
In "Optimal Illusions," mathematician Coco Krumme exposes how our obsession with optimization secretly limits our lives. Cal Newport calls it "incredibly timely" - a provocative wake-up call that questions whether efficiency algorithms are stealing what makes us human. What's your optimization blindspot?
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A $1.5 billion Amazon Air Hub rises from Kentucky soil, positioned within a day's drive of 65% of America. This monument to efficiency represents more than logistics-it embodies a cultural religion. We've become devotees of optimization, worshipping at the altar of faster, cheaper, better. But what began as mathematical technique has metastasized into something far more consuming. From Dakota sugar beet fields to Texas oil rigs, the pursuit of "optimal" has reshaped not just our economy but our very way of seeing the world. The question isn't whether optimization works-it demonstrably does-but whether we've sacrificed something irreplaceable in our quest for perfection.