i think there is generally a tradeoff between optimising for efficiency at the cost of robustness, or optimising for robustness at the cost of efficiency. e.g. one way to get more robustness in IT systems is to add redundant infrastructure. there's even more robustness if the redundancy is decorrelated : e.g. decorrelated in space (multi-region) or decorrelated in terms of vulnerability to other risks ( https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/10/27/monoculture/ ). it's clearly cheaper to build this stuff in the short run if you dont invest in any diversity. have one of a thing, or a monoculture of 12 things.
There's also another aspect: often becoming more efficient at doing something is at the cost of investing capital and increased ongoing maintenance costs to maintain the new systems required for the efficiency. maybe achieving the first efficiency takes low investment for relatively large reward - a "low-hanging fruit", but the second or the third one give diminishing returns, i.e. more cost of capital or ongoing maintenance drain versus the reward, but still enough reward to be worth doing. then if the context changes -- so the specialised task is no longer worth doing -- you're left with the upkeep & opportunity cost of all of this now pointless specialised infrastructure.
Joseph Tainter argues something vaguely along these lines for civilisation collapse, with the diminishing returns of increasing efficiency from increasing social complexity:
> For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses (in concrete forms, as metals, grain, slaves, etc.). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with it. Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory.
> In Tainter's view, while invasions, crop failures, disease or environmental degradation may be the apparent causes of societal collapse, the ultimate cause is an economic one, inherent in the structure of society rather than in external shocks which may batter them: diminishing returns on investments in social complexity.
Nassim Taleb has written a bit about robustness, fragility, "antifragility", of investments or occupation, if you can deal with the writing style it's worth reading a book or two. E.g. the concept of a "barbell strategy" to diversify: https://www.nuggetsofthought.com/2018/04/02/nassim-taleb-sen... .
Taleb also spends some time writing about the difference between the realised outcome and the distribution of possible outcomes --- the focus should be on the process -- was the decision making and understanding of the probabilities involved sound --- not on the outcome . Applying this perspective to the bird and the mammal in the farnham st blog, before the change in environment, if focusing on realised outcomes, we might rank the bird population as more successful than the mammal population -- perhaps there is a larger population of birds, or they get more leisure time, or whatever. but when trying to assess the unrealised outcomes, we might conclude that the bird population is in a far less robust position, their outcome to changes in environment or context is much worse than the corresponding outcomes for the mammals. so in some sense, not focusing on the current realised outcome, the mammals are "doing better" even before the turquoise-berry-bush catastrophe.
The point about how quickly investments can turn into liabilities is really insightful - thank you!
There's a social aspect to it, as well. Within one person's head, it's Sunk Cost fallacy. I'm not sure what the term is when the fear of change is spread across multiple groups (coordination problems? I'm open to ideas). But it's clearly a huge problem for complex systems that must manage change.
There's also another aspect: often becoming more efficient at doing something is at the cost of investing capital and increased ongoing maintenance costs to maintain the new systems required for the efficiency. maybe achieving the first efficiency takes low investment for relatively large reward - a "low-hanging fruit", but the second or the third one give diminishing returns, i.e. more cost of capital or ongoing maintenance drain versus the reward, but still enough reward to be worth doing. then if the context changes -- so the specialised task is no longer worth doing -- you're left with the upkeep & opportunity cost of all of this now pointless specialised infrastructure.
Joseph Tainter argues something vaguely along these lines for civilisation collapse, with the diminishing returns of increasing efficiency from increasing social complexity:
> For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses (in concrete forms, as metals, grain, slaves, etc.). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with it. Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory.
> In Tainter's view, while invasions, crop failures, disease or environmental degradation may be the apparent causes of societal collapse, the ultimate cause is an economic one, inherent in the structure of society rather than in external shocks which may batter them: diminishing returns on investments in social complexity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Diminishing_ret...
Nassim Taleb has written a bit about robustness, fragility, "antifragility", of investments or occupation, if you can deal with the writing style it's worth reading a book or two. E.g. the concept of a "barbell strategy" to diversify: https://www.nuggetsofthought.com/2018/04/02/nassim-taleb-sen... .
Taleb also spends some time writing about the difference between the realised outcome and the distribution of possible outcomes --- the focus should be on the process -- was the decision making and understanding of the probabilities involved sound --- not on the outcome . Applying this perspective to the bird and the mammal in the farnham st blog, before the change in environment, if focusing on realised outcomes, we might rank the bird population as more successful than the mammal population -- perhaps there is a larger population of birds, or they get more leisure time, or whatever. but when trying to assess the unrealised outcomes, we might conclude that the bird population is in a far less robust position, their outcome to changes in environment or context is much worse than the corresponding outcomes for the mammals. so in some sense, not focusing on the current realised outcome, the mammals are "doing better" even before the turquoise-berry-bush catastrophe.