More on gain-maximization

[Roberto Verzola <rverzola@phil.gn.apc.org>]

Hi Glenn. I'm glad find our positions gradually converging...

 >I find it hard to have a polarized argument about risk-min. vs.
 >gain-max. It's like having an argument about inhaling vs. exhaling.
 >All systems that I can think of do both.  This is especially clear
 >when the issue is posed as efficiency vs. reliability.

I'll avoid a polarized argument then.

Systems do both gain-max. and risk-min. (be efficient and also be
reliable), I agree with you. The question is: which one do we optimize
(efficiency or reliability)? I think our programming experience tells
us that we've tried to improve both, but when we can optimize only one
but not the other, we tend to give higher priority to reliability than
efficiency (with occasional exceptions, I'm sure).

In this sense, the opposition between efficiency and reliability is
different from inhaling vs. exhaling, which naturally equalize their
volumes. To cite a different example: when a risk-minimizing
traditional community uses its resources, the level of resource-use
will probably be different than if a pure gain-maximizing corporation
were to use the same resource. My guess is that the level of
resource-use of risk-min. is lower than the level of resource-use for
gain-max. That is why corporations often come in conflict with
communities when the latter sets its eyes on "under-utilized"
resources, which might already be optimized from the risk-min. vantage
point. Decision-makers were faced whether to allot resources to
risk-minimizing Y2K-compliance efforts, or to other activities (more
gain-max. I presume). Most chose the other activities until the risks
of Y2K non-compliance were impossible to ignore.

 >To carry this view further; when one walks down the street the
 >efficient thing to do is to walk in a straight line, traversing
 >manhole covers.  The risk-min. thing to do is to go around every one
 >and also look out for falling building facades. How do you usually

Straight-line walk. But when you know that an occasional manhole has
no cover, and an occasional facade falls, how will you then behave?
When we start perceiving some risk (beyond a certain threshold
perhaps), the gain-max. strategy should begin to be subsumed under the
risk-min. strategy. As far as the M-bug is concerned, we should have
passed this threshold more than a decade back (perhaps two?).

 >I agree that corporations, as well as most other entities, gain-max.
 >But just the term gain-max. does not adequately characterize a
 >decision process.

I suggest that it does for corporations, for which return on
investment is eventually the final arbiter among various options.
Because corporations are pure gain-maximizers, they belong to a
different class of persons altogether compared to most real people
like us. On the Y2K problem, corporate gain-max. was a context under
which programmers and programming team leaders were generally
constrained.

 >social stability issues.  I find it hard to reduce this to a few
 >"rule-sets."  Terms like, awareness, connectedness, compassion and
 >responsibility seem more relevant.

In fact, rulesets have been very useful, not for the purpose of
reducing human behavior to a few options, but for illustrating the
ideal, presumably based on the wisdom of past experience. The Ten
Commandments, for instance, served its purpose admirably for centuries
and for many, they still do. So do the Eight-Fold Path and similar
rulesets among the great religions and cultures. Even contemporary
writers have proposed them (like Robert Fulghum's "Everything I Needed
to Know I Learned in Kindergarten"). They consist of a few rules,
instead of thousands, presumably for didactic purposes and probably in
recognition of the limits of short-term human memory.

I expect that the communities which are today reorganizing themselves
to confront the Y2K crisis will be adopting new rulesets, to replace
those which brought us the Y2K and other looming ecological and
economic crises. By trying to identify flawed rulesets (like the
gain-max. corporate ruleset) and formulate more carefully fine-tuned
ones (if we can...), I see our efforts on this list as complementary
to the efforts of these emerging self-sufficient communities.

Roberto Verzola