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Cake day: June 6th, 2023

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  • Ok I’m going to answer my own question because I’m too curious to wait lol

    Goodhart’s Law states that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” In other words, when we use a measure to reward performance, we provide an incentive to manipulate the measure in order to receive the reward. This can sometimes result in actions that actually reduce the effectiveness of the measured system while paradoxically improving the measurement of system performance. … The manipulation of measures resulting from Goodhart’s Law is pervasive because direct measures of effectiveness (MOEs), which are more difficult to manipulate, are also more difficult to measure, and sometimes simply impossible to define and quantify. As a result, analysts must often settle for measures of performance (MOPs) that correlate to the desired effect of the MOE. … These negative effects can sometimes be avoided. When they cannot, they can be identified, mitigated, and even reversed.

    • Use MOEs instead of MOPs whenever practicable and possible
    • Use the scientific method to generate new measurement data, rather than harvesting existing and possibly compromised data
    • Help customers establish authoritative and difficult-to-manipulate definitions for measures
    • Identify and avoid the use of manipulated data and data prone to manipulation
    • Use measurement data not generated by the organization being measured
    • Collect data secretly or after a measurable activity has already occurred
    • Measure all relevant system characteristics rather than just a representative few
    • Randomize the measures used over time
    • Wargame or red team potential measures

    This report recommends that the organizations that employ analysts should do the following:

    • Return to the roots of operational research to focus more on direct measurements in the field
    • Answer the questions that should be answered, rather than the questions that can be answered simply because the required data are already available
    • Train analysts on MOEs, MOPs, and Goodhart’s Law and how they are interrelated
    • Make recognition of Goodhart’s Law part of the internal peer review process and part of all delivered analytical products
    • Identify and share mitigation best practices

    [Source]








  • True, I totally agree.

    However, if one is evaluating “functional literacy” that means determining if one reads well enough to function in society.

    So to truly evaluate functional literacy for native Spanish speakers, it seems like one would have to somehow factor in two things.

    First, English is the de facto language in the US. Second, Spanish language translations are provided for a number of written things (for example, our school district letters to parents).

    One would be more functional being fluent only in English than only in Spanish, sure (and it depends on which part of the country even which part of a city). But one would surely be more function having some knowledge of English and fluency in Spanish.


  • I’m not convinced that social media causes a loss of reading skills. I suppose it is possible but I would want to see some studies on the topic. Anecdotally, I do find myself reading less than I used to. I took a number of English lit classes as electives purely for fun and enjoyed reading a number of fun works that I think would hopefully qualify me as reading above a 6th grade level. But that was many years ago. I haven’t done a lot of reading in the last decade except for news articles about everything going to hell. Of the few books I have read, I read them for pleasure and each was lightweight, not too much analysis and explication required, one rather challenging history book about the lead up to the first world war notwithstanding, though it’s difficulty is due more to more complex sentence structure and arcane vocabulary, and less to its erudite discussion of an already complex topic. Nevertheless, I don’t believe I have had any difficulties demonstrating far beyond mere functional literacy you described despite my infrequent reading of anything longer than a news article or Reddit post. Still, this is anecdotal and so I would be interested to see if any scientific evidence exists to connect a loss of reading skills with disuse and to what degree those skills are diminished.




  • It isn’t just laundry of course. This meme speaks to motivation as other folks commented.

    Motivation can come from emotion either from response to external input or ones own thinking.

    Motivation can also come from the brain’s executive function, where you decide to “Just do it”.

    So if someone yells angrily at me to do a thing, or if I am freaking because the deadline is early upon me, or there is an emergency, or if a friend asks for help, the emotions can motivate me easily as is the case for anyone.

    If I know I need to work on a boring thing today to save myself from panic later, the “just do it” part of my brain doesn’t have enough oomph to actually get me to do the thing. Like, no amount of pushing myself, self goading, self talk, nothing. It’s like trying to push a car alone with the parking brake on. I just can’t budge myself.

    When I am on medication, it can still be hard but I actually feel like getting something done, I want to do it, and I am able to just will myself to do the thing. I can just be like “yeah this sucks, it’s boring but fuck it let’s do this” and then, unlike before, I actually start doing it. Which is still a marvel to me even though I have been on meds for several years. I don’t think most people find self motivation to be a novel thing to marvel over. I think most people are more able to convince themselves to do the sucky boring thing if they just set their mind to it. Being able to do that (even if difficult) is taken for granted.

    Which is why ADHD people are told they are lazy or told to “just do it already”. Normal people don’t know what it is like to have a broken “just do it cortex” :)

    One of Dr. Barkley’s videos explain the motivation issue really well.

    And the thing with ADHD is that it is a constant, every minute of every day struggle with motivation if your line of work involves too little excitement and a lot of tedious boring stuff.

    It was bad enough with me that the only way to function even close to average was to be in constant fear and panic about forgetting things, missing deadlines, getting in (more) trouble, while failing to avoid those things constantly and gaining a reputation as an unreliable lazy flake, eroding trust, and performing poorly in work, school, in relationships. The result was getting lower grades than I could have without ADHD as well as missing out on career growth, losing friends, etc.