I often find myself in a world driven towards more. Implicitly, explicitly, and verging on universally. More efficient. More speed. More knowledge. Higher profits. More money. More interpersonal connections. More time outside. More happiness. Better mental health. More wellness. More productivity. More Love. More trust. More peace. More strength. More capabilities. More accurate. More precise.

I like many of these pursuits of more, but I think we venture into dubious territory when we implicitly seek more in all the things we seek.

In the case of efficiency, increased efficiency often comes at a cost of decreased reliability and decreased robustness. Take just in time manufacturing, for example, where supply chain managers seek to eliminate inventory storage from their supply chain. This increases efficiency in the short term, but in the event of a disruption (e.g. COVID-19), the entire supply chain is subject to more rapid and widespread failure.

A common practice in the pursuit of increased reliability is redundancy. Information technology providers are able to provide 5 nines of reliability (99.999% uptime, or 5 minutes per year of outages) by utilizing multiple redundant pathways so that an outage only occurs if multiple pathways fail at once. But redundancy increases reliability far more than robustness. In most years, a provider will be able to deliver 5 nines, but when the entire network of redundant pathways passes through a single building, and a hundred year storm knocks down the entire network, and the infrastructure to repair the network, there will be far more than 500 minutes of downtime. And what if the practice of creating redundant networks is part of a system of climate change that makes hundred year storms happen every ten years? Subprime mortgages are a classic example of reliability through redundancy without robustness. By averaging and insuring a large amount of mortgages, banks were able to create a profitable investment with consistent and reliable returns throughout 2006. By 2008, when the lack of robustness became apparent, it was too late.

The pursuit of efficiency and reliability has driven two notable networks into a more centralized shape at the potential (though as yet unrealized) cost of reduced robustness. These are the global information and continental electrical power distribution networks.

And in a day to day struggle for more, such a shift feels inevitable. Better service today. More reliable service tomorrow, and almost certainly for the rest of the year. When choosing centralized CSP and international HVDC transmission or household PV solar, we typically consider cost effectiveness, reliability, and robustness to anticipated preturbances including natural disasters. I contend that we may also want to consider what our fundamental goals are. In what ways is it critical that we provide exactly what is asked and when might we decline to meet consumption demands?

Weather it is electrical power, or basic science, must we approximate laissez-faire economics driven by short term gains?

(Academic honesty citation: title from Draft Punk’s song of the same name)