"Remember Rip Hamilton? Kobe? They lived in the midrange. Jordan did everything, everywhere, all at once. Now you know what you do in the modern NBA? You either get a sniper to shoot a foot behind the 3-point line, or you throw it to the post."
It's even worse. The post game also went the way of the midrange jumper. The entire game is 80% played beyond the 3 point line now. Those shots in the paint? The product of guards being pick-and-rolled from the 3 point line and into the paint to collapse defenses. Nobody posts up anymore.
A brutally true analysis. I've been thinking about some of this in terms of how board gaming and other "fun" activities have turned into spreadsheets. But how the "middle" gets removed is a unique take.
I read your essay, fantastic work. we are very much aligned in the pitfalls that we see. this essay of mine is similar to yours in its critique of rationalism and respect of the Complex: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/defeating-nature
Great essay! I agree that util-maxxing does suck a lot of the variance (and therefore color) out of life, but I struggle to see an alternative (particularly in the domains of business, geopolitics, and military). If we do things that weaken our country relative to others, such as focusing on improving wellbeing and meaning for the middle class rather than maximizing utility for the nation, then another nation who is less sentimental can easily outcompete us by ruthlessly focusing on efficiency.
There may be the argument that "util-maxxing is helpful in the short-term but helpful in the long-term, therefore we will outcompete other countries over a long enough time scale". But I see two objections to this point:
1. The returns to util-maxxing last for quite a while. I think we can pretty unequivocably say that the US entered this mindset somewhere after WW2 - let's say around 1950, when the MBA degree became extremely common for the postgraduate studies. We're now 75 years removed from this point, and the US is still out-growing its competitors despite the cracks that have begun to form in the edifice. If the timescale required for util-maxxing to destroy your society is >100 years, then any scenario where we forego util-maxxing while another country, like China, pursues it could see us lose even if our strategy is better over a 200+ year timescale.
2. Are we really doing something different if we focus on the middle class as suggested by the article? One could formulate this as an optimization problem with a different objective - namely, instead of focusing on GDP, maybe we focus on some group of metrics relating to the middle class (such as income growth for 35-75th income percentiles over time, life expectancy for the 35th-75th income percentiles over time, etc). This would have prevented things like off-shoring our manufacturing, since a simple analysis would have shown that this was going to come at the expense of a huge number of middle class jobs. If this is the case, we're not arguing about whether util-maxxing itself is helpful, but whether the optimization objective & time horizon is the correct one.
Excellent article. Major League Baseball is even worse. They changed rules that had worked for over 100 years just to accommodate the shorter attention spans of younger viewers. Now it's just a LARP of a video game, i.e., a derivative of a derivative.
Hi, thanks for responding. I only recently stumbled upon your Substack and have been very impressed. You've explained things regarding the Fed I've long suspected, but couldn't quite articulate.
As for MLB, they've changed the fundamental nature of the game through various rule changes post Covid. There's now a pitch clock, for example. Or limiting the number of pickoff attempts to 2 with a runner on base. The penalty being a balk. Or limiting the infield shift to only 2 infielders on either side of second base. The worst so far, in my opinion, is putting a runner on 2nd in the event of extra innings. All these things diminish the timeless nature of baseball. As well as the historical comparisons to past teams and/or players. All the records are now distorted. It was one of the few sports without a clock. A game took however long it took. And that, to many (myself included), was part of its charm. It's now less a battle of talent and skill, but more like a live action video game. Modern stadiums are more like mini amusement parks that happen to occasionally have baseball games. Maybe I'm just old, but Fenway Park or Wrigley Field are like living history museums, whereas modern stadiums seem lifeless, despite being full of endless distractions. Fenway or Wrigley say something about the people who built and maintained them and what they thought important vs our what our modern disposable culture values, (which isn't much, unfortunately). I hope that makes sense. I recently went to Truist Park in Atlanta and it was surreal. An actual game seemed just "incidental" to everything else going on at the time. Lastly, the most egregious 'middle-gutting' thing I've seen is the rise of sports betting. There are several stadiums with sports betting kiosks within them. If that's not middle gutting, I don't know what is.
