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Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization
How optimization took over the world and the urgent case for a new approach
Optimization is the driving principle of our modern world. We now can manufacture, transport, and organize things more cheaply and faster than ever. Optimized models underlie everything from airline schedules to dating site matches. We strive for efficiency in our daily lives, obsessed with productivity and optimal performance. How did a mathematical concept take on such outsize cultural shape? And what is lost when efficiency is gained?
Optimal Illusions traces the fascinating history of optimization from its roots in America’s founding principles to its modern manifestations, found in colorful stories of oil tycoons, wildlife ecologists, Silicon Valley technologists, lifestyle gurus, sugar beet farmers, and poker players. Optimization is now deeply embedded in the technologies and assumptions that have come to comprise not only our material reality but what we make of it.
Coco Krumme’s work in mathematical modeling has made her acutely aware of optimization’s overreach. Streamlined systems are less resilient and more at risk of failure. They limit our options and narrow our perspectives. The malaise of living in an optimized society can feel profoundly inhumane. Optimal Illusions exposes the sizable bargains we have made in the name of optimization and asks us to consider what comes next.
Optimization is the driving principle of our modern world. We now can manufacture, transport, and organize things more cheaply and faster than ever. Optimized models underlie everything from airline schedules to dating site matches. We strive for efficiency in our daily lives, obsessed with productivity and optimal performance. How did a mathematical concept take on such outsize cultural shape? And what is lost when efficiency is gained?
Optimal Illusions traces the fascinating history of optimization from its roots in America’s founding principles to its modern manifestations, found in colorful stories of oil tycoons, wildlife ecologists, Silicon Valley technologists, lifestyle gurus, sugar beet farmers, and poker players. Optimization is now deeply embedded in the technologies and assumptions that have come to comprise not only our material reality but what we make of it.
Coco Krumme’s work in mathematical modeling has made her acutely aware of optimization’s overreach. Streamlined systems are less resilient and more at risk of failure. They limit our options and narrow our perspectives. The malaise of living in an optimized society can feel profoundly inhumane. Optimal Illusions exposes the sizable bargains we have made in the name of optimization and asks us to consider what comes next.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published September 12, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
September 12, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️I was very excited when I got this ARC as the limits and failures of Mathematical optimization is a topic I have a lot of interest in, and the idea behind this book has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, I found the book lacked something in the execution. It felt rushed and scatterbrained, like maybe it was supposed to be a collection of essays or case studies, but it got dropped on the floor and all jumbled up together. It hopped between memoir, interviewer notes, and historical study, never staying long enough to leave an impression. This book is packed with interesting tidbits and nifty facts, but needed a stronger editorial direction to really shine. It’s a crying shame, because the ideas and message are really important. We have a saying in mathematics, that one rarely finds the clearest explanation of a concept by the person who first discovers it. I think we’ll have to hope that there will be others who follow this path and tell a clearer story.
I received an Advance Review copy in exchange for this honest review.
#bookstagram #bookreview #backtoschool
I received an Advance Review copy in exchange for this honest review.
#bookstagram #bookreview #backtoschool
November 4, 2023
First chapter has a few high points. Rest is unoriginal -- at times annoyingly so. This didn't need to be a book, there's really not enough for a book -- it would have been more compelling as a New Yorker article.
February 27, 2024
This is a book that perfectly demonstrates the age-old wisdom of "don't judge a book by its cover." The anticipation of diving into this topic had me nearly shedding tears of joy and dancing the non-fiction bookworm dance (well, almost). I wanted an interesting analysis of various optimized "things" and how they either did or didn't live up to their explanations. Looking at false optima would have been a good start. Instead, I find that this is the author's polemic about American Bison, GMO foods, northern railroad history and dissatisfactions with cruise ships.
Before reading it, I was really rooting for this book. Honestly, I was prepared to start a fan club for it—if only it delivered. A total makeover by a new author on the same subject? Sign me up yesterday! The world is ripe for a sharp critique on optimization, a dive into its successes and failures across various landscapes.
Take Six Sigma & Edward Deming's revolutionary contributions to optimizing manufacturing, for instance. This topic deserves its own saga, yet it barely gets a nod. It's like missing the main act at a concert. And the other optimization extravaganzas? Completely overlooked. You'd think a mention of team and task optimization strategies like SCRUM, Agile, or Kanban would be too much to ask for. Spoiler: it was.
