Chapter 9 — When Optimisation Consumes Its Host
Soil depletion. A field optimised for maximum annual yield loses topsoil at rates that will render it unproductive within decades. The optimisation succeeds every year. The substrate erodes beneath it.
Attention collapse. A social media platform optimised for engagement fragments human attention into ever-shorter intervals. The metric rises. The cognitive capacity of the user base degrades.
Burnout. A corporation optimised for labour productivity extracts maximum output from workers until they break. Churn rises. Institutional knowledge is destroyed. But the quarterly number was hit.
Financialisation of housing. A housing market optimised for asset price appreciation prices out the people who actually need shelter. The financial returns are excellent. The social function of housing — providing homes — is consumed.
Overfishing. Already discussed. The perfect illustration.
Resource extraction. A mining operation optimised for ore throughput depletes the deposit, poisons the water table, and moves on. The returns on invested capital are strong. The landscape is sterile.
When objective functions detach from ecological boundary conditions, they consume their substrate. This is not metaphor. It is the mathematical consequence of optimising a variable that is coupled to, but does not represent, the system it depends on.
A parasite that optimises perfectly kills its host.
That is not malice. It is incomplete optimisation.