By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 13/05/2026That's the idea that every social process can be expressed as a mathematical model, which can then be optimized. The problem, of course, is that much of the real world is *qualitative*, and the act of quantizing those qualia is a *very* lossy process. 36/ 180
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 13/05/2026To quantize a qualitative question is to incinerate all the qualitative aspects and then do mathematics on the dubious quantitative ash that is left behind: locusmag.com/feature/cory... 37/locusmag.comCory Doctorow: Qualia - LocusLast summer, the pandemic was in its first wave and the nation was in chaos. A lack of federal leadership left each state to figure out how to interpret the science, and many states punted public heal... 1141
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 13/05/2026In their paper, Farrell and Shalizi cite Ben Recht's maxim that "you can’t optimize a trade-off": www.argmin.net/p/are-there-... But of course, we optimize trade-offs all the time. 38/argmin.netAre there always trade offs?If so, then everything isn't optimization. 160