I think the soul of baseball is also being affected by analytics as it pertains to pitching/hitting, regardless of the clock rules. The analytics say strike outs and home runs are all that matters, so that’s what we’re getting. Batters are optimizing for that split. The middle is being gutted. Same with pitchers going 3 innings and blowing their elbows to throw 100mph
I really appreciate the kind words. Thank you. And I'm very happy to hear those comments regarding the Fed! I will continue to add to that series of essays.
Thank you for this detail. Super informative, I was unaware of all of that. I commiserate with your conclusions.
Sorry for the delayed reply, substack never gave me a notification for this comment.
There's actually a second-layer event to this. I can spreadsheet how this is NOT helpful and in fact destructive to that nation and ALSO the corporation itself. That is, I can make a national security spreadsheet for a nation of 4 Million square miles that can't make a handful of artillery shells. ...But that spreadsheet is in a different office on a different desk. That is, it's siloed and not holistic. I can sell them using their own material reasoning, but I suspect what they're claiming is not the point. They promote these type of spreadsheeters and fire the other ones because they're up to something else. A larger strategy, value system...or call it religion.
Example: the news will CLAIM that Boeing got into trouble bc maximizing shareholder value. But because of this shareholder value has plummeted. And that's not a surprise, everyone on earth predicted that, even all their own internal people (who were then fired). So.... Zoom out one level and tell me what you see.
potential solutions are worthy of another essay. any solution will basically definitionally be temporary, as I'd expect over enough time for everyone to converge on dominant strategies like this. even moreso now that we're equipped with AI. I think the solution may be found within finite games actually, meaning once they're solved, we move on. because all games will get solved eventually, and infinite games eventually converge on gray expected-value monolithic behaviors.
will reflect more on this. thanks for the comment man.
"Remember Rip Hamilton? Kobe? They lived in the midrange. Jordan did everything, everywhere, all at once. Now you know what you do in the modern NBA? You either get a sniper to shoot a foot behind the 3-point line, or you throw it to the post."
It's even worse. The post game also went the way of the midrange jumper. The entire game is 80% played beyond the 3 point line now. Those shots in the paint? The product of guards being pick-and-rolled from the 3 point line and into the paint to collapse defenses. Nobody posts up anymore.
yep. it's really a tragic development. grayness and predictability.
A brutally true analysis. I've been thinking about some of this in terms of how board gaming and other "fun" activities have turned into spreadsheets. But how the "middle" gets removed is a unique take.
https://waverings.substack.com/p/optimizing-the-trains-to-auschwitz
thanks man, appreciate you reading.
I read your essay, fantastic work. we are very much aligned in the pitfalls that we see. this essay of mine is similar to yours in its critique of rationalism and respect of the Complex: https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/defeating-nature
I’ve heard this called the “tyranny of optimisation”.
I think it’s clear that the optimisation (left brain, spreadsheets, number go up, moneyball) impulse is valuable but misapplied.
We need a new system, a new ruleset. A new game, or at least a new variant.
There are plenty of games much more fun to min-max than Monopoly.
But that means getting a critical mass of people (or equivalent authority quota, or both) on board with the change.
“You curiously find yourself with no midrange jumpers, and no middle class.”
Fucking brilliant
Great essay! I agree that util-maxxing does suck a lot of the variance (and therefore color) out of life, but I struggle to see an alternative (particularly in the domains of business, geopolitics, and military). If we do things that weaken our country relative to others, such as focusing on improving wellbeing and meaning for the middle class rather than maximizing utility for the nation, then another nation who is less sentimental can easily outcompete us by ruthlessly focusing on efficiency.
There may be the argument that "util-maxxing is helpful in the short-term but helpful in the long-term, therefore we will outcompete other countries over a long enough time scale". But I see two objections to this point:
1. The returns to util-maxxing last for quite a while. I think we can pretty unequivocably say that the US entered this mindset somewhere after WW2 - let's say around 1950, when the MBA degree became extremely common for the postgraduate studies. We're now 75 years removed from this point, and the US is still out-growing its competitors despite the cracks that have begun to form in the edifice. If the timescale required for util-maxxing to destroy your society is >100 years, then any scenario where we forego util-maxxing while another country, like China, pursues it could see us lose even if our strategy is better over a 200+ year timescale.