Out of nowhere in the middle of the book, the author takes us on a leap to the subject of Universal Basic Income—a hot topic, sure, but its connection to optimization is about as thin as Aunt Jane's lasagna recipe has to quantum computing. And there are so many other baffling detours—like a car ferry trip to the San Juan islands mixed with a puzzling disdain for cruises not running at full throttle. (This bit personally irked me, betraying a misunderstanding of basic fuel optimization in large maritime vessels that even a casual enthusiast could debunk).
And a swipe at Marie Kondō ; why, I ask? Your guess is as good as mine. A misplaced critique on optimization, perhaps? I can only assume the book was trying to declutter its own narrative by throwing out coherence.
Echoing the sentiments of Publisher's Weekly, the book feels "muddled." It's a shame, really, considering Krumme's background. You'd expect a mathematician and scientific consultant to navigate the concept of optimization like a pro. Yet, here we are.
The book has, at best, gone through a disjointed writing process, pieced together over years with bits from a never-realized short film that the author mentions early on. Despite being a 2023 release, many parts of it read like a time capsule from a bygone era, missing the mark on current events and even flubbing a story about an Amazon mega-hub visit.
So, if you're debating between spending 4-5 hours reading "Optimal Illusions" or that same amount of time memorizing your breakfast cereal ingredients, I'd say go for the cereal. At least you're guaranteed to walk away with something useful—like knowing your daily intake of riboflavin.
Before reading it, I was really rooting for this book. Honestly, I was prepared to start a fan club for it—if only it delivered. A total makeover by a new author on the same subject? Sign me up yesterday! The world is ripe for a sharp critique on optimization, a dive into its successes and failures across various landscapes.
Take Six Sigma & Edward Deming's revolutionary contributions to optimizing manufacturing, for instance. This topic deserves its own saga, yet it barely gets a nod. It's like missing the main act at a concert. And the other optimization extravaganzas? Completely overlooked. You'd think a mention of team and task optimization strategies like SCRUM, Agile, or Kanban would be too much to ask for. Spoiler: it was.
Out of nowhere in the middle of the book, the author takes us on a leap to the subject of Universal Basic Income—a hot topic, sure, but its connection to optimization is about as thin as Aunt Jane's lasagna recipe has to quantum computing. And there are so many other baffling detours—like a car ferry trip to the San Juan islands mixed with a puzzling disdain for cruises not running at full throttle. (This bit personally irked me, betraying a misunderstanding of basic fuel optimization in large maritime vessels that even a casual enthusiast could debunk).
And a swipe at Marie Kondō ; why, I ask? Your guess is as good as mine. A misplaced critique on optimization, perhaps? I can only assume the book was trying to declutter its own narrative by throwing out coherence.
Echoing the sentiments of Publisher's Weekly, the book feels "muddled." It's a shame, really, considering Krumme's background. You'd expect a mathematician and scientific consultant to navigate the concept of optimization like a pro. Yet, here we are.
The book has, at best, gone through a disjointed writing process, pieced together over years with bits from a never-realized short film that the author mentions early on. Despite being a 2023 release, many parts of it read like a time capsule from a bygone era, missing the mark on current events and even flubbing a story about an Amazon mega-hub visit.
So, if you're debating between spending 4-5 hours reading "Optimal Illusions" or that same amount of time memorizing your breakfast cereal ingredients, I'd say go for the cereal. At least you're guaranteed to walk away with something useful—like knowing your daily intake of riboflavin.
November 1, 2023
Really a 2.5.
I so so so wanted to like this book, and I feel like it has a finger on something pulsing through our society, but my god it was a mess. Nice insightful anecdotes and nuggets were lost in a narrative that whiplashed between an impressive collection of stories that didn’t all quite hang together. It’s relatively short, so may be worth the risk to scratch a curious itch, but you’re not missing much if you leave this one on the shelf.
I so so so wanted to like this book, and I feel like it has a finger on something pulsing through our society, but my god it was a mess. Nice insightful anecdotes and nuggets were lost in a narrative that whiplashed between an impressive collection of stories that didn’t all quite hang together. It’s relatively short, so may be worth the risk to scratch a curious itch, but you’re not missing much if you leave this one on the shelf.
