Just Too Efficient(tbray.org)
tbray.org
Just Too Efficient
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/07/05/Too-Efficient
309 comments
> If there's a constant small probability of injury per item packed, then of course doing twice as much work per work day, will lead to twice as many injuries per employee per work day
This assumes injury-risk is a linear function of number of items packed. That's not true. Fatigue increases injury-risk - that is how tired you and your entire team is while performing the task. If the person sorting the packages up the line is tired and making mistakes, the person binning it is more prone to mistakes, leading to an injury. In summary, there is a "fatigue-threshold" after which injury-risk increases non-linearly (say exponentially) with every item packed.
This assumes injury-risk is a linear function of number of items packed. That's not true. Fatigue increases injury-risk - that is how tired you and your entire team is while performing the task. If the person sorting the packages up the line is tired and making mistakes, the person binning it is more prone to mistakes, leading to an injury. In summary, there is a "fatigue-threshold" after which injury-risk increases non-linearly (say exponentially) with every item packed.
If fatigue is a simple threshold (i.e. you "become fatigued" after a certain number of units of work done), then the obvious solution is to work the employees at 100% utilization for half as long (at which point they should be roughly as fatigued as the employees worked half as hard for twice as long), and then swap them out for a second shift. (I.e., instead of having 10 employees with 40hr weeks, you now have 20 employees with 20hr weeks.)
This is the approach I believe is also advised for improving productivity/decreasing errors in the medical field (where doctors have a hard time not pushing themselves to 100% all the time, because of their personalities): hire more doctors per hospital, such that each doctor can be cut down to a shorter shift (and thus maybe lower salary, too.)
If, on the other hand, fatigue is about the lack of micro-rests between individual units of work, then the appropriate solution is more subtle:
1. replace the low-quality rest of doing "slack" work, with high-quality rest of doing nothing-at-all (or even "actively" resting, the equivalent of an athlete doing cool-down stretches between sets of an exercise), so that employees can cool down more quickly and/or return closer to peak productivity from each rest;
2. have slightly more employees (hopefully fewer than double), working off branching lines, such a way that units of work are directed to go to whichever employee is "fresh" rather than "stalled." Like processors with pipelined executions and multiple APUs per core, directing instructions to the APU that isn't currently blocked.
This is the approach I believe is also advised for improving productivity/decreasing errors in the medical field (where doctors have a hard time not pushing themselves to 100% all the time, because of their personalities): hire more doctors per hospital, such that each doctor can be cut down to a shorter shift (and thus maybe lower salary, too.)
If, on the other hand, fatigue is about the lack of micro-rests between individual units of work, then the appropriate solution is more subtle:
1. replace the low-quality rest of doing "slack" work, with high-quality rest of doing nothing-at-all (or even "actively" resting, the equivalent of an athlete doing cool-down stretches between sets of an exercise), so that employees can cool down more quickly and/or return closer to peak productivity from each rest;
2. have slightly more employees (hopefully fewer than double), working off branching lines, such a way that units of work are directed to go to whichever employee is "fresh" rather than "stalled." Like processors with pipelined executions and multiple APUs per core, directing instructions to the APU that isn't currently blocked.
> If fatigue is a simple threshold (i.e. you "become fatigued" after a certain number of units of work done), then the obvious solution is to work the employees at 100% utilization for half as long (at which point they should be roughly as fatigued as the employees worked half as hard for twice as long)
I am skeptical. Fatigue rate would be the delta between exertion and recovery rate. Recovery rate is far from negligible.
Try running up several flights of stairs as fast as you can, vs taking them at a leisurely pace. Most people would be winded after the former, but not bothered after the latter.
EDIT: It's made more complicated by the fact that we have many different "recovery rate"s. When talking exercise, there's the obvious "V02 max", or the maximum rate at which we can absorb oxygen. So long as our muscles have sugar/fat, they should be able to work if we keep our exertion below this point.
