Oatmeal Agitante

a similar idea is in complexity theory (runtime of an algorithm vs its description size), but doesn't deal in incentives

how do you figure out, at a glance, whether to optimize or to bruteforce - is there an optimal way to do this?

nah, still too obvious a question, probably answered in some paper about impl-ing Prolog; meta: quicker to figure out or to find the paper?

had similar thoughts when alpha go won. I think practically brute force & understanding are not distinct activities.

if you're wondering whether you're spending too much time trying to understand without just doing it, answer is yes

fortunately we can mostly "brute force" or use current best strategy, and v infrequently assess for inefficiency

it adds up to roughly exponential time

oops I mean exponential improvement. Cool thing about being a person is that we learn just by doing. Immersion is how we optimize