The value of some wastefulness: robustness and serendipity

In academia, it's very common to think that you could have done more: work more efficiently, work better.

This perpetual guilt plagues all of us, particularly those of us on the job market, but even people with  tenured positions (which Covid-19 has also made less secure). 

Closely related to this idea that you could always have done more is the notion that you should optimize the time you manage to carve out for research. Job market consultants advise grad students and others on the job market not to waste their time doing such things as writing book reviews and other things with low CV value. You should be writing single-authored papers for top generalist philosophy journals! 

To this, I want to offer a bit of pushback. A bit of inefficiency and wastefulness is good. The idea that we should be hyper-efficient and streamlined is revealing itself as a failure on the level of society. In this article in Aeon, Barry Schwartz explains why efficiency is a dangerous idea: 

Why hadn’t we stockpiled key supplies and machines, built up hospital capacity, or ensured the robustness of our supply chains? The reason, of course, is that it would have been seen as inefficient and profit-robbing. Money spent on masks and gowns gathering dust in a warehouse could always be put to more ‘productive’ use in the marketplace. Likewise, employing more people than needed under ‘ordinary’ circumstances, or making products yourself rather than relying on international supply chains, would have been seen as inefficient. One lesson, then, is that to be better prepared next time, we need to learn to live less ‘efficiently’ in the here and now.

However, if you look at biological organisms and their components, which have been under the whittling effect of natural selection, you see a very different picture than just-in-time and hyper-efficiency so prized in society. You see redundancy, inefficiency, such as T-cells standing on guard doing basically nothing, should they encounter the disease the body conquered before again.

You see wastefulness in many other areas too. Ants, the paragon of industriousness? Turns out up to 40% just sit around doing nothing. But those inactive ants are a vital reserve force for the colony, springing into action when the population dwindles, for example. This increases the robustness of the colony, its ability to deal with population fluctuations which would be impossible if every ant were optimally working its hardest. 

The reason that some inefficiency is good is twofold: it builds in robustness and it allows for serendipity. Hyper-streamlined systems are more vulnerable to a component that might break down. A system with some redundancy, by contrast, is more robust against shocks. Serendipity are the Bob Rossian "happy little accidents that might happen".  You need to have some things in place so the luck can play out. 

Note here, for instance, the story by Kevin Zollman on how he got to co-author a popular trade book on parenting and game theory. The book's long history starts when Zollman was asked to write a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a kind of "Dear Prudence", but with Game Theory. 

As he explains:

It would have been easy for me to say no.  I was still pre-tenure.  This wouldn’t go on my CV, it wasn’t paid, and it wasn’t particularly high profile.  The Post-Gazette is a nice paper, but it’s not going to get national attention.  Beyond all this, I could have passed it off as something for someone else with more stature.  I wasn’t even the most senior game theorist in the philosophy department at CMU, much less at the university or in the city of Pittsburgh. If I wanted to say “no,” I had plenty of excuses. On the other hand, I wanted to connect with people outside of academia. This wasn’t the way I initially imagined doing it, but it was an opportunity. I decided I wasn’t too afraid of my colleague’s potential criticism.  This seemed like fun.  So I said “yes.”

Long story short, the column led to the book. And, as Zollman demonstrates, "My story shows that small things lead to bigger ones." 

I concur with Zollman's judgment that saying yes to things or taking time to do things that may seem a waste of time (and might well turn out to be), is important. Not everything you do like this, because you are interested, because you are intrigued, because you just want to do it, will give such big dividends. Most of them won't. But some will. Hence, even taking the time to write this blogpost is a good idea. It might seed some ideas further on, someone might read it and get a good idea. Who knows? 

A Cocoon reader recently asked the following

This might be a silly question but here goes. What would you think of a philosopher publishing fiction in addition to publishing philosophy? If their work has philosophical themes - if a character was a philosophy professor, or if characters explicitly discussed philosophers' work - would you think that was evidence of un-seriousness or lack of dedication to really doing philosophy? Would you assume the work was autobiographical? Would peers or mentors or hiring committees care? I studied creative writing in college and have been working on fiction projects in my spare time on and off since then and there's one I want to publish. But if there's even a little chance it would hurt my prospects in philosophy, forget it...

There's always a risk that committee members would think less of you for doing something you love that is philosophy-related.

But I think that the consideration how one is perceived as a job candidate is not the only consideration in wondering whether, all things considered, writing some fiction is a good idea when you're on the job market.

The other consideration is: what is the value for you of this practice? If you enjoy creative writing, and if you value it, you should definitely go for it! 

Creative writing is a form of wastefulness that, I think, demonstrates the principles of robustness and serendipity particularly well.

