Resilience Versus Efficiency

Resilience often requires a distributed model. Independent farming is resilient. The blockchain is resilient. Suburban sprawl is resilient.

Efficiency often requires a centralized model. Corporate farming is efficient. A central bank is efficient. High-rise, high-density housing is efficient.

Resilience and efficiency aren’t antonyms, but neither are they synonyms. They are orthogonal. Elegant solutions strike a balance in systems with orthogonal requirements. Sometimes we push one way, sometimes the other. Sometimes we need flexibility in both thinking and doing.

What we don’t need, however, is religious fervor about either.