October 23, 2023
Wow. Really good. A careful consideration of the world of “optimal everything” that we are creating and the good and bad that comes with it.
October 29, 2023
Important analysis of our American penchant to seek optimization in every facet of our lives and society. Both positive and negative impacts are discussed at length with the author's' personal experience blended into her story.
December 14, 2023
Optimal Illusions by Coco Krumme
BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
-PRINT: © September 12, 2023; 978-0593331118; Riverhead Books; 256 pages; unabridged (Hardcover Info from Amazon.com)
-DIGITAL: © September 12, 2023; Riverhead Books; 978059333132; 250 pages; unabridged (Digital version info from Amazon.com)
- *AUDIO: © 11 September 2023; Books on Tape; 7 hours (approx..); unabridged (Audio info from Libby app.)
-FILM: No
SERIES: No.
CHARACTERS:
N/A
SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-SELECTED: Perhaps I was searching for an economics book when this popped up and I decided to check it out and download. It wasn’t very long ago, but I have no memory of how this arrived on my virtual Libby shelf.
-ABOUT: The author describes a world built on the recommendations of computer models which assist in developing economic efficiencies toward an end of optimizing resources in the production of goods and services.
-OVERALL IMPRESSION: Coco has an impressive mathematical and scientific background, and a great vocabulary.
I get the sense that she herself developed (maybe still does) models for efficiency and optimal gain, so I don’t think she is anti-optimization (a concept I wasn’t familiar with until reading this), but perhaps a bit disillusioned, and certainly intent on explaining why we should consider the possibility that just because processes and procedures can be economically rewarding, doesn’t always mean the end result will be balanced or wholesome, in fact, I think she’s convinced that it OFTEN isn’t.
I enjoyed learning of her interviews with individuals as she asked about their experiences within their industries. Like the reluctant farmer, Bob, resisting the temptations of more lucrative practices that felt like betrayals to his values, until he eventually got swept up with the tide.
I felt I learned from her perspective of Las Vegas-style entertaining, railroad constructing, and more.
If I were to apply symbolism to the mood the book instilled, it would be the image on the Rider-Waite Tarot version of the 5 of cups where a wizened gray-haired figure cloaked in black stands gazing at three prone cups, their contents spilled; while two upright cups stand behind the figure, which I would say in this case would represent a nostalgic preference to ignore what’s been gained from the technology and science of optimization (the two standing cups) and focus on those slivers of humanity, spirituality, community spirit, and the like, that feel lost to the sands of time.
I came away mentally humming, “They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot.”
AUTHOR:
Coco Krumme. From cocofolio-dot-com-slash-bio:
“I'm an applied mathematician and writer. My book OPTIMAL ILLUSIONS comes out in September.
I have a phd from MIT and spent time in academia and tech before starting Leeward Co, a consultancy that works with scientific r&d teams.
These days I live on a rural island where I run a craft distillery, make sculptures, and am learning to fly a small airplane. Occasionally I write about other topics, like why Silicon valley has no sense of humor. If you're looking for the S.V. Poetry Magnets, you can find those here. To get in touch about speaking or consulting, try leeward at cocofolio dot com.”
NARRATOR: Coco Krumme (see above)
GENRE: Non-fiction; economics; Technology; Psychology; Philosophy; Science; Business
LOCATIONS: (not all-inclusive)
Kentucky; Washington; New York; California
TIME FRAME: Contemporary and historical
SUBJECTS: (not all-inclusive)
Industry; Construction; Farming; GMO; Progress; Economics; Values; Buffalo; Optimization; Technology; Mathematical models
DEDICATION:
Not found
SAMPLE QUOTATION: Excerpt From “Introduction”
“In the middle of the field, the bulldozer pauses, and out pops its driver for a cigarette break. It’s a perfect September day in northern Kentucky: crisp, blue, free. A neighboring dozer carves ant-hill ruts through the construction site. In the distance are horse pastures and strip malls.
I weave past the open gate up one of the bulldozed roads until I reach the end of an ant rut. I park my small pickup truck, windows down, and let the dog out for a walk. The sun warms my face and my thoughts are lost in the dirt canvas, until suddenly, I feel the driver’s eyes fix on me. This isn’t any anthill to explore. He crushes out a cigarette and settles his gaze again in my direction, indifferent now, before turning back toward his rig and the work ahead.
