-should be
considered more than they probably are. Comparing bags to straws on the
grounds presented didn't feel like it was very outcome oriented, though.

It's an endlessly interesting phenomenon of thought to watch take place in
real time.

------
ajuc
> For my part, I prefer things a little messy because not only are the
> solutions so often dependent on coercion but they also require that the
> ordinary citizen's faith and feelings are denied. Maximising utility seems a
> good thing but it is not the main reason why people do things like set up
> business, create charities, build village halls, paint, sing, create or
> innovate. Technocracy treats the world as an engineering problem when it's
> an unfolding story, explorers in a dense jungle not white-coated scientists
> in a laboratory.

There's a very famous fragment of Polish romantic ballad "Romantyczność" by
Adam Mickiewicz:

    
    
        Feeling and faith stronger speaks to me,
        than the eye and the glass of a wise man.
    

It was written in 1821 in occupied Poland, and (together with other similar
literature) was responsible for creating nationalist romantic movement that
caused several failed uprisings, countless deaths, and whole generations of
educated patriots being forced to migrate abroad escaping repressions.

When Poland got independent in 1918 (mostly thanks to a good luck and WW1,
just like other countries in the region) - this attitude claimed the success
("if not for failed uprisings we wouldn't be here"), and people believed it.
Failed uprisings are celebrated to this day, and a few rational generals who
wanted to prevent the useless massacre and were hanged because of that - are
still considered traitors.

Then it caused governments of interwar Poland to pursue unrealistic and
opportunistic strategy that resulted in 1/6th of the population and 1/7th of
the territory being lost in WW2 despite supposedly being on the winning side.
But it sure felt nice to be brave and be the "first to fight". People are
still boasting "Poland - first to fight" like it's a good thing to be stupid
and die for no reason.

This national romanticism is still very much defining the public debate in
Poland together with the only mainstream alternative - positivism and
pragmatism. And romanticism is still winning - 200 years later. We've only got
+-25 years of pragmatism after 1989, but it's over now.

It's why populists can win elections - because people want to ignore reality
and stop analyzing it. "Just do what feels right, it will be OK for sure."
"Winning trade wars is so easy". Everything is easy if you ignore reality
because it's too complex.

It's a very harmful attitude. Don't let it take over your culture, it's very
hard to get back to the enlightenment once you leave it behind.

------
chrispeel
_The idea here is something we 've lost from our thinking, one of those
virtues Deirdre McCloskey writes about, the idea of faith, that there are
things we have to take as felt not as demonstrated by science._

Even if we don't understand everything scientifically now, even some things
that we _feel_ , does not mean that we cannot try to do so in the future. I
accept faith only as a step towards scientific understanding.

~~~
nateabele
My favorite part of _Antifragile_ was where the author defines the 'Soviet-
Harvard delusion' as "the unscientific overestimation of the reach of
scientific knowledge".

Let us know when you find formal proofs for human values or systems of
morality. That's almost certainly Nobel Prize-worthy.

~~~
thfuran
Science isn't about formal proofs

~~~
comonad-colaboy
Science is about verifiable proofs (verifiable within reasonable time limits)
which somewhat means the same thing as formal proofs in the grand scheme of
things. Correct me if I am wrong

Edit: forgot to put in time limits

~~~
TeMPOraL
You're wrong.

Science is about building and refining models (theories) in order to make them
match observable reality as close as possible, in order to use those models to
predict what happens in the future - both by itself, and in consequence of us
poking stuff. That's what it means to know "how something works".

Engineering takes these models and adds a "what's the best way to poke things
to achieve a desired outcome?" aspect.

Formal proofs are for mathematicians. Mathematics is a purely abstract
invention and operates in its own universe, where absolute formal proofs are
possible.

~~~
natalyarostova
Mathematics is no different. Our brains are simply computers that verify that
the system evaluates based on it's rule system. In fact, you can bootstrap an
empirical verification of any mathematical proof holding if sufficient human
brain-computes evaluate it, and determine it holds.

------
imgabe
I don't see an alternative offered here. The argument seems to be "don't do
things just because you think they'll produce the best result". Which...makes
no sense?

If this advice is followed, we would have to knowingly choose to do something
that we expect to be worse than another option we're considering. What do we
hope to gain from that?

------
pmarreck
Public policy should only be based on objective truths and not evidenceless
beliefs or feelings. It's one thing to be for or against marijuana usage; it's
another to still have a law on the books banning its use and sale when a
growing plethora of science says it's far safer than substances already
legalized and regulated (such as alcohol) and actually therapeutic in some
cases (such as cancer). It's one thing to be against pornography being freely
available on the Internet _personally_ ; it's another when scientific data
(hypothetically) indicates that pre-adolescent exposure to pornography incurs
long-term and tangible behavioral harms, BUT does not seem to harm adults nor
their marriages.

"Appeal to disgust" is a fallacy for a reason, and laws should be rational.

~~~
compiler-guy
"Damming this river will hurt the surrounding ecosystem" and "Damming this
river will provide power for thousands of people" are both objective truths.
The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things
like how we value fish and the services provided by electricity.

Do we value keeping fish alive more than keeping old people alive via power-
hungry air conditioning?

