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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32142 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025

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Well, the reason for why "not zero" is due to inescapable facts about the human condition, so describing this situation as "optimal" seems entirely apt to me.

I understand that there are inescapable parts of the human condition which make it so. But I still think that by eliding that (very important) part of the argument, the phrase becomes incorrect as it gets stated. Something like "the cost of reducing fraud to zero is too high to be worth it" would be more accurate, and the extra few words is not really a significant amount of verbosity.

I disagree. I think that part of the argument isn't being elided, it's being summarized with the word "optimal." At least, it's being summarized at least as well as in the phrase "the cost of reducing fraud to zero is too high to be worth it," and I also think that the that latter phrase is far less elegant and beautiful than the much simpler and pithy "the optimal amount of [bad thing] is not zero" while not really adding any extra meaning or explanation.

But it is adding extra meaning, is my point. "Optimal" does not carry an asterisk that says "given other constraints not mentioned here", you have to add those constraints if you intend to communicate them. As far as beauty goes that's subjective, but IMO obscuring meaning precludes beauty. The point of communication is to be clear first and foremost, and "the optimal amount of fraud is not zero" isn't clear (as proved by the very fact that this discussion is taking place).

I don't think "optimal" needs such an asterisk. That's encoded in the word itself. I think the beauty in the phrase is in how it obscures; it is, on its face, offensive in a way that gets cleared up when the reader or listener slows down and considers what "optimal" actually means and how that challenges the black-and-white thinking that tends to be typical in discussions relating to things that are almost universally considered "good" or "bad."

Something like "the cost of reducing fraud to zero is too high to be worth it" would be more accurate

The two phrases scan as synonymous to me, no different from "men are taller than women" vs. "the average man is taller than the average woman".

They aren't at all synonymous imo (nor are the two you cited, for that matter). That bit of elision significantly changes the meaning of each variant.

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