The other common optimization process people generally refer to is "markets". In the same sense that "evolution" is what happens when variation and selection combine, "market" is what happens when multiple traders repeatedly choose how to exchange things.
I've noticed that the principles of Evolution / Natural Selection apply to a lot of things besides the context they were initially developed for (Biology).
Examples are things like ideas / culture (memetics), technological progress, and machine learning (sort of).
Reasoning about things like history, politics, companies, etc in terms of natural selection has helped me understand the world much better than I did when I thought that natural selection applied only to Biology.
So, I'm asking here for any other ideas that are generally applicable in a similar way.
(Sorry if this has been asked before. I tried searching for it and didn't find anything, but it's possible that my phrasing was off and I missed it).