Some say America’s too new a country to have ruins. I say, our ruins are just better hidden, under the sheen of the new.
In Athens, the Parthenon stands tall and crumbling, like a drive-in movie screen strung high above the tourists and café’ dwellers below. In Rome, the Colosseum anchors a swirling city, its cold stone presence cutting through the chatter of tour guides and the grease of chap pizza and the plastic trinkets made overseas. At Teotihuacan, you can clamber up each imposing pyramid and practically touch the scorching sky.
In America, by contrast, we hide our ruins in the desert or cart them off to Chinese scrapyards. After September 11, the remnants of the World Trade Center were wrapped like widows in black canvas , quietly disassembled, and sent abroad. An engineer named Cao Xianggen says to the Chicago Tribune, of the injured steel: “America can’t use it all, but China has a huge demand.”
Now I watch the bulldozer driver carve new ruins into his field. He’s helping build the Amazon Air Hub, a $1.5-billion site expected to host some one hundred cargo airplanes, three hundred trucks, and a robotic sort center sprawling over a million square feet. Slated to open in 2021, it’s currently a mess of construction equipment and barricades.”
RATING:
3 stars. It's perfectly well written and interesting. But I rarely give 5 star ratings, so my 4 stars are usually fairly riveting reads. 3 stars isn't bad, it just means it's not a subject that I get enthusiastic about.
STARTED-FINISHED
12/11/2023-12/14/2023
BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
-PRINT: © September 12, 2023; 978-0593331118; Riverhead Books; 256 pages; unabridged (Hardcover Info from Amazon.com)
-DIGITAL: © September 12, 2023; Riverhead Books; 978059333132; 250 pages; unabridged (Digital version info from Amazon.com)
- *AUDIO: © 11 September 2023; Books on Tape; 7 hours (approx..); unabridged (Audio info from Libby app.)
-FILM: No
SERIES: No.
CHARACTERS:
N/A
SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-SELECTED: Perhaps I was searching for an economics book when this popped up and I decided to check it out and download. It wasn’t very long ago, but I have no memory of how this arrived on my virtual Libby shelf.
-ABOUT: The author describes a world built on the recommendations of computer models which assist in developing economic efficiencies toward an end of optimizing resources in the production of goods and services.
-OVERALL IMPRESSION: Coco has an impressive mathematical and scientific background, and a great vocabulary.
I get the sense that she herself developed (maybe still does) models for efficiency and optimal gain, so I don’t think she is anti-optimization (a concept I wasn’t familiar with until reading this), but perhaps a bit disillusioned, and certainly intent on explaining why we should consider the possibility that just because processes and procedures can be economically rewarding, doesn’t always mean the end result will be balanced or wholesome, in fact, I think she’s convinced that it OFTEN isn’t.
I enjoyed learning of her interviews with individuals as she asked about their experiences within their industries. Like the reluctant farmer, Bob, resisting the temptations of more lucrative practices that felt like betrayals to his values, until he eventually got swept up with the tide.
I felt I learned from her perspective of Las Vegas-style entertaining, railroad constructing, and more.
If I were to apply symbolism to the mood the book instilled, it would be the image on the Rider-Waite Tarot version of the 5 of cups where a wizened gray-haired figure cloaked in black stands gazing at three prone cups, their contents spilled; while two upright cups stand behind the figure, which I would say in this case would represent a nostalgic preference to ignore what’s been gained from the technology and science of optimization (the two standing cups) and focus on those slivers of humanity, spirituality, community spirit, and the like, that feel lost to the sands of time.
I came away mentally humming, “They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot.”
AUTHOR:
Coco Krumme. From cocofolio-dot-com-slash-bio:
“I'm an applied mathematician and writer. My book OPTIMAL ILLUSIONS comes out in September.
I have a phd from MIT and spent time in academia and tech before starting Leeward Co, a consultancy that works with scientific r&d teams.
These days I live on a rural island where I run a craft distillery, make sculptures, and am learning to fly a small airplane. Occasionally I write about other topics, like why Silicon valley has no sense of humor. If you're looking for the S.V. Poetry Magnets, you can find those here. To get in touch about speaking or consulting, try leeward at cocofolio dot com.”