If we exceed this, our muscles begin working anaerobically; recovering energy there takes much longer. That's the difference between running and walking up the stairs.
I imagine there are other types of fatigue, but I am not a medical/health/exercise professional.
Mental fatigue is different again as well.
But there are probably background "fatigue"ing rates that are important, like hours-since-you've-eaten. In that case, doing the same work in half the time may be better.
It's easy to talk myself into realizing I know nothing.
I am skeptical. Fatigue rate would be the delta between exertion and recovery rate. Recovery rate is far from negligible.
Try running up several flights of stairs as fast as you can, vs taking them at a leisurely pace. Most people would be winded after the former, but not bothered after the latter.
EDIT: It's made more complicated by the fact that we have many different "recovery rate"s. When talking exercise, there's the obvious "V02 max", or the maximum rate at which we can absorb oxygen. So long as our muscles have sugar/fat, they should be able to work if we keep our exertion below this point.
If we exceed this, our muscles begin working anaerobically; recovering energy there takes much longer. That's the difference between running and walking up the stairs.
I imagine there are other types of fatigue, but I am not a medical/health/exercise professional.
Mental fatigue is different again as well.
But there are probably background "fatigue"ing rates that are important, like hours-since-you've-eaten. In that case, doing the same work in half the time may be better.
It's easy to talk myself into realizing I know nothing.
I think this is exactly the type of efficiency-minded meddling that the author is trying to put a spotlight on
> It’s important to realize that Amazon isn’t violating any rules, nor even (on the surface) societal norms. Waste is bad, efficiency is good, right? They’re doing what’s taught in every business school; maximizing efficiency is one of the greatest gifts of the free market. Amazon is really extremely good at it.
It's important to realize that tycoons cornering the market in days gone by weren't violating any rules or societal norms. They were just maximizing efficiency. Same goes for industrial revolution era business owners demanding 16+ hour work shifts and tossing the broken people aside. You didn't need much skill to feed the machines; just functional hands.
Eventually, society steps in and changes the rules to favour the downtrodden, and those who stand to lose from the change fight and complain bitterly about interference and the unfairness of making their efficiency harder to achieve, and then it gets pushed through regardless and life goes on.
We may not be able to prescribe remedies against future abuse in many cases (and probably shouldn't in some), but we can at least recognize it when it's there, and do something about it. That's what a free society is about.
It's important to realize that tycoons cornering the market in days gone by weren't violating any rules or societal norms. They were just maximizing efficiency. Same goes for industrial revolution era business owners demanding 16+ hour work shifts and tossing the broken people aside. You didn't need much skill to feed the machines; just functional hands.
Eventually, society steps in and changes the rules to favour the downtrodden, and those who stand to lose from the change fight and complain bitterly about interference and the unfairness of making their efficiency harder to achieve, and then it gets pushed through regardless and life goes on.
We may not be able to prescribe remedies against future abuse in many cases (and probably shouldn't in some), but we can at least recognize it when it's there, and do something about it. That's what a free society is about.
For a much grimmer and soul-wrenching take on this, read Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...
Meditations on Moloch made such an impact on me, that I routinely say aloud "Moloch" when I spot circumstances of competition leading to otherwise irrationally bad outcomes. Sort of in a religious way. :)
I went to comments exactly to see if anyone mentioned it already.
BTW. The efficiency (specialization) vs redundancy (genericity) is a kind of jing-jang, fractal thing and is part of how the universe ... dances... I'd say (inspired by Alan Watts lectures). Systems have cycles where they build specilization up until it becomes so fragile and unstable that it blows up and genericity takes over again. I don't know if that's like some law of cybernetics or something.
Similar to how stability on one level of analysis leads to instability in the one above it (well described in Taleb's book).
I went to comments exactly to see if anyone mentioned it already.
