You Can't Have Everything You Want | Impossible Trilemmas

1,609 views Wait, is this logic right? • Jul 11, 2023

Slog Reference: Interesting Trilemmas: Why you can't have everything

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Fast, good, cheap you can pick only two. If you're looking for interesting concepts to talk about, trilemmas might just satisfy your needs. Similar to a dilemma, a trilemma is a conflict between three different concepts. Trilemmas argue that all three things cannot coexist in the real world at their extremes. There is always a compromise of some sort. For example, you can't have anything that is fast, good and cheap. You always need to sacrifice any one of the three.

Let's understand the concept of trilemmas and try figuring out how to deal with those.

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Interesting Trilemmas: Why you can't have everything

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- if there is a stone hitting your head against the stone is not a useful thing to do you just accept that it's a stone and it's hard and then find a something else to do with your head have you heard of The Fast good cheap triangle yeah it is something that has been bothering me a lot because I have come across a lot of clients who want things done fast good and cheap you can't have all three you can't exactly right I mean this is called a trilemma okay trade-offs everybody knows there are two things and to get this you have to give up this to give dilemma yeah yeah but there are many times in the

0m 38s world where you know trade-offs are easy to understand uh but when there are three things involved and people get confused yeah and they are trust me they do they're trying to get everything and the number of times I've had to explain people that you can't have things that are fast good and cheap it's not just about fast good cheap there's so many interesting tribal aramas I thought we'll do an episode just talking about interesting trilemmas that you should be aware there are more of these there are lots lots right so one uh is Stephen Pinker has come up with something called The Social trilemma right okay which basically says that Society can't be fair equal and free okay Society can't

1m 21s be fair why can't it be something about it uh right if Society is fair individuals who work harder are going to accumulate more wealth okay then it can't be equal okay that's true if it is free right parents will leave the bulk of their money to their children they should be free to do that right otherwise it's not free correct and again you have inequality it's not yeah and it's unequal and that's not fair right so so it can't be free fair and equal yet the thing that the reason why trilemmos are tricky is because our brain doesn't quickly grasp all three sides of three sides of sun right so there are lots of people going around

2m 03s assuming that there can be a fair equal and free Society it's just that ours isn't because of corruption or something like that right so um okay that's an interesting way to think about it I haven't really thought about it in that way you know in techies might know about the cap theorem what's the cap here I won't explain it it's complicated but basically it is says that in a distributed system consistency availability and your partition tolerance all three you cannot get and people used to try to design systems with all these three things until somebody just went and proved mathematically that this is not possible there is a mathematical proof for it yes okay most of the things we are talking

2m 46s about in this episode don't have a mathematical proof yeah but sort of if you think about it carefully enough you can see the basic logic yeah right like the the fast load shape triangle is very logical when you think about it well yeah see this you can have something quickly and which is cheap but then it will be low quality correct on the other hand you can get good quality stuff for cheap but it will take a long time yeah and this is something that uh I have noticed it happens almost everywhere from from your restaurants yeah to your production units in in like large Machinery so let's think of a completely different kind of example let's let's

3m 27s take an example of jobs right okay the naive way of thinking about it is to say that well we want labor we want to have full employment and we want labor to have Labor rights huh right and you obviously you want a society that where there isn't very high inflation correct right you can't have all three right because if you have Labor rights huh right and you have full employment they're going to keep getting money and good salaries and raises every year and that is going to cause inflation because there is money and assist in the system and not enough Goods on the other hand if you have Labor rights and low inflation then some people have to be

4m 09s unemployed correct and if you have employment Full Employment and low inflation then some labor has to be exploited right so you have to give up one of those three again not something that we are used to thinking we are used to assuming that it's an uncomfortable thought but it's also very logical thought and yes I will have to think a lot more about this correct so yeah I have a question about this but I'll come back to this in a little bit uh trilemmas any other trial yes the one that I love very cute right okay now imagine you can imagine a theoretical leader or a political party in some country like a regime okay where there

4m 54s are lots of countries where a regime is such that you can't have a supporter of the regime who is also honest and intelligent so either if a person is supporting an intelligent person is supporting the regime they're being dishonest because internally they don't support but externally they're showing support on the other hand if that person is honest then they cannot support the system the only people who can honestly support the system are the dumb ones right we are not pointing fingers at any specific regimes here so if you happen to get offended by this these vague statements I have nothing more to say here that was just a random fun example not to be taken very seriously please don't