NARRATOR: Coco Krumme (see above)
GENRE: Non-fiction; economics; Technology; Psychology; Philosophy; Science; Business
LOCATIONS: (not all-inclusive)
Kentucky; Washington; New York; California
TIME FRAME: Contemporary and historical
SUBJECTS: (not all-inclusive)
Industry; Construction; Farming; GMO; Progress; Economics; Values; Buffalo; Optimization; Technology; Mathematical models
DEDICATION:
Not found
SAMPLE QUOTATION: Excerpt From “Introduction”
“In the middle of the field, the bulldozer pauses, and out pops its driver for a cigarette break. It’s a perfect September day in northern Kentucky: crisp, blue, free. A neighboring dozer carves ant-hill ruts through the construction site. In the distance are horse pastures and strip malls.
I weave past the open gate up one of the bulldozed roads until I reach the end of an ant rut. I park my small pickup truck, windows down, and let the dog out for a walk. The sun warms my face and my thoughts are lost in the dirt canvas, until suddenly, I feel the driver’s eyes fix on me. This isn’t any anthill to explore. He crushes out a cigarette and settles his gaze again in my direction, indifferent now, before turning back toward his rig and the work ahead.
Some say America’s too new a country to have ruins. I say, our ruins are just better hidden, under the sheen of the new.
In Athens, the Parthenon stands tall and crumbling, like a drive-in movie screen strung high above the tourists and café’ dwellers below. In Rome, the Colosseum anchors a swirling city, its cold stone presence cutting through the chatter of tour guides and the grease of chap pizza and the plastic trinkets made overseas. At Teotihuacan, you can clamber up each imposing pyramid and practically touch the scorching sky.
In America, by contrast, we hide our ruins in the desert or cart them off to Chinese scrapyards. After September 11, the remnants of the World Trade Center were wrapped like widows in black canvas , quietly disassembled, and sent abroad. An engineer named Cao Xianggen says to the Chicago Tribune, of the injured steel: “America can’t use it all, but China has a huge demand.”
Now I watch the bulldozer driver carve new ruins into his field. He’s helping build the Amazon Air Hub, a $1.5-billion site expected to host some one hundred cargo airplanes, three hundred trucks, and a robotic sort center sprawling over a million square feet. Slated to open in 2021, it’s currently a mess of construction equipment and barricades.”
RATING:
3 stars. It's perfectly well written and interesting. But I rarely give 5 star ratings, so my 4 stars are usually fairly riveting reads. 3 stars isn't bad, it just means it's not a subject that I get enthusiastic about.
STARTED-FINISHED
12/11/2023-12/14/2023
Read
October 22, 2023The book got me thinking beyond its covers. Since Optimal Illusions invited us to consider adding some skepticism to our optimization, I thought about who follows optimization and who doesn't.
On a scale of 100, where some groups might fall in their use of optimization:
0 - Eastern religions (Life is suffering; choose your pain. Don't optimize your escape from suffering. Don't subscribe to wellness influencers.)
90 - Christianity/Islam (there's an all-or-nothing pass/fail final exam)
60 - Judaism (lack of strong heaven-centricity, so less to optimize around, foregrounding the capricity of the deity)
100 - Effective Altruism (Donate 1 kidney; brokers buying mosquito nets.)
60 - Quakers (God is still speaking - could speak now, in the middle of this meeting, so there is not a 2000 year old lock on the OKRs)
20 - Math disciplines like Chaos, non-linear fluid dynamics, Game Theory, Network Effects and Emergence
100+ - Calculus
92 - Jeff Bezos
50 - Jack Dorsey
80 - Trump: few sincere beliefs or original ideas; just spitballing, watching TV, and a nearly-A.I. level of devotion to A|B testing to reach his OKR's.
60 - The Grateful Dead: hippies, sure, but their live show is optimizing several things. They're not really doing "whatever" up there.
30 - World Music DJ Jonathan Oberby on WPR - Fun show! His playlist really does achieve a "whatever" quality. But ironically it misses its intended 0 mark because it's very evenly distributed across genres, tempos, geographies. Oberby optimizes around lack of bias. But this introduces bias: the first thing you learn in freshman statistics is that a truly random coin will have runs of 10 identical results in a row
30 Me
80 Extraction focused colonialism (Haiti, Nigeria, Dutch East India) - there is an element of shame and moralizing that act as a brake on the all-out extraction velocity
70 - Easter Island: more tikis!
