American entrepreneurs have always been focused on extracting maximum economic value from any resource they can find. This includes Henry Ford’s assembly line and Tony Hsieh’s Zappos Happiness Experience Form. The public sector is no exception, as overambitious streamlining of Texas’ power grid contributed to a devastating winter power crisis in 2021, resulting in the loss of over 700 lives. In her new book, Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization, UC Berkeley applied mathematician and author Coco Krumme delves into our historical obsession with optimization and how it often leads to unforeseen and undesirable consequences in the systems we streamline.
In the following excerpt, Krumme explores the recent resurgence of interest in Universal Basic Income (UBI) and the differing approaches to implementing UBI between tech evangelists like Sam Altman and Andrew Yang, and social workers like Aisha Nyandoro, the founder…
2023-09-24 09:30:12
Article from www.engadget.com rnrn