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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on The cup-holder paradox - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (78)
I find it perfectly plausible that all the car manufacturers are insane.
This is related to a common problem among certain types of engineers and scientists, which is to think of anything easy to do as not enough fun and hence beneath oneself. Heck, I have this problem sometimes.
Try working on easy stuff when too tired (i.e. willpower-depleted) to work on hard stuff. (This is called structured procrastination.)
The LW memeplex may be somewhat too ready to buy into the hypothesis that a given group of people is insane. People do generally respond to incentives, and situations where there are large incentives that people aren't responding to are probably worth an explanation more descriptive than generic insanity.
Given what I understand to be the dominant stereotypes about American cars, though, I do think it's plausible that American car manufacturers are insane. I don't know about others.
Incentives? Which specific person gets fired because people are complaining about car cupholders? If the answer is "I can't point to anyone like that" then nobody has an incentive to fix car cupholders.
I'd bet at 4 to 1 that a VP who earned a manufacturer's economy line a reputation as "those cars with the awesome cupholders" would have a much clearer path to the C-suite; but it seems difficult to empirically test.
It sounds to me like you're suggesting, without any supporting evidence, that everyone everywhere only does the minimum amount of work necessary to not get fired.
I'd guess this is true at a minority of organizations, and that it largely depends on an organization's culture. Is it true at MIRI?
Edit: Some arguments that large companies are getting less incompetent. I'm sure I could identify lots of top-selling business books that cover the topic of how to motivate your workers to create great products for your company. It seems a little implausible that none of what they suggest works. And as time passes, I'd expect for more and more such books to be published, and the books with the best advice to be read and recommended more and more widely.
Is that a special case of a more general belief that if there are lots of top-selling books about how to do X, it follows that people can do X in an intentional/systematic way? Or is there something special about motivating workers here?
I find it implausible that the threat of being fired is the only good way to motivate workers. It definitely seems like some companies are much better run than others, doesn't it? How do you think the best-run ones are well run? Probably by hiring the best people and having a great corporate culture. Here's a good Aaron Swartz piece on this.
To a degree I'd expect that to be true, especially if the books are written by smart, credible people, which is how I tend to perceive the authors of the best business books. Certainly much more credible than the folks who write books on how to win the lottery scientifically.
Like you, I find it implausible that the threat of being fired is the only good way to motivate workers. Indeed, for many jobs I don't even think it's a good way.
I think the best-run companies are well-run by virtue of individuals in positions of influence who are good at running companies. Hiring good people is a symptom of that, as is having a great corporate culture. A poorly run company won't suddenly get better if the CEO decides "Oh, I know! Let's hire the best people and have a great corporate culture!" unless said CEO develops skill at running companies.
Regardless, thanks for answering my question.
Isn't that because you don't already believe "people can [win the lottery] in an intentional/systematic way", but you do believe "people can [motivate workers] in an intentional/systematic way"?
I'd expect the authors of the best business books (e.g. Andy Grove, Tony Hsieh) to have experience managing top corporations, or get paid to consult for managers of top corporations. Those are tasks that require intelligence and rationality to succeed at and consist of more than just motivating your workers. I'd expect that if there was no way to motivate workers in an intentional/systematic way, these smart, rational people would have said that in their books and it would be a truism in the business world. Instead, the truism is just the opposite.
I also think that things people take to be common sense should be given a strong prior in general. I see essentially no reason to believe that the threat of getting fired is the only thing that motivates anyone, so it's a bit frustrating to see you (apparently) privileging that hypothesis (because the great Eliezer, who has never managed anyone or worked at a for-profit corporation, suggested it?) when common sense holds the opposite.
Possibly I've been reading too much Dilbert, but I expect that books detailing brilliant new management insights would thrive regardless of the actual existence of such insights.
That said, I, like you, have a higher prior for employee motivation than lottery-winning. I just think this preexisting (perfectly rational) prior is your true rejection.
People who work on cars likely care about things besides not getting fired but they might not care about producing better cupholders. An interior designer might care a lot more about the fact that the interior looks good than that it's functional.
Point. I was thinking that whoever comes up with ideas for stuff car companies should be doing has incentives to come up with good ideas, but I guess there are various plausible reasons that isn't enough (responsibility could be too diffuse, people might not feel like they'll end up getting enough credit for a good idea...).
Who's going to give an auto designer any credit for a completely boring and obvious idea like "larger cupholders"? The incentives are almost certainly in the direction of affiliating oneself with higher-status design changes (satellite radio, integration with apps and Internet, etc) rather than lower-status ones.
Point. (See, that's an actual explanation and not just a generic appeal to insanity.)
What?
Capitalism doesn't work by reputation- if I develop a feed formula for cows that makes their shit more beneficial as a fertilizer, then Monsanto and others will beat a path to my door. (Unless they steal it, but same thing.)
The incentives come from money, and as Vespasian said, "Pecunia non olet." (Money does not stink)
If you're talking about someone working for a large company and designing something mundane but better, the incentives may be more diffuse, but I don't believe that lost purposes are so terribly entrenched that the incentive is effectively invisible.
In my personal experience, designers/innovators working for companies are never rewarded for making their company more money. Sometimes their bosses are. My boss got a $20,000 bonus when I saved NASA $40 million.
There's a tendency (at least in this post's comments) to throw around the word "insane" as a synonym for "LW-style irrational". It does not mean what you think it means.
I know how Eliezer is using the word "insane."
Just because $CELEBRITY uses it that way doesn't make it right. This usage is conflating two usefully distinct concepts.
If I'm reading this correctly, this can be summarized with the principle-agent problem. Getting the cupholders right doesn't have incentives that line up with their relative importance for the car industry - my guess is that a large part of it is being a less prestigious work assignment. This is based off of "if I was really into cars, what would I want to work on?" Engines, aerodynamics, and control systems top the list - lots of complexity, and it's something that is obviously difficult to get right (hence, you must be an awesome engineer if you can get it right).
Ironically, I've noticed that European cars have the worst cupholders.
Because Europeans don't use them.