2. Are we really doing something different if we focus on the middle class as suggested by the article? One could formulate this as an optimization problem with a different objective - namely, instead of focusing on GDP, maybe we focus on some group of metrics relating to the middle class (such as income growth for 35-75th income percentiles over time, life expectancy for the 35th-75th income percentiles over time, etc). This would have prevented things like off-shoring our manufacturing, since a simple analysis would have shown that this was going to come at the expense of a huge number of middle class jobs. If this is the case, we're not arguing about whether util-maxxing itself is helpful, but whether the optimization objective & time horizon is the correct one.
Great piece—thank you!
thank YOU for reading :)
Excellent article. Major League Baseball is even worse. They changed rules that had worked for over 100 years just to accommodate the shorter attention spans of younger viewers. Now it's just a LARP of a video game, i.e., a derivative of a derivative.
thanks man. do you have any specific examples of these changes and the 'middle-gutting' impact they had? I don't follow baseball.
Hi, thanks for responding. I only recently stumbled upon your Substack and have been very impressed. You've explained things regarding the Fed I've long suspected, but couldn't quite articulate.
As for MLB, they've changed the fundamental nature of the game through various rule changes post Covid. There's now a pitch clock, for example. Or limiting the number of pickoff attempts to 2 with a runner on base. The penalty being a balk. Or limiting the infield shift to only 2 infielders on either side of second base. The worst so far, in my opinion, is putting a runner on 2nd in the event of extra innings. All these things diminish the timeless nature of baseball. As well as the historical comparisons to past teams and/or players. All the records are now distorted. It was one of the few sports without a clock. A game took however long it took. And that, to many (myself included), was part of its charm. It's now less a battle of talent and skill, but more like a live action video game. Modern stadiums are more like mini amusement parks that happen to occasionally have baseball games. Maybe I'm just old, but Fenway Park or Wrigley Field are like living history museums, whereas modern stadiums seem lifeless, despite being full of endless distractions. Fenway or Wrigley say something about the people who built and maintained them and what they thought important vs our what our modern disposable culture values, (which isn't much, unfortunately). I hope that makes sense. I recently went to Truist Park in Atlanta and it was surreal. An actual game seemed just "incidental" to everything else going on at the time. Lastly, the most egregious 'middle-gutting' thing I've seen is the rise of sports betting. There are several stadiums with sports betting kiosks within them. If that's not middle gutting, I don't know what is.
I think the soul of baseball is also being affected by analytics as it pertains to pitching/hitting, regardless of the clock rules. The analytics say strike outs and home runs are all that matters, so that’s what we’re getting. Batters are optimizing for that split. The middle is being gutted. Same with pitchers going 3 innings and blowing their elbows to throw 100mph
I really appreciate the kind words. Thank you. And I'm very happy to hear those comments regarding the Fed! I will continue to add to that series of essays.
Thank you for this detail. Super informative, I was unaware of all of that. I commiserate with your conclusions.
Sorry for the delayed reply, substack never gave me a notification for this comment.
There's actually a second-layer event to this. I can spreadsheet how this is NOT helpful and in fact destructive to that nation and ALSO the corporation itself. That is, I can make a national security spreadsheet for a nation of 4 Million square miles that can't make a handful of artillery shells. ...But that spreadsheet is in a different office on a different desk. That is, it's siloed and not holistic. I can sell them using their own material reasoning, but I suspect what they're claiming is not the point. They promote these type of spreadsheeters and fire the other ones because they're up to something else. A larger strategy, value system...or call it religion.
Example: the news will CLAIM that Boeing got into trouble bc maximizing shareholder value. But because of this shareholder value has plummeted. And that's not a surprise, everyone on earth predicted that, even all their own internal people (who were then fired). So.... Zoom out one level and tell me what you see.
good thoughts. agreed.
potential solutions are worthy of another essay. any solution will basically definitionally be temporary, as I'd expect over enough time for everyone to converge on dominant strategies like this. even moreso now that we're equipped with AI. I think the solution may be found within finite games actually, meaning once they're solved, we move on. because all games will get solved eventually, and infinite games eventually converge on gray expected-value monolithic behaviors.
will reflect more on this. thanks for the comment man.