There are millions of similar conundrums, none of which are solvable via
appeal to objective truths.

~~~
ur-whale
>The only way to mediate between them is by discussing non-objective things

Wrong.

Both the fish and the electricity need to be considered in a long term
utilitarian framework.

The only reason you seem to have two conflicting objective truths is because
your time window is too short.

~~~
empath75
> Both the fish and the electricity need to be considered in a long term
> utilitarian framework.

Says who?

You have an infinite regress problem here. You eventually are going to have to
fall back on non objective feelings about how the world should be to justify
your actions.

~~~
thfuran
Right. We're going to fall back on "we should maximize utility because that's
better than less utility". But we're not going to have to fall back on how it
makes me feel to see dead fish or somesuch.

~~~
pavelrub
> "we should maximize utility because that's better than less utility

Depending on how you define "utility" \- this is either a meaningless
tautology that doesn't say anything at all, or a subjective belief that can be
easily challenged by equally subjective alternatives.

------
dagasgasgasg
Kings have ever considered their own power as an end to itself, even if the
small people have to suffer. They probably made arguments very alike to this
one to justify the wars fought over another king's acres. And some of the
small people bought into it too.

I don't want to live in that world, though. I think this as a case for the
Brexit position only works if you can demonstrate that the people will in fact
be materially better off (not in money but in well-being, which can factor in
feelings like the one the author speaks about) after Brexit. That's a hard
thing to demonstrate scientifically, since you can't run an experiment, but
that's argumentative stance you'd need to take to convince me.

------
smacktoward
I wrote something similar from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum a
few years back: [https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2014/01/against-line-chart-
libera...](https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2014/01/against-line-chart-liberalism/)

 _One reason why I disagree with [technocracy] is because of a core assumption
that is embedded deep within it, namely that public policy is at root a
values-neutral project. In this worldview, there is an objective Good that we
all strive towards, and our progress as a society can be measured by the
velocity towards which we approach that objective Good. We can determine this
velocity by taking measurements — by gathering Data. These data will then tell
us if we are on or off course, in much the same way that star sightings can do
for a mariner lost at sea._

 _This works for the mariner, because the stars are objective. It is not a
matter of opinion where in the sky the North Star is. But “good,” in terms of
public policy, is most definitely not objective. My definition of what is Good
is informed by my background, my experiences, my ideology; my values. And your
definition of what is Good is informed by yours. Your North Star, in other
words, is in a different place than mine is — which makes trying to navigate
by taking sightings of it a perilous proposition._

~~~
garmaine
I think we disagree that laws are suppose to be a mechanism for achieving
“good.”

------
cousin_it
Cause that's where the truth comes from ladies and gentlemen, the gut.

------
afpx
This word soup reads like it was generated by the Postmodernism Paper
Generator [1]. What am I supposed to take away from this? Is there a TL;DR
version?

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism_Generator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism_Generator)

~~~
subjectsigma
"The world is not an engineering problem." Pretty clear if you ask me.

What if we invented some gene therapy that could make everyone instantly and
painlessly racially ambiguous? All looking like Simpsons characters or
something. We could just _poof_ and everyone would be the same! It would go so
far towards eliminating racism and prejudice, which is unarguably a good goal.
Some questions, though:

1\. Would this really enrich human experience? Would it be "right"? 2\. If
someone didn't want the treatment would it be right to force them to accept
it, even though it might end racism? 3\. Would this actually end prejudice?
4\. Could this technology ever exist?

The authors answers would be: "Nope", "Definitely not", "Almost certainly no",
and "If it couldn't or we have no plans to make it, why even discuss it?" Now
think about it like this:

1\. Will Facebook having "better algorithms" end fake news? 2\. Will Google
and Apple adding fancy new apps end smartphone addiction? 3\. Will cute little
notes from Discord in their app end our huge lack of participation in
democracy?

The author would say no to all of them, and he's right.

~~~
afpx
Hasn't this line of questioning been well-examined, though? It seems like the
author is just re-inventing Greek mythology. Does anyone actually believe that
the world is an engineering problem? It seems like the author is committing
several rhetorical fallacies just to seem intellectual and bait people.

------
vectorEQ
to engineers it is. how the hell are they going to make a living otherwise?
something being a problem of any type is just an opinion anyway... :D

------
wazoox
Yeah, democracy isn't "rule by those who know". That's our problem, nowadays,
and why people by the millions go vote for Trump, Brexit, Bolsonaro, etc.
Because of the smug "know-it-all".

------
hcg
I was hoping this would be much a critique of the tendency of people to place
too much faith in technology, to ignore the human element of solutions, and
(among SV types especially) to prize their own goals above all else. To try
and come up with purely technical solutions to the problems of society, but to
do so by trying to create an environment which lets their own capitalist goals
succeed while tossing scraps to the rest.

Cause even when it's well meaning, I still can't stand it. Their (our I
suppose) own conviction they they are right fuels a randian like commitment to
individualism. But then they want to appear woke and smart and so they start
talking about basic income and how it's fine to have half the population just
sort of subsisting. Or we'll fix democracy with smartphones and blockchain.

Also the tendency towards not just being temporarily embarrassed millionaires,
but temporarily embarrassed tech billionaires.