BTW. The efficiency (specialization) vs redundancy (genericity) is a kind of jing-jang, fractal thing and is part of how the universe ... dances... I'd say (inspired by Alan Watts lectures). Systems have cycles where they build specilization up until it becomes so fragile and unstable that it blows up and genericity takes over again. I don't know if that's like some law of cybernetics or something.
Similar to how stability on one level of analysis leads to instability in the one above it (well described in Taleb's book).
And the yin to that yang:
https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/28/moloch-hasnt-won/
Longer series, but the first post does a good job of summarizing Meditations on Moloch.
Somewhat offtopic, try listenig to the original poem on youtube. It's a treat.
Longer series, but the first post does a good job of summarizing Meditations on Moloch.
Somewhat offtopic, try listenig to the original poem on youtube. It's a treat.
>an ancient Carthaginian demon
This shouldn't bother me but it really does. For a community striving to be less wrong, how does someone write a 47-minute long post about Moloch but not know Moloch?
It doesn't really matter since it's about the metaphor not the actual Moloch, but I guess it's because of where it's posted. Not sure if there's a name for it but there's a phenomena where if you say you care about something, you'll get a lot of flak for it compared to if you never mention it. Kind of like how Google always gets a lot of bad press since they claim to care about X when VCs for example have a much worse record but don't really get mentioned. With lesswrong's reputation, I can't help but be really put off by the inaccuracy.
This shouldn't bother me but it really does. For a community striving to be less wrong, how does someone write a 47-minute long post about Moloch but not know Moloch?
It doesn't really matter since it's about the metaphor not the actual Moloch, but I guess it's because of where it's posted. Not sure if there's a name for it but there's a phenomena where if you say you care about something, you'll get a lot of flak for it compared to if you never mention it. Kind of like how Google always gets a lot of bad press since they claim to care about X when VCs for example have a much worse record but don't really get mentioned. With lesswrong's reputation, I can't help but be really put off by the inaccuracy.
We should ask a German, they put a noun to everything.
I was thinking the same thing recently, reading a New York Times review panel on Hamilton. Someone said they didn't focus enough on slavery, and that the casual mentioning of Sally Hemings was tasteless. I posed the same thought: If Sally hadn't been mentioned at all, they wouldn't have commented on the lack of focus on her. If they didn't make a point of being a multiracial cast, or had lyrics condemning slavery, would there have been so much criticism for the magnitude of their condemnation?
This phenomenon of "talking about something, then being attacked for not caring/knowing enough" seems to be happening more and more online.
I was thinking the same thing recently, reading a New York Times review panel on Hamilton. Someone said they didn't focus enough on slavery, and that the casual mentioning of Sally Hemings was tasteless. I posed the same thought: If Sally hadn't been mentioned at all, they wouldn't have commented on the lack of focus on her. If they didn't make a point of being a multiracial cast, or had lyrics condemning slavery, would there have been so much criticism for the magnitude of their condemnation?
This phenomenon of "talking about something, then being attacked for not caring/knowing enough" seems to be happening more and more online.
Seems related to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics:
"The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster."
https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
"The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster."
https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
Slightly - and that's an interesting article to be sure. The difference between that article and the Hamilton or "you don't know enough about Moloch" examples is that the article shows conditional assistance to a problem, where the two above examples have no quid pro quo. Hamilton sheds some light on something, and someone was inaccurate in a literary analysis.
I think people like to see the poor helped unconditionally, or with conditions that help them. In the PETA example, it seems to outsiders that a political agenda is being forced on them. PETA may counter they are improving lives by showing the benefits of veganism.
In the wifi example, it looks like exploitation of the desperate, though it isn't any more debasing than swinging a sign around for a furniture store.
And in the Uber example, that just looks shitty because they're a hugely wealthy company... though I don't know how much of the surge pricing goes to the driver.
I think people like to see the poor helped unconditionally, or with conditions that help them. In the PETA example, it seems to outsiders that a political agenda is being forced on them. PETA may counter they are improving lives by showing the benefits of veganism.