First, robustness: through creative writing, you will also learn to be an overall better writer. Philosophers often write very difficult prose, strewn with jargon, dealing with the highly abstract. Can you get an audience to follow your story, just because they want to know what happened? Can you write in a way that it isn't a chore to follow your writing? Creative teaching can teach you ways how to. I currently teach creative writing to grad students, and they tell me how writing this way is a very useful exercise for them. In this way, you become a better writer, and thus also a better job candidate. 

Second, creative writing generates serendipity. I am co-editor of a forthcoming book of philosophical SF stories (with Eric Schwitzgebel and Johan De Smedt), and without my interest in creative writing and actually doing it, I would not have ended up with this volume. The cover is also drawn by me, and without my interest in visual art and my hobby of drawing, that picture would not be there. 

A lot of the inefficiency we might build into our lives never comes to anything. This was the case the several years I was on the job market, and it's the case now. But some of it does. 

You will note how I have focused on the instrumental value of some inefficiency.

Maybe even doing that buys into this notion of hyper-efficiency, namely, what I am saying could be construed as: to be really efficient, you need to put in place some multiple paths which may seem inefficient in the moment. We might need a different conversation to discuss doing things for their intrinsic own good. Trying to free ourselves from the notion that we are productivity-machines. This is a good conversation to have and I'm interested in having too.

But the point is, even if you focus just on what we can do as philosophers, within the context of a capitalist productivity-focused environment, it is good to go out on a limb sometimes, it's good to pursue things just for their own sake, even if many will come to nought. 

Comments

[John Protevi]

Thanks, Helen, really interesting post, and I think it's wise advice.

This is in the context of responses to Covid-19, but these ideas on robustness, efficiency, and resilience might generalize: https://www.facebook.com/john.protevi/posts/10219013011108043

[Wastefulness]

It is unfortunate that professors are so pressured to publish like machines. This rush and pressure to publish have resulted in negative consequences: low-quality articles being produced.

The irony is that perhaps some inefficiencies can help decrease the wastefulness in terms of the quality of articles that often results from hyper-efficiency itself.

In terms of writing accessibly, it’s a skill to cultivate. I used to think that writing simplistically and accessibly should be easy. Now I realize it’s actually hard to do for many philosophers.

Translating philosophical ideas onto paper can be extremely difficult. When I first entered philosophy I had this trouble. I knew what I meant, but had such a hard time writing it down in a way that would make sense to my readers.

Then I realized that I used to study biology and what do biologists do? They observe and name things and put them into categories. I got in touch with my roots; my love for biology and higher-order thinking and conceptualization. Going back to the basics, I thought, is probably the best way for me to explain certain philosophical ideas that would be the least convoluted for me and my readers.

Now I see philosophical concepts from a taxonomic framework. Starting from the highest generalization possible and then working my way and filling the details later. This, in turn, allowed me to write simplistically.

[Tom]

“This rush and pressure to publish have resulted in negative consequences: low-quality articles being produced.”

My take: if you look around and find yourself thinking “almost all of this is bad” then you’ve probably misunderstood what good looks like. This is an almost-instance of the following maxim: any inference that supports the conclusion “everyone else is dumb” relies on premises that are themselves dumb.

I read a *ton* of philosophy, almost all of it in journals and almost all of it from the last five years. The idea that pressure to publish is producing loads of waste looks to me like trash. Soooooo much of what I read is excellent that I just don’t know what your lot is complaining about.

[Wastefulness]

Hi Tom,

If you read closely, I never specified *how much* philosophy papers are of low-quality. Rather, I made the general claim that rushing and being pressured to published results in articles of low-quality being produced. It could be some, many, or most. I don’t know exactly. But there are at least *some* based on my experience of reading them.

Perhaps you are right that I am misunderstanding what ”good” looks like. But that's only because your claim presupposes that there is already an agreed-upon definition of ”good” is in terms of the quality of philosophy papers. But is that true? Has the philosophical community come to a consensus yet? Enlighten me. Hence why you assumed I misunderstood what ”good” looks like.

In previous posts, Amanda said that the majority of philosophy papers she read were also of average to low quality. Thus, I am not the only person who believes this. The only difference is that I am inferring one of the causes for how come there are average to low-quality papers being produced e.g., hyper-efficiency (pressure to publish).

You and I probably have different standards for what we consider to be ”high quality” or “good.” If the philosophical community hasn’t come to a consensus about what “good quality” is, then I am definitely not misunderstanding anything in this case. Instead, my threshold for “good” is probably higher than the average or yours. And that’s because I’ve read excellent works in the past. Interestingly, many of the excellent works I’ve read are law articles.

Both share similarities insofar as both use reason and argumentation in their articles. Many law papers are better at reasoning and synthesis than other philosophy papers from my experience. This is probably due to the fact that legal scholars know all too well about being impartial and avoiding the hypostatization fallacy many philosophers commit.