100 - petroleum-based agriculture (Coco discusses)
80 - destroying the buffalo of the Great Plains ( if Y Combinator or efficient venture capital had existed back then, much faster).
80 short-sighted urban planning in Atlanta (Coco discusses)
60 - Coco Krumme's Optimal Illusion. Krumme's still a fan of inflection points -- just with caveats. There are optimal ways to be non-optimal.
I only saw the author discuss the book at a book festival, I did not read it. I attended but was in the mood for a refutation of our practice of chasing "the best", as in "10 ways to hack your sleep". But this was the mildest of retreats from optimization, just a cautionary note. And that is fine. Probably optimal.
On a scale of 100, where some groups might fall in their use of optimization:
0 - Eastern religions (Life is suffering; choose your pain. Don't optimize your escape from suffering. Don't subscribe to wellness influencers.)
90 - Christianity/Islam (there's an all-or-nothing pass/fail final exam)
60 - Judaism (lack of strong heaven-centricity, so less to optimize around, foregrounding the capricity of the deity)
100 - Effective Altruism (Donate 1 kidney; brokers buying mosquito nets.)
60 - Quakers (God is still speaking - could speak now, in the middle of this meeting, so there is not a 2000 year old lock on the OKRs)
20 - Math disciplines like Chaos, non-linear fluid dynamics, Game Theory, Network Effects and Emergence
100+ - Calculus
92 - Jeff Bezos
50 - Jack Dorsey
80 - Trump: few sincere beliefs or original ideas; just spitballing, watching TV, and a nearly-A.I. level of devotion to A|B testing to reach his OKR's.
60 - The Grateful Dead: hippies, sure, but their live show is optimizing several things. They're not really doing "whatever" up there.
30 - World Music DJ Jonathan Oberby on WPR - Fun show! His playlist really does achieve a "whatever" quality. But ironically it misses its intended 0 mark because it's very evenly distributed across genres, tempos, geographies. Oberby optimizes around lack of bias. But this introduces bias: the first thing you learn in freshman statistics is that a truly random coin will have runs of 10 identical results in a row
30 Me
80 Extraction focused colonialism (Haiti, Nigeria, Dutch East India) - there is an element of shame and moralizing that act as a brake on the all-out extraction velocity
70 - Easter Island: more tikis!
100 - petroleum-based agriculture (Coco discusses)
80 - destroying the buffalo of the Great Plains ( if Y Combinator or efficient venture capital had existed back then, much faster).
80 short-sighted urban planning in Atlanta (Coco discusses)
60 - Coco Krumme's Optimal Illusion. Krumme's still a fan of inflection points -- just with caveats. There are optimal ways to be non-optimal.
I only saw the author discuss the book at a book festival, I did not read it. I attended but was in the mood for a refutation of our practice of chasing "the best", as in "10 ways to hack your sleep". But this was the mildest of retreats from optimization, just a cautionary note. And that is fine. Probably optimal.
November 24, 2023
like stuff I was thinking about myself, only clearer
I was taught optimization in school and then I worked on compilers. That was 40 years ago. Later I worked at various times, for Apple, Amazon and 9 different startups. So in some ways I come from a similar background to Coco Brumme’s, but I am older.
She covers all the important ground in her book.
There are several ways to understand satisficing, the term Herbert Simon used. Brumme describes it as stuff you do to patch up a model when your optimizations have outcomes you don’t like. But I read some other author who said natural selection does not optimize, but satisfices, and the main rule to satisfy is “don’t die”. You don’t have to be the best at anything: just don’t die.
My own spin on her book is that we and future humans will live in the junkyards of today, and reuse and recycling from those junkyards will be the focus of our lives. That includes media junkyards like old libraries.
(And perhaps you should ignore the five stars and wait for cheap used copies of this book to come out in three or four years. Or get it from your public library. Who knows what else you might find, if you wandered through the stacks of your library? Or shopped at a Goodwill Store? Or scavenged stuff from a dump?)
I was taught optimization in school and then I worked on compilers. That was 40 years ago. Later I worked at various times, for Apple, Amazon and 9 different startups. So in some ways I come from a similar background to Coco Brumme’s, but I am older.
She covers all the important ground in her book.
