The thing is that human society has reached a level of complexity that it pretty much requires the existence of multiple spreadsheets and really complicated logistics to just barely keep things working. And it has been largely a good thing, we have a much better capacity to produce and move things around to where people need them. Those logistics make so many people’s lives possible.
The problem is not that there are spreadsheets to help manage the complexity of the world, but that the spreadsheet has been reified to stand in for the world, and sometimes it’s treated as more real than anything that cannot be quantified and tabulated. That, and that 99% of the spreadsheets are looking at the wrong variables and maximizing the wrong goals (profit)
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I feel like one should not say this but it is correct
The thing is that human society has reached a level of complexity that it pretty much requires the existence of multiple spreadsheets and really complicated logistics to just barely keep things working. And it has been largely a good thing, we have a much better capacity to produce and move things around to where people need them. Those logistics make so many people’s lives possible.
The problem is not that there are spreadsheets to help manage the complexity of the world, but that the spreadsheet has been reified to stand in for the world, and sometimes it’s treated as more real than anything that cannot be quantified and tabulated. That, and that 99% of the spreadsheets are looking at the wrong variables and maximizing the wrong goals (profit)
the death of civlization will be in a surprisingly large part the refusal to look at data holistically instead of KPIs only