>And we know from Goodhart's law and reward hacking that optimizing a proxy is, at some point, either useless or actively counterproductive.
I don't think that's accurate. It might be useless from the perspective of the system, but hugely advantageous from the perspective of the individual. When a co-worker hacks the metrics and gets the promotion, that might be bad for the company but it is great for them, and perhaps bad for you.
The same is true for sales, search engines, and social interactions.
I agree with your first point that the proxies are not true reflections, but don't see where this is peace of mind when someone loses out because of them. If anything, I think it would Foster anger that the system is rigged, basically the opposite of Peace of mind
I don't think that's accurate. It might be useless from the perspective of the system, but hugely advantageous from the perspective of the individual. When a co-worker hacks the metrics and gets the promotion, that might be bad for the company but it is great for them, and perhaps bad for you.
The same is true for sales, search engines, and social interactions.
I agree with your first point that the proxies are not true reflections, but don't see where this is peace of mind when someone loses out because of them. If anything, I think it would Foster anger that the system is rigged, basically the opposite of Peace of mind