Chapter Seven. What Did You Actually Ask For?
Optimization Is Relentless
Give a system a target and it will hit the target. Whether that's what
you wanted is a different question, and one you'll often only think to
ask too late.
In 1902, a French colonial administrator in Hanoi had a rat problem. The
city's sewers were overrun with rats, and the colonial government
wanted them gone. The administrator devised an incentive scheme: he
would pay a bounty for every rat killed. To collect the bount