In the wifi example, it looks like exploitation of the desperate, though it isn't any more debasing than swinging a sign around for a furniture store.
And in the Uber example, that just looks shitty because they're a hugely wealthy company... though I don't know how much of the surge pricing goes to the driver.
"I think people like to see the poor helped unconditionally..."
Yes, people like to see the poor helped...they do not particularly like helping the poor themselves.
Yes, people like to see the poor helped...they do not particularly like helping the poor themselves.
I think that's what I had seen before. Thanks for scratching my itch.
I guess a big part of it is that Scott just took the name from the Ginsberg poem and probably only did a quick lookup on who Moloch actually was (as he was more interested in Ginsberg's Moloch than in the Canaanite Moloch)?
Considering Scott's interest in things kabbalistic (e.g. Unsong), and his general erudition, I suspect he knows more about the origins of Moloch than you give him credit for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Carthaginian_Cronus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Carthaginian_Cronus
At this point I'm just being pedantic, but that does not explain why he called Moloch a demon.
Horned deity which eats children? Sounds exactly like a demon to me.
I think that's a stretch. I don't think the ancient Canaanites viewed Moloch as evil. Even Milton and Flaubert consider him a god. I think such definitions only make sense within the context of the religion. I could argue that Yaweh is a demon because he is evil (has also asked for child sacrifice among other things), but that is an absurd claim within the religion where by definition he is good and the source of morality.
So by calling Moloch a demon, you are participating in perpetuating a potentially false history of Moloch that is heavily biased and Judeocentric. Sure you can call him an evil pagan god, but to call him a demon requires fitting that into a prior belief system of evil supernatural entities which is inconsistent with the very belief system he came from.
So by calling Moloch a demon, you are participating in perpetuating a potentially false history of Moloch that is heavily biased and Judeocentric. Sure you can call him an evil pagan god, but to call him a demon requires fitting that into a prior belief system of evil supernatural entities which is inconsistent with the very belief system he came from.
Oh, I'm sure of that. But the point I was trying to make is that he wasn't going for accuracy to ancient myth, just as Ginsberg wasn't.
What is the correct definition then?
Molok is the name used in the Bible for a Canaanite deity that the Israelites were forbidden to "suffer their seed to pass through the fire to". Details are scarce, but this is usually taken to refer to human sacrifice. It later became syncretized with reports of child sacrifice at Carthage, where the popular imagery associated with Molok (the idol with outstretched hands, the drums) is taken from.
Carthage and Canaan did share many cultural traits, and the Carthaginians also called themselves Canaanites. It's quite plausible that the Carthaginians would indeed worship Moloch and make sacrifices to that god, and that the mentions of child sacrifice in classical sources about Carthage are based on such.
I think it's still inaccurate to refer to Moloch as Carthaginian rather than Canaanite. The latter is obviously correct, though a bit vague. The former is contested and not as clear.
Wikipedia probably has a better answer, but basically the name Moloch is from the Bible. One of the ways genocide of the inhabitants of Canaan (the promised land) is justified is by describing Canaanites as immoral people who sacrifice their own children to idols. Moloch is supposed to be one of the idols, but the actual history of Moloch is very sparse. Probably was one of the main local gods way back in the day like Baal. Probably not even an "evil" god at all (like Baal) since the Bible is heavily biased against the competing local gods in the region.
So basically, a god of Canaanites we only know about from the people that wanted to wipe them out and wrote very influential texts.
So basically, a god of Canaanites we only know about from the people that wanted to wipe them out and wrote very influential texts.
Related to this and discussed quite a few times on HN ([1],[2]), 'In Praise of Idleness', an essay by Bertrand Russell: https://libcom.org/files/Bertrand%20Russell%20-%20In%20Prais... . I return to it every once in a while, if not to regain a bit of sanity, than just to enjoy clarity of thought and style in his writing.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21509144 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015092
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21509144 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015092
Union, yes!