There are several ways to understand satisficing, the term Herbert Simon used. Brumme describes it as stuff you do to patch up a model when your optimizations have outcomes you don’t like. But I read some other author who said natural selection does not optimize, but satisfices, and the main rule to satisfy is “don’t die”. You don’t have to be the best at anything: just don’t die.
My own spin on her book is that we and future humans will live in the junkyards of today, and reuse and recycling from those junkyards will be the focus of our lives. That includes media junkyards like old libraries.
(And perhaps you should ignore the five stars and wait for cheap used copies of this book to come out in three or four years. Or get it from your public library. Who knows what else you might find, if you wandered through the stacks of your library? Or shopped at a Goodwill Store? Or scavenged stuff from a dump?)
December 30, 2023
I like to be efficient. But after reading this book, I wonder if I should back away a little from worshiping efficiency. Krumme makes an excellent case that it's possible to take efficiency too far.
Krumme writes, "By embracing efficiency above all, we’ve crowded out what can’t be measured and optimized and allowed the metaphor of optimization to cannibalize other worldviews."
For example, consider our reliance on GPS for traveling. As someone who wants to know the quickest route to where I'm going, I have lost my "sense of adventure, as well as [my] comfort with getting lost."
After reading this book, I won't stop using GPS; I still want to know the optimal way to get somewhere. But I will think twice about being so dependent upon it. There are things in life that optimization can't get us. I don't want to lose those things at the altar of optimal illusions.
I recommend this book but with some caveats. Krumme gets a little too detailed for my taste with many of her examples. I lost the thread at times and got bored. Her premise is good, but it didn't always stay centered.
Nonetheless, Optimal Illusions is an intriguing read and an even more intriguing principle to ponder.
My thanks to Netgalley and Riverhead Books for the review copy of this book.
Krumme writes, "By embracing efficiency above all, we’ve crowded out what can’t be measured and optimized and allowed the metaphor of optimization to cannibalize other worldviews."
For example, consider our reliance on GPS for traveling. As someone who wants to know the quickest route to where I'm going, I have lost my "sense of adventure, as well as [my] comfort with getting lost."
After reading this book, I won't stop using GPS; I still want to know the optimal way to get somewhere. But I will think twice about being so dependent upon it. There are things in life that optimization can't get us. I don't want to lose those things at the altar of optimal illusions.
I recommend this book but with some caveats. Krumme gets a little too detailed for my taste with many of her examples. I lost the thread at times and got bored. Her premise is good, but it didn't always stay centered.
Nonetheless, Optimal Illusions is an intriguing read and an even more intriguing principle to ponder.
My thanks to Netgalley and Riverhead Books for the review copy of this book.
October 28, 2023
I'm not entirely sure what I think after reading this book. It was certainly engaging and thought-provoking, and helped me to see how my desire and drive for optimization had many upsides, as well as many downsides. There were certain chapters, such as the reintroduction of bison in the American West, that had new-to-me topics and I loved learning about them. But as good as many of the examples were, the chapters hopped around from riding trains to a bakery on the San Juan Islands, and the through-lines must have been more obvious to the author than to me. I didn't expect a neat conclusion or a "do these things" list, but the book just didn't hang together as a whole, nor did the individual vignettes stand strong enough alone. I do think parts of it were thought-provoking, so I'll be generous and stick with the 3 stars.
January 15, 2024
Audiobook. Meh. I wanted to agree with her case. But she goes into the book having assumed she doesn't have to work that hard to prove that "Optimization is done". And she never does.
I compare this to "Blood in the Machine" by Brian Merchant that I just read where he spends an incredible amount of time doing the research into the Luddites and really brilliantly makes the case they weren't anti technology. The luddites were against the capitalists using the tools of the state and technology to impoverish everyone else and make themselves excessively rich and powerful.
Krumme fails to make a similar case. This book feels like the conclusion to what should have been a much more thorough run through of business cases.
I compare this to "Blood in the Machine" by Brian Merchant that I just read where he spends an incredible amount of time doing the research into the Luddites and really brilliantly makes the case they weren't anti technology. The luddites were against the capitalists using the tools of the state and technology to impoverish everyone else and make themselves excessively rich and powerful.
Krumme fails to make a similar case. This book feels like the conclusion to what should have been a much more thorough run through of business cases.
