Comment by 1718627440
19 hours ago
And we started adding rules for the humans to follow, until we have complex bureaucracy. We invented tons of formal notations systems and error detecting and correction mechanisms. We invented deterministic machines. All because we are deeply unsatisfied with the non-determinism! Because it means you can never trust some process, optimize it away and stop thinking about it. You always need to check, and there is always something missing.
A lot of our manufacturing ability improvement during the last 200 years, as well as our engineering ability improvement during the last 500 years, is not just the raw power we unlocked, but that we made it deterministic, reliable and reproducible and hence automatable and automatic.
There's a reason bureaucracy has negative connotations. Also, notice how we still ended up with a system where everybody in the bureaucracy has a lot of leeway in what decisions they make.
Can you build a new hospital? Up to the local government to decide. How much is your property tax? Only a tax assessor can tell you. Which trees get trimmed and which are left intact? Decided on case by case basis with no strict rules. Which convenience stores are getting audited for tax and food safety compliance this week? There's a middle rank officer who makes that decision every week, my mum used to be one. How high is the bail set in criminal proceedings? Judges are famously very inconsistent on that and it's a good thing. In countries without constitutional gun rights, it's common that the final step in the process of obtaining gun permit is some government employee having a good gut feeling about you, and if they get bad feeling you get denied. And so on and so forth everywhere you look.
Manufacturing is a different beast entirely. I'm not saying we should put Siri and Cortana in charge of bolting down Boeing fuselage. But for most office and bureaucratic tasks, demanding perfect determinism is not only unnecessary but actively harmful.