This is an old complaint going back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution at least. The US once had an 8-hour day and a 40-hour week. Now those are only memories.
Unions. The people who brought you the weekend.
This is an old complaint going back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution at least. The US once had an 8-hour day and a 40-hour week. Now those are only memories.
Unions. The people who brought you the weekend.
What got you here, may not get you there.
I have personally benefited from rights that unions have fought for. I am grateful to them for this. What I see them fight for now is worker retention. The most common fight is for the worst union members, because you have to represent your worst member, otherwise what is a union worth?
The other common union fight is whether the members are going to be screwed by management or by the competition, where the competition may be in a different country or a state with fewer protections on workers' rights.
I think there are still marginal conflicts where the Union can secure benefits for their members, but I'm not sure how much more they can help society overall.
I have personally benefited from rights that unions have fought for. I am grateful to them for this. What I see them fight for now is worker retention. The most common fight is for the worst union members, because you have to represent your worst member, otherwise what is a union worth?
The other common union fight is whether the members are going to be screwed by management or by the competition, where the competition may be in a different country or a state with fewer protections on workers' rights.
I think there are still marginal conflicts where the Union can secure benefits for their members, but I'm not sure how much more they can help society overall.
Unions are just a framework. If you dig a bit you’ll find there are factions in almost every union fighting for more democracy and benefits for the members, and many of them are winning. Two off the cuff examples are Teamsters for a Democratic Union and CORE from the Chicago Teachers Union.
EDIT: it would also be remiss not to add that much of the power of unions has been stripped away by union busting and bad legislation
EDIT: it would also be remiss not to add that much of the power of unions has been stripped away by union busting and bad legislation
Worker democracy is the characteristic that's most useful. Regarding that, imo there's a good case to be made even to the conservative side of the aisle in favour of unions, as at its best they can drastically reduce the need for strong top-down regulatory legislation in favour of much more specific, granular agreements between workers and employers made from the bottom up. But the power to be able to do that has been crippled (for good reason in some cases! But not all).
The increased work hours are among the professional class. It consists of professionals competing, not exploitation from the top.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...
I don't know how you can believe this unless you somehow also believe professionals are at the top.
In the case of professionals, the extra work is generally optional for extra rewards.
You can have a career as a software engineer with a 40 hour week if you want. It just won't be at Amazon.
You can have a career as a lawyer, just not at big law.
Professionals get to opt in and get commensurate rewards. The factory workers didn't get anything extra for their extra efforts.
You can have a career as a software engineer with a 40 hour week if you want. It just won't be at Amazon.
You can have a career as a lawyer, just not at big law.
Professionals get to opt in and get commensurate rewards. The factory workers didn't get anything extra for their extra efforts.
> generally optional for extra rewards
Rewards like burnout, lower quality of life, worsening relationships with friends and family...?
The problem is actually a vicious circle. People work more to be valued more, which causes others to work also more so that they can compete. The company benefits from this and takes it as the new normal: deadlines shorten, workload increases, and it stops being optional to become "optional", as in "you can opt out of more work, but get ready to find another job soon". Now you have a whole group of workers burning themselves out for marginally more money and status, while the company they work for makes more money.
And no, it doesn't just happen at Amazon. This happens to software engineers everywhere.
Of course, it's not by far the same situation as factory workers, but there's a serious problem with the work culture in software, specially in the US.
Rewards like burnout, lower quality of life, worsening relationships with friends and family...?
The problem is actually a vicious circle. People work more to be valued more, which causes others to work also more so that they can compete. The company benefits from this and takes it as the new normal: deadlines shorten, workload increases, and it stops being optional to become "optional", as in "you can opt out of more work, but get ready to find another job soon". Now you have a whole group of workers burning themselves out for marginally more money and status, while the company they work for makes more money.
And no, it doesn't just happen at Amazon. This happens to software engineers everywhere.