5m 51s take it very seriously let's take Serious examples right yes climate change right you want energy right electricity and all of that correct correct to be sustainable available and affordable and that cannot happen What right because if it is cheap and available it cannot be sustainable uh you're getting oil out of the ground easily or your burning trees or something right correct if it is sustainable and always on you are using every for all kinds of things and if it is cheap and sustainable then you are going to have power Cuts because way too many people are using a limited amount of energy right yeah interesting I wonder whether this trilemma will apply to solar power as

6m 39s well considering the abundance of it will it will uh we'll have to I'm actually trying to apply it and see maybe one of you can actually out what will happen I mean if we manage to come up with technology which just does a great job of using a converting solar power our users of energy will increase to a point where it becomes either unsustainable or you have to restrict some people from you so no matter what form of energy we use yes this dilemma is going to apply yes not if not right now at some point in the future for sure right I mean when we look at those people we will say my God you people are

7m 20s so lucky you have no idea what we grew up with and those people will have no idea because they will not just completely forget the past that makes me wonder if there is such a trilemma with internet also any other has to be I mean everybody's like you don't know the internet we lived with the past it was direct it was slow you guys are very lucky to have frosted the biggest trilemma in the world is also the biggest question about the life universe and everything okay Douglas Adams reference so this is the problem of evil or evil okay okay basically saying that God cannot be all-knowing all powerful and all good at the same

8m 02s time you are striking out at religion here now no religion itself strikes at itself this is called the problem of theodicy look it up but basically if God knows everything and God can do anything then why does evil exist in the world right that means God is not good God is okay with having evil right or you have to say that God doesn't know that there is evil happening there not omniscient in which case is not all-knowing or you have to say that God can't fix that evil so God is Not omnipotent and God is not all powerful very interesting trilemma here in fact just look at that like hundreds of years this is not our trial

8m 43s this is the trial of theodicy so please do not come at us with this this is somebody else lots of philosophers have been talking about this everyone comes up with their own twist on the solution but the fundamental problem Remains the fundamental the bigger fundamental problem with all of these trilemmas is how do you if is there a way to solve well not solve you can't solve it that's the whole point right that there are some things that can't be solved you live with them right how that's the question how do you live with this I said what do you do to this trilemma to make it palatable to yourself meditation right so just see

9m 23s what I'm what I'm trying to say is I don't want to tell people that fastboot cheap triangle you can only use two there must be a way to no there isn't I mean basically you have to convince them this is a law of nature and that you know if there is a stone hitting your head against the stone is not a useful thing to do you just accept that it's a stone and it's hard and then find a something else to do with your head all right right so but what if I reach a compromise say uh I will not give you fast but I'll give you as fast as I can I will so so I guess one of the things

9m 59s that people do with trilomas is also assume that oh you have to pick two reality is it's a little more complex right if you think of it as three sides of a triangle you are not on this side or this side or this side you can be in the middle somewhere you don't necessarily give up on one completely you can give up on this partially and this partially and this partially so you can be at different points in the screen along the sides in and create a three-pointed star so you can adjust the levels of those three things so uh to come up with something that makes sense to you but it's not going to change the fact that you can't

10m 38s have 100 of all three things right that is the important thing to keep in mind right which is why it's a trial Lemma the way to think of it and to convince other also is that um what people usually end up doing is that they'll try to get all three and then we'll let Randomness or luck or something decide which one they didn't get yeah so much better to have Clarity have the understanding that I cannot get all three what should I give up correct what am I willing to give up analyze the situation and make a informed decision of giving up this makes most sense or giving up a little bit of this and a little bit of

11m 22s this makes more sense right like and I keep going back to the fast good cheap trilemma because it's the one that I know the best so when people insist on it being absolutely good quality then I'll tell them that you'll have to then compromise heavily on one of the other two it can't be fast it can't be cheap right everything has a cost be aware of the cost correct right correct correct uh so you don't have to give up on one principle you can give up on all three of them little little and then come to like a Midway compromise of sorts to solve well you don't you don't really solve a trilemma but to get the best out

11m 57s of the trilemma uh any other things to keep in mind about trilemmas no no okay then that's where we stopped this was just a little fun little episode of interesting trilemmas actually look it up you will find a whole bunch of other trilemmas that uh are interesting to study and analyze and understand like what are three different things that are pulling at uh each other if you do think of any trilemmas that we haven't covered please post them in the comments we will try and make like a short bonus uh thing whenever we can actually my future IQ definitely closing it now thank you for watching till the end if you liked this episode check out these

12m 41s others you might like them also and please share with your friends I'm sure they will also like these thank you