[Mike]

A reasonable premise is that philosophy journal articles are like most other things: they fall on a bell curve. So, it would be surprising if there was a very large number of *excellent* ones.

It also seems reasonable (as an initial reflection) that the rush to publish discourages a certain kind of philosophy journal article, namely, the kind that results from years of deep reflection on an issue.

Whether or not you want to call only those "excellent", I don't know, but it's not implausible that the push for efficiency will shape the kinds of articles produced, encouraging ones that make "small technical points", merely introduce a new distinction or point out a counterexample, etc. What's less clear is just how much the actual effect has been, since these sorts of articles have always been around (and in large numbers).

[Tom]

Hi W,

You're correct, you don't say that most papers aren't good. It was merely something that I took to be an implicature of what you did say. In any even you've said it now ("Amanda said that the majority of philosophy papers she read were also of average to low quality. Thus, I am not the only person who believes this.") so I don't think there's much left to be said about that.

And no, neither I nor my words "presupposes that there is already an agreed-upon definition of ”good”". Compare the following: you and a friend go to an art museum. Your friend looks at each piece, even very famous pieces, and declares them to be crap. It's reasonable for you to conclude based on this that your friend doesn't know what good art is. You can safely conclude this even in the absence of a definition of good art.

I claim that you and Amanda and folks like you are guilty of something similar---you're going to the `museum' of philosophy (that is, the place---academic journals---where the experts have chosen to curate their collections of exemplars of excellence) and declared the contents to be by and large crap. I can safely conclude from this that you don't know what good philosophy is.

We might also think of it probabilistically: either most people writing papers don't know what a good paper is (in which case *many* people are making a coordinated error) or *you* (one person) are judging matters by the wrong criteria. The probability of the latter seems far higher than the probability of the former.

In general, echoing a point I made above, I think this is a case where it's useful to reflect on something my mother used to say: if everywhere you go stinks, check the bottom of your shoes. I'm saying you should check your shoes.

[Wastefulness]

Hi Tom,

Your analogy is interesting and would work if philosophers or referees actually came to a consensus as to what “good quality” is. But have they? You provided no evidence. Just mere analogy. Newsflash: analogies work if they sufficiently correspond to reality.

In the world of visual art, there are objective criteria since there are principles of design that we rely on to judge artworks e.g., breadth, use of space, color theory, rule of thirds, consistency, repetition, proportion, contrast, emphasis, balance, etc. These principles are universal regardless of what museum you go to. There are niche museums like the Dali Museum, that only curate Dali’s works, but nevertheless, many of Dali’s works are considered excellent because they utilize those principles of design. Some his of works are mediocre. But they’re displayed in these museums to commemorate him and house his works as a whole even if they are not considered his masterpieces.

I’m also an artist myself too and I also follow and use these principles of design in my work. I knew this while taking AP Art Class back in high school.

This, I’m skeptical that your analogy is as symmetrical as you assumed because, in another post that Marcus made outsourcing the pet-peeves of reviewing or referring, it every referee who commented has their own tastes and standards! Go figure.

Second, you wrote: “And no, neither I nor my words "presuppose that there is already an agreed-upon definition of ”good.”

No, but there is a kind of presupposition that your argument unconsciously or indirectly has: metaphysical/empirical presupposition. In order for your claim that I’m misunderstanding what “good quality” looks likes, you implicitly assumed that these journals actually have set criteria already and that the referees all follow them.

However, since articles are reviewed by individual referees who have their own individual standards (as Marcus’ post showed), I remain skeptical of your claim about my misunderstandings. Not to mention the posts on this website about referees not reading fairly or unjustly
rejecting articles left and right.

For all these reasons, I remain skeptical that most philosophy papers are of *excellent* quality. Based on what I’ve observed on this website in terms of refereeing and journals, it seems the opposite: the probability of many or most philosophers committing errors is higher!

Now, most journals have *types* of articles they are willing to ”curate.” That’s fine. Metaphysics journals will curate metaphysics articles. The Ethics journal will curate articles on ethics and morality. And so on. But that’s not the same as curating *high-quality* articles.

[Tom]

I mean, I dunno man. I feel like if I've reduced things to the point where you're defending your position by saying that aesthetic judgments are based in objective universal principles, then maybe I've won?

Anyways, I'm not making an argument by analogy. I'm using the analogy to try to help you see something straightforward: if you disagree with the experts you're probably wrong.

The rest of what you say is... weird? I mean, it might surprise you, but I've published quite a bit. So I'm actually aware that journals don't have set criteria and... didn't say that? Also art isn't like that either, in spite of your weird assertions to the contrary.

At the end if you're willing to embrace the `everyone but me is dumb' conclusion, then... ok. I don't really think there's much more to say, other than well, no that's probably not how things are.