Of course, it's not by far the same situation as factory workers, but there's a serious problem with the work culture in software, specially in the US.
> Rewards like burnout, lower quality of life, worsening relationships with friends and family...?
But what are those things worth to you? As they have different values to everyone.
A friend of mine is currently working on his software project at work (and this is for a massive non tech company, so it is not as if it is a startup). It is 6AM on a Sunday and that is what he is doing. And he is doing it out of boredom as he is in many ways the stereotypical software guy.
Another good friend is in Seattle. He logged in to work at midnight today while chatting with me. Why? He has nothing else to do.
I spend 100+ hours at my computer a week and have since high school. Spending a greater percentage of that time coding for work does not meaningfully impact my quality of life other than taking away from commenting on forums or my hobby of solving innovation challenges. Whether I am unemployed or facing a major deadline, I am going to be online anyway.
I get why long hours would be terrible for people with families requiring attention or girlfriends or those who like hiking, but a lot of software engineers (like me or the aforementioned friends) have none of those, making more work very cheap for us.
But what are those things worth to you? As they have different values to everyone.
A friend of mine is currently working on his software project at work (and this is for a massive non tech company, so it is not as if it is a startup). It is 6AM on a Sunday and that is what he is doing. And he is doing it out of boredom as he is in many ways the stereotypical software guy.
Another good friend is in Seattle. He logged in to work at midnight today while chatting with me. Why? He has nothing else to do.
I spend 100+ hours at my computer a week and have since high school. Spending a greater percentage of that time coding for work does not meaningfully impact my quality of life other than taking away from commenting on forums or my hobby of solving innovation challenges. Whether I am unemployed or facing a major deadline, I am going to be online anyway.
I get why long hours would be terrible for people with families requiring attention or girlfriends or those who like hiking, but a lot of software engineers (like me or the aforementioned friends) have none of those, making more work very cheap for us.
> And he is doing it out of boredom as he is in many ways the stereotypical software guy.
I don't know any software person who works at 6AM on a Sunday.
>He logged in to work at midnight today while chatting with me. Why? He has nothing else to do.
Does he have time to find anything else to do?
> Spending a greater percentage of that time coding for work does not meaningfully impact my quality of life other than taking away from commenting on forums or my hobby of solving innovation challenges.
Being online and working is not the same at all. Maybe for you, for not most people.
> but a lot of software engineers (like me or the aforementioned friends) have none of those
Several things:
1. Not having anything other than your job is bad. Full stop. Maybe a handful of persons can work in that situation, but having such a messed up work-life balance is bad for your health, there are plenty of studies on this.
2. Have you asked why this happens? Maybe it's not just people who like that, but people who have no other options due to companies "forcing" those hours.
3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?
4. Are you and your friends ready to take on those workloads for your whole life? Because it's hard to get out of that dynamic.
5. Burnout is a serious issue. Burnout can lead to depression, can lead to losing your job, to having serious health problems... It's not a joke. It's a serious risk.
I don't know any software person who works at 6AM on a Sunday.
>He logged in to work at midnight today while chatting with me. Why? He has nothing else to do.
Does he have time to find anything else to do?
> Spending a greater percentage of that time coding for work does not meaningfully impact my quality of life other than taking away from commenting on forums or my hobby of solving innovation challenges.
Being online and working is not the same at all. Maybe for you, for not most people.
> but a lot of software engineers (like me or the aforementioned friends) have none of those
Several things:
1. Not having anything other than your job is bad. Full stop. Maybe a handful of persons can work in that situation, but having such a messed up work-life balance is bad for your health, there are plenty of studies on this.
2. Have you asked why this happens? Maybe it's not just people who like that, but people who have no other options due to companies "forcing" those hours.
3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?
4. Are you and your friends ready to take on those workloads for your whole life? Because it's hard to get out of that dynamic.
