Friction-reducing in systems is not always good; what looks like a bug may be a feature for some constituency, and reducing friction necessarily harms those whose interests rely on friction.
normativepending
Speaker
Patrick CollisonEvidence Quote
“across society i think so many of the things that look like bugs are actually features from the perspective of um uh of of somebody of some constituency right and of course so much of politics is reconciliation of the countervailing interests of different constituencies and of course the problem is that in so many cases uh the incremental gain of the constituency is substantially outweighed by the social utility loss of the rest of society right and so bad teachers um do great in the us but almost certainly that's kind of a net bad trade for society but the bad teachers care more about sort of their ongoing employment than the rest of society cares evidently um uh about correcting that”
Source
Patrick Collison: Philosophies for Running Stripe, Hiring, Decision Making, and Reading— The Knowledge Project PodcastCreated: 8/10/2026, 11:17:01 PM
My Notes
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