[Wastefulness]

Tom:

First, I’m going to be as precise as possible because I value and respect reasoning and clear communication. You claimed that a lot of the articles you’ve read are considered excellent. You wrote:

”Soooooo much of what I read is excellent that I just don’t know what your lot is complaining about.”

I’m going to assume your exeraggted phrase ”Soooooo much” implies ”most,” or at least, ”a great many.”

Here’s my question: How do you know they are excellent? What makes them ”excellent”? Please answer me. I really wanna know.

Second, you wrote: ”if you disagree with the experts you're probably wrong.”

This is true, but irrelevant when it comes to most philosophy articles because they’re not the empirical sciences! Duh! Most of the philosophy articles deal with reasoning and conceptual analysis which can easily be criticized by providing counter-examples, poking holes in the logic, criticizing presuppositions, criticizing definitions, etc.

By your logic, we’re not even allowed to DO PHILOSOPHY then. Do you see what you’ve written? Critique is one of the FOUNDATIONS of philosophic inquiry.

So I should just naively accept most philosophical arguments then since they’ve been written by ”experts”? The irony is that even ”experts” in philosophy still disagree with each other over many things themselves. For example, Kantians are skeptical of utilitarians. Virtue ethicists are skeptical of Kantians, etc. In the normative and conceptual realm, there’s plenty of room for disagreements. That’s just how it is. And one does not need to be an expert to disagree with philosophical works so long as one is well-equipped with logic and tools of reasoning.

Here is are my criteria for evaluating philosophical articles. They’re from Thomas Kuhn. I added five more: Precision, Practicality, Originality, Clarity and Theoretical Integrity, which will be apparent below.

1. Accuracy
2. Precision
3. Broad Scope
4. Simplicity
5. Fruitfulness
6. Internal Coherency
7. External Coherency
8. Practicality (How applicable is it? Are there any practical implications of it?)
9. Theoretical Integrity (How well the article succeeded in what it promised or set out to do).
10. Clarity (How clear is the writing? Can readers understand it?)
11. Originality (How innovative is it?).

Now, how many philosophy articles score a 9-10 (excellent) on all of these criterion? Very little based on my observation. These are my criteria. What are yours?

[Mike]

"I'm using the analogy to try to help you see something straightforward: if you disagree with the experts you're probably wrong."

I'm confused. Is the claim that referees only recommend acceptance on papers they deem "excellent"? I'm a widely used referee, and that's sure not the standard I use for publication. I recommend papers that are scholarly competent and make an original, interesting contribution to the literature.

In any case, you've totally ignored my point: If you really want to talk about what's "plausible" or has a higher probability, it's *far* more likely that, like most things, (a) journal articles fall along a bell-shaped curve, vs (b) that a large number of journal articles are *excellent*. Sure, a few articles published in philosophy journals are excellent along some dimension, will end up making a lasting contribution to the literature, etc. The rest? They are mostly competent, make a contribution to the literature, move the discussion forward, etc ... In other words, they're average, just part of the conversation.

"Excellent" is a high bar.

[Wastefulness]

I suspect that the mean number of articles being submitted are of average quality hence why the mean number of articles published is also of average quality. This whole issue is probably an epistemological one. Until you’ve read an excellent article, you most likely won’t really know which one is excellent or not. Either Tom is intellectually naive or just lack the critical thinking skills or tools needed to adequately differentiate between what’s excellent and what’s not. As well, considering the number of epistemic injustices that occur in the Academy discussed by many (feminist and Black) epistemologists, I still remain skeptical that the mean number of articles published is actually of excellent quality. So much of high-quality articles are not being produced partly because many or most scholars lack the frames of references that are often disregarded due to epistemic injustices.

You consider an article excellent? Well, you better come with justifications and criteria for that claim. I’m not gonna accept your intuitions when it comes to evaluation. I can’t believe I have to explain this on this website amongst a group of professional philosophers!

[Tom2]

The problem, Tom, is that many of the "experts" of the philosophy profession are in fact frauds. They are bad at philosophy. Some of them are not philosophers at all but (e.g.) political activists. (Frauds come in all colors and flavors, of course.)

So your claim that "if you disagree with the experts you're probably wrong", while sensible in many contexts, is not in this one.

Now you will doubtless ask: Is it really possible that such-and-such Big Name, who graduated from Fancy School A and holds a named chair at Fancy School B is really just a first-rate bullshit artist? Alas, it is really possible. The leader of the free world, the most visible and vetted man on the planet, Mr. Donald Trump, is a fraud par excellence. If it can be true for the most important context in the entire world, it can be true, a fortiori, for the philosophy profession.

That said, I actually agree with you about the quality of published work in philosophy: All things considered, it's pretty good. Work in some journals (PQ, PS, AJP) is reliably excellent ; in others (PPR, Nous), it's reliably mediocre, or maybe uneven. I think blind review helps a lot.