5. Burnout is a serious issue. Burnout can lead to depression, can lead to losing your job, to having serious health problems... It's not a joke. It's a serious risk.
>1. Not having anything other than your job is bad. Full stop. Maybe a handful of persons can work in that situation, but having such a messed up work-life balance is bad for your health, there are plenty of studies on this.
It's not for you to decide where anyone derives their meaning and happiness in life or how many hours they should work. You can only decide this for yourself.
>2. Have you asked why this happens? Maybe it's not just people who like that, but people who have no other options due to companies "forcing" those hours.
There are always options. It's up to you to find the niche that works for you.
>3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?
Depends on the individual.
>4. Are you and your friends ready to take on those workloads for your whole life? Because it's hard to get out of that dynamic.
Their decision.
>5. Burnout is a serious issue. Burnout can lead to depression, can lead to losing your job, to having serious health problems... It's not a joke. It's a serious risk.
It's each individual's risk to take. If someone wants to work 12 hours a day, it is their decision. "Full stop"
It's not for you to decide where anyone derives their meaning and happiness in life or how many hours they should work. You can only decide this for yourself.
>2. Have you asked why this happens? Maybe it's not just people who like that, but people who have no other options due to companies "forcing" those hours.
There are always options. It's up to you to find the niche that works for you.
>3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?
Depends on the individual.
>4. Are you and your friends ready to take on those workloads for your whole life? Because it's hard to get out of that dynamic.
Their decision.
>5. Burnout is a serious issue. Burnout can lead to depression, can lead to losing your job, to having serious health problems... It's not a joke. It's a serious risk.
It's each individual's risk to take. If someone wants to work 12 hours a day, it is their decision. "Full stop"
> It's not for you to decide where anyone derives their meaning and happiness in life or how many hours they should work. You can only decide this for yourself.
Everyone decides these things for themselves indeed, but that shouldn't stop others from having opinions regarding those decisions, or giving unsolicited advice to help others stop hurting themselves. I for sure hope my friends will step in and try to stop me if I go down the path of self-destruction.
And also, anyone is free to ignore the advice given by others. Which is a good thing, for much of it is bad advice.
Everyone decides these things for themselves indeed, but that shouldn't stop others from having opinions regarding those decisions, or giving unsolicited advice to help others stop hurting themselves. I for sure hope my friends will step in and try to stop me if I go down the path of self-destruction.
And also, anyone is free to ignore the advice given by others. Which is a good thing, for much of it is bad advice.
It’s not just their decision, that’s the thing. Crazy work hours are generally harmful, even people who “find meaning in it” can get burned out. And if companies allow and encourage staying more hours, it creates an environment where people can’t choose to work sane hours. And it’s not even an issue of giving more value or anything, because most time the extra hours don’t bring in additional productivity.
Most importantly, it’s not an isolated thing. It’s not just one or two persons doing it: if it were that it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s a generalized culture issue that should be taken seriously and not only viewed in terms of individuals.
Most importantly, it’s not an isolated thing. It’s not just one or two persons doing it: if it were that it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s a generalized culture issue that should be taken seriously and not only viewed in terms of individuals.
I have seen many people work much longer than 8 hours a day without issue or burnout if it's what they like doing. Hell, I do so as well. Burnout is not simply a function of hours worked, it's a function of perceived ROI on those hours. Obviously people shouldn't be working 20 hours a day as that's not sustainable and work product will be low quality, but 8 is not the upper bound for a lot of people.
> And if companies allow and encourage staying more hours, it creates an environment where people can’t choose to work sane hours.
Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work. That should be fine and is fair; those people working 8 hours are deriving value from other activities. It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".
> And if companies allow and encourage staying more hours, it creates an environment where people can’t choose to work sane hours.
Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work. That should be fine and is fair; those people working 8 hours are deriving value from other activities. It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".
Some people may want to work more than 8 hours a day, but a separate question is what maximizes personal and corporate productivity.