November 5, 2023
Intriguing topic, got me to pick up the book. I wanted to like this book. Difficult to read though because I found it repetitive, lacking in structure, and easily distracted by unnecessary prose. Anecdotes are helpful to understand the points but I found them scattered and needing to ask myself, why is the author going into such lengths about this story again? Another reviewer suggests this could have been a New Yorker article and I agree that would’ve been a more effective way to get the message across.
December 19, 2023
I started this book a few months back and picked it up a few days back and couldn't it put it own until I finished it. Something about the way the author described the mathematical intuitions behind optimization and the good and bad of the results - kept me hooked. The intertwining of characters alive and historical was impressive. I could not resonate with the categorizations of slack, pace, etc and neither did the last chapter on what else we could be doing. Regardless, kudos to the research and the walk through of the journey.
January 19, 2024
Interesting look and perspective on the over dependence or all consuming paradigm of optimization. This is a synthesis of lots of fun/good perspectives (Ulam, Grothus!, Isaac Newton, Kurt Vonnegut, Borges, and many more). This did discussion the failures of optimization and the challenge of finding another paradigm when we are consumed with optimism? How do we do better in using optimism? ;) Or what's better than optimism? The path to the solution lies is recognizing the paradox, but no solution is giving.
January 24, 2024
This book intrigued me at first due to the possibility of learning more about the downsides of optimization. While the author detailed a few interesting interactions with people who have experienced some hardship that could potentially be connected to the idea of optimization, I believe the author did not adequately make the case that these downsides are attributable to optimization. The examples expressed in the book could more accurately be attributed to more influential factors than the idea of optimization in my opinion.
November 27, 2023
The author seems to blame all the ills of the modern American economy on optimization, ignoring such obvious villains as greed and increased industrial concentration. The author also seems to be less aware of the amthematics of optimization than claimed, as at one point she discusses linear programming and one page and then mention the simplex algorithm on the next as if it were a separate item, when in fact simplex is the algorithm that lies at the heat of linear programming.
August 10, 2023
*3.75
Optimal Illusions takes an interesting look at the uses (and failures) of optimization in multiple fields. I really enjoyed the history of where this idea came from as well as how embedded it is in technologies. Overall, it’s a great read but the ending left me wanting a bit.
Optimal Illusions takes an interesting look at the uses (and failures) of optimization in multiple fields. I really enjoyed the history of where this idea came from as well as how embedded it is in technologies. Overall, it’s a great read but the ending left me wanting a bit.
February 8, 2024
i didn't feel like this book showed me a single meaningful point honestly. it felt hollow - every point that was made was a .....well duh. yeah. that's how the world is. like i finished it feeling like there was no impact womp womp
November 24, 2023
repetitive & at times lacking depth. Gets better towards the end, honestly if I'd started reading at chapter 5 I would have /considered/ a 4/5.
December 12, 2023
fun enough for the particular examples used, but not really put together into a compelling narrative with an unshakeable thesis
January 16, 2024
The book is interesting. The examples are good. The Voice of the reader is nice. The Conclusion is good. And still somehow it didn’t catch me so much. Anyway, good learnings.
January 20, 2024
So boring. This genre of book is always such a hard slog.
February 3, 2024
The anecdotes throughout the book are all very interesting and inspiring.
February 3, 2024
This is a very healthy read for our time and place.
March 9, 2024
I'm begging the author to read one single article about capitalism.
On the one hand, there were good observations in here and I felt like I should like the book because it parallels a lot of observations I've made recently. On the other hand, it seemed like the point was to be critical of tech and then still fell into the hype of Sam Altman.
There was one mention of capitalism in the first quarter or so and it was to give an incredibly uninformed definition of it and then go "so this harmful optimization thing I'm talking about is separate from the global economic system and incentives of business". This lack of understanding really harmed the overall thesis and completely limits any real solutions because her own solutions are grounded in marginal optimizations based on what the last few decades of US history imply is possible.
On the one hand, there were good observations in here and I felt like I should like the book because it parallels a lot of observations I've made recently. On the other hand, it seemed like the point was to be critical of tech and then still fell into the hype of Sam Altman.
There was one mention of capitalism in the first quarter or so and it was to give an incredibly uninformed definition of it and then go "so this harmful optimization thing I'm talking about is separate from the global economic system and incentives of business". This lack of understanding really harmed the overall thesis and completely limits any real solutions because her own solutions are grounded in marginal optimizations based on what the last few decades of US history imply is possible.
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