Thread by @sriramk

"Ratcheting" , schelling fences and the organizational imperative:

organizational processes often have a "ratcheting" effect in one direction. Little steps (with good intentions) add up and systems end up in red-tape/bad places if there's no counterbalance.

Find a bug → implement another review sign-off layer → lose code productivity

Find wasteful expense → another check-box/training → no one can spend $ with flexibility

Find bad post on platform → another content rule → you're removing a lot of content you didn't intend to

What's challenging about these is these always look well-intentioned in the specific example, there's no way to measure the combination+precedent. As @VitalikButerin says "the slippery slope argument fallacy is to assume all slippery slope argumens are fallacious"

What are practical answers to tackle this:

a) An organizational ombudsman. Someone empowered and incentivized to play the Devil's Advocate inside the org. A famous MSFT thinkweek paper once argued for a "Process Police"

b) An external arbitrer: Have an external body outside of the incentive structures of the organization which can act as a "court of appeal". Implementation is left as an exercise to the reader.

c) A periodic reset: Like @tobi deleting all recurring meetings, starting from scratch from first first principles will often create a new schelling point.

I see this pattern play out again and again in various systems and find it challenging to overcome. Maybe even awareness+internal discussion is a good start.

h/t to @VitalikButerin for a lot of great writing on this.