I've seen research suggesting that workers can get increased productivity working over 40 hours a week for several weeks, but after that, productivity actually goes negative relative to a 40 hour week, because more mistakes are being made that will require rework.
I've seen research suggesting that workers can get increased productivity working over 40 hours a week for several weeks, but after that, productivity actually goes negative relative to a 40 hour week, because more mistakes are being made that will require rework.
> I have seen many people work much longer than 8 hours a day without issue or burnout if it's what they like doing
For how much time? There is a clear association between more working hours and more burnout [1] and health problems [2] that can be delayed for decades.
> Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work.
Sorry, but in most places this doesn't happen. I'm lucky to be out of those environments, but the expectation tends to be that everybody works those hours or they're out, even if they're producing the same high quality work (also, I highly doubt that more hours equals more high quality work: productivity decreases after a certain point, specially in software, that's why 6-hour work days are being discussed so much). I still remember a friend being glad that he convinced his manager to "only" work 10 hours a day, because he was literally losing hair due to the extra work. This guy liked what he was doing and at the beginning said "it doesn't matter, I'm happy working these hours.
> It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".
Well, this is the law in most countries in Europe. Overtime is heavily regulated (enforcement is another matter, unfortunately) precisely because business pressure can be disguised as "individual decisions". When a lot of people start working more hours, it puts pressure on people who fulfill their contracted hours, and who might not want or be able to put those extra hours.
In the end, it's a balancing act between giving some people the freedom to work the hours they want and helping the company put pressure on others to do more hours than they were contracted for (in other words, changing their work conditions without negotiation) or give others the freedom to do the job they were hired and paid for without pressure to do more than what was negotiated. Me, I prefer to err on the side of caution and choose the action that doesn't harm the health and well-being of the employees.
1: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302591873_The_Assoc... 2: https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/24/3/422/477763
For how much time? There is a clear association between more working hours and more burnout [1] and health problems [2] that can be delayed for decades.
> Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work.
Sorry, but in most places this doesn't happen. I'm lucky to be out of those environments, but the expectation tends to be that everybody works those hours or they're out, even if they're producing the same high quality work (also, I highly doubt that more hours equals more high quality work: productivity decreases after a certain point, specially in software, that's why 6-hour work days are being discussed so much). I still remember a friend being glad that he convinced his manager to "only" work 10 hours a day, because he was literally losing hair due to the extra work. This guy liked what he was doing and at the beginning said "it doesn't matter, I'm happy working these hours.
> It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".
Well, this is the law in most countries in Europe. Overtime is heavily regulated (enforcement is another matter, unfortunately) precisely because business pressure can be disguised as "individual decisions". When a lot of people start working more hours, it puts pressure on people who fulfill their contracted hours, and who might not want or be able to put those extra hours.
In the end, it's a balancing act between giving some people the freedom to work the hours they want and helping the company put pressure on others to do more hours than they were contracted for (in other words, changing their work conditions without negotiation) or give others the freedom to do the job they were hired and paid for without pressure to do more than what was negotiated. Me, I prefer to err on the side of caution and choose the action that doesn't harm the health and well-being of the employees.
1: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302591873_The_Assoc... 2: https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/24/3/422/477763
> It's not for you to decide where anyone derives their meaning and happiness in life or how many hours they should work.
The quote you reply to says nothing about meaning and happiness, just health.
And no matter how much meaning and happiness you believe you are getting, when your body and mind give out, that choice will be taken away from you and you will be taking time off from working, just not in a very pleasant way.
The quote you reply to says nothing about meaning and happiness, just health.
And no matter how much meaning and happiness you believe you are getting, when your body and mind give out, that choice will be taken away from you and you will be taking time off from working, just not in a very pleasant way.
>Not having anything other than your job is bad
By "not having anything", I assume the OP is referring to things that give meaning.
>And no matter how much meaning and happiness you believe you are getting
This is awfully