Tradeoffs are inevitable when two things that we want conflict with each other. The two things don’t necessarily have to have a pure zero-sum relationship; in moderate amounts, maybe the two have somewhat of a symbiotic effect on each other and both benefit. But at the extremes, i.e. when we want to absolutely maximize one of them, it must always be at the cost of the other. Our lives are filled with tradeoffs, because everything we do fundamentally competes for the one resource that everyone has an equal amount of: time.

As technology and society advance, some old tradeoffs may become obsolete. A few hundred years ago, a farmer may have had to choose between eating normally in the fall and potentially running out of food in winter, or rationing food in the fall to have a better chance at surviving winter. But today that is no longer a tradeoff we have to make (at least in most of the more developed parts of the world). This “tradeoff obsolescence” has happened so much in modern history (due to the exponentially more rapid rate of technological development) that I feel we are starting to push this expectation into tradeoffs that are more permanent. Below are some tradeoffs that I think are not yet obsolete, and we should try not to be blinded by the delusion that they are.

Career and family. This is simply because of time and opportunity cost. The choices that optimize for one of them will be, more often than not, at the cost of the other. It is one of the main reasons that the birth rate has declined in recent decades in many developed countries. The more successful one is at work, the higher the cost becomes for starting a family. Sure, money can help alleviate some of the cost, such as hiring babysitters. But at the end of the day, the amount of time available to each person is still fixed, and you still must choose between spending an extra hour at work vs. going home early to be with your family.

Ambition and stability. This is more or less due to the nature of doing ambitious things. To do anything bold, such as starting a new business venture, or moving to a different city in pursuit of more opportunities, comes with risk and uncertainty. The relative stability, predictability, and comfort level of one’s life will all suffer, to a certain degree, when attempting to strive for greatness. This is often a reason for people to become complacent. They get too comfortable in the stability of their current lives that they no longer think about what they could become. At the same time, it is a bit foolish to think that you can do ambitious things in a secure environment.

Security and privacy. These two things are simply incompatible at a fundamental level. Security comes from centralizing information. The police and intelligence agencies wants to know where everyone is and what everyone is doing at all times, in order to make sure that nothing illegal is happening, and to prevent crimes/attacks before it happens. Privacy comes from the exact opposite of that, i.e. the inability for personal information to be aggregated by anyone. There is only so much that technology can do to overcome this innate dichotomy. Ultimately, we need to find the most effective balance, and not be deluded into thinking that we can optimize both.