Waste¶
Definition¶
Physics has no concept of waste: all exergy ends dissipated. Waste exists only relative to a reference system.
Waste = exergy destroyed without contributing to the maintenance, extension or steering of the reference system.
First question, always: waste for whom, at which level?
Apparent waste vs waste¶
| Type | Mechanism | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Physical floor | Friction, engine limits, metabolism | Not waste; unavoidable |
| Search cost | Failed R&D, prototypes, rejected candidates | Not waste; price of finding gradients |
| Buffers / redundancy | Spare capacity, slack | Not waste; insurance |
| Coordination overhead | Meetings, reporting | Partly necessary; grows faster than headcount |
| Vestigial constraints | Outlived processes, roles, rules | Waste |
| Self-serving subsystems | Units routing flow into own persistence | Waste at higher level |
| Arms races / signaling | Competing for position, not flow | Collective waste, individually rational |
| Metric gaming | Optimizing the gauge | Waste (category error) |
Mechanism¶
D10. "Work for work's sake" is a predictable result of nested selection. [Framing] D2 applies at every level: whatever routes exergy into its own persistence persists, whether or not it serves the whole.
D11. Waste grows with surplus and weak selection. [Framing] Abundant energy, capital or monopoly profit plus absent or poor feedback lets waste accumulate. Nature shows the same (peacock tails, arms races).
Deletion test¶
- Which flow does it change (access, convert, maintain, steer, allocate, explore)?
- If it stopped tomorrow, what would decay, and how fast?
-
Who notices first: the larger system, or only the subsystem?
-
Only the subsystem notices → likely self-serving.
- Nothing decays for a long time → buffer (needed under stress) or vestigial (not needed under stress).
Evidence caution¶
Graeber's Bullshit Jobs claims are contested; later survey work (Soffia, Wood & Burchell, 2021) found much smaller shares (~5%) rating their jobs useless. Perceived waste ≠ actual waste.