Modern Life Now: Efficiency without Context
May 6, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I don’t often read a book or an essay that says to me, “Think about this.” The author’s words might be a juiced LinkedIn post with truisms that will change the world. Most of the material I read and, on occasion, listen to as a podcast just drives an asphalt spray coating machine over a road I know quite well.
Then, there’s a good one.
I read “The West Forgot How to Make Things. Now It’s Forgetting How to Code.” The essay is chock full of interesting titbits of information. One example is a compound necessary for the production of US style nuclear weapons. I had heard about this mortar-and-pestle concoction from a reliable source, and that description was presented as an “Our Own Oddity”: No one kept track of the recipe.
The anecdote and quite a bit more turned up in “The West Forget…” essay. You might want to read it. I did. A couple of times, and I saved a PDF to my 2026 Research folder. Stuff has a tendency to be disappeared in the online world with remarkable velocity.
I want to highlight three comments from the essay and leave it to you to dig in and find the gems that resonate with your views of innovation, training, and skill development.
Here’s the first snippet. It is about the “efficiency” that flows from optimization. When one isolates a single factor and makes decision around that factor, what happens? Here’s the answer explained in terms related to the manufacture of an essential product:
…In 1993, the Pentagon told defense CEOs to consolidate or die. Fifty-one major defense contractors collapsed into five. Tactical missile suppliers went from thirteen to three. Shipbuilders from eight to two. The workforce fell from 3.2 million to 1.1 million. A 65% cut. The ammunition supply chain had single points of failure everywhere. One manufacturer for 155mm shell casings, sitting in Coachella, California, on the San Andreas Fault. One facility in Canada for propellant charges. Optimized for minimum cost with zero margin for surge. On paper, efficient. In practice, one bad day away from collapse.
I would suggest that the efficiency experts like Mr. McNamara of body count fame could prove that trimming would yield efficiency benefits: Low costs and more body count. Business school have for decades taught students how to examine processes, identify the inefficient bits (or the people bottlenecks), and remove them. In most cases the solution delivered some efficiency. The consultants got paid, and the MBAs took their bonuses and some started companies like Pets.com-type businesses.
Can you spot the flaw in the application of this type of efficient thinking? Take you time. From my experience, the big mistake is allowing the single factor to shape the thinking about a work process. Few ask, “What happens if we become too efficient and business circumstances change?” Why bother? The consultants will know what they are doing (ho ho ho), and we have the systems in place to deal with the unexpected. Yep, sure these outfits do.
Let’s look at my second snippet. This example applies to the very novel (for those who don’t know that smart software has been in oven for more than a half century) use of artificial intelligence. I quote:
RAND found that 10% of technical skills for submarine design need ten years of on-the-job experience to develop, sometimes following a PhD. Apprenticeships in defense trades take two to four years, with five to eight years to reach supervisory competence. Now map that onto software. A junior developer needs three to five years to become a competent mid-level engineer. Five to eight years to become senior. Ten or more to become a principal or architect. That timeline can’t be compressed by throwing money at it. It can’t be compressed by AI either. A METR randomized controlled trial found that experienced developers using AI coding tools actually took 19% longer on real-world open source tasks. Before starting, they predicted AI would make them 24% faster. The gap between prediction and reality was 43 percentage points. When researchers tried to run a follow-up, a significant share of developers refused to participate if it meant working without AI. They couldn’t imagine going back.
My take away from this example is that using technology to solve a problem may create other problems. Instead of coding faster, people are not sure what the AI-generated code does. Furthermore, when skilled coders used AI tools, the tool acted like a stuck disc brake. Coding more slowly was not the goal. But even worse, humans like convenience. The coders liked the AI tools even though the net effect was to bake in workforce resistance to doing the work the old-fashioned way. When organizations realize that smart software needs to be removed or used in a different way, people will quit. Efficiency and smart software seem to be teaming up to disadvantage an organization. Quite a surprise.
The third snippet reminded me of one of the Zoom lectures about smart software making employees smarter, better, faster, more empowered, etc. etc. I quote:
When juniors skip debugging and skip the formative mistakes, they don’t build the tacit expertise. And when my generation of engineers retires, that knowledge doesn’t transfer to the AI. It just disappears.
What’s happening in many organizations at this time is that thousands of people are being terminated. Someone thought that each individual was important to the organization. That’s the reason these people were hired. To cut costs and allow smart software to pick up the slack, the natural process of learning how an organization works, developing work processes that enable one’s colleagues, and allow the individual worker to absorb the language, content, and experience of a company operation will not take place.
I spoke with a young man who wanted to run restaurants. He asked me, “What do you suggest I do to become better at my job?” I was baffled. I told the young man that I had zero context for him and his skills. He persisted. The young man was earnest. I told him, “Watch the customers. If a customer is looking at another person’s lunch, go ask the fellow, “Would you like to try that dish? I won’t charge you.” The young man said, “I can’t give away free food.” I told him you were not giving away free food; you are communicating to that customer that you want to assist him. A kiosk ordering system does not encourage that type of manager customer interaction. People leave a store or restaurant and say, “I couldn’t find anyone to help me” or “These guys don’t know where anything is.”
Let me make several observations about this cited essay:
- The essay makes clear that the yip yap about knowledge management is just that… idle chatter. Once the knowledge dies, is deleted, or otherwise diminished, catching up and relearning may be impossible. Knowledge is inefficient. Efficiency is an enemy of knowledge.
- The production of products outside the United States has had catastrophic consequences on society, education, and innovation. Tim Apple proved again and again that without Chinese manufacturing expertise, the iPhone and other glitzy gizmos were impossible to fabricate in the US. Other companies have made the same “cash in” decision and their CEOs are going to jump ship. There is no easy fix to the situation efficiency yields when applied without contextual awareness.
- Every function I attend, I hear different comments about nothing works in the US. One person complains that the airplanes are late. Another grouses about turning up for a medical appointment and the clerk has not record of the visit. I went to pick up my horrible little car from the local garage. When I arrived, the manager asked, “Why are here now? It won’t be ready until tomorrow.” I pointed out that he had or his automated system had texted me that the car was ready for pick up. Look stupid, much, dude?
As a dinobaby, my span of authority and control experiences a shrinking radius every day. My hope is that someone reads this “The West Forgot…” essay and asks questions about assumed efficiency. Pretty soon, the smart software that hallucinates at an astounding rate, will not know how to process your input. Therefore, you are wasting its computational cycles by asking irrelevant questions.
The robot will allow people to find their future elsewhere. Lucky stiffs!
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2026
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