Don't Worry About the Vase Podcast

From the Archives - Immoral Mazes

Nov 8, 2025
Dive into the intricate world of moral mazes and discover how Moloch's challenges contrast with hopeful forces like Elua. Explore the theory of perfect competition and why market ideals often crumble in reality. Delve into the struggles of middle managers, the effects of corporate optimization, and the realities of negotiating car purchases. Learn how large organizations risk becoming moral mazes and uncover potential ways to escape them while preserving personal values.
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ADVICE

Fight Mazes By Hiring Slow And Staying Small

  • To prevent mazes within organizations, enforce culture deliberately, hire slowly, and keep hierarchies flat.
  • Sacrifice scaling speed and devote headspace to protect non-maze values rather than chasing growth at all costs.
INSIGHT

Algorithms Favor Maze Scale

  • Big data and machine learning favor large mazes by rewarding scale and metric-based optimization, weakening outsiders' advantages.
  • Algorithms shift decision-making toward metric optimization and away from object-level understanding.
INSIGHT

Ignorance Lets Mazes Recruit

  • Ignorance about how mazes operate enables their spread because warnings often sound like sour grapes until one experiences them.
  • People rarely quit before they realize how bad mazes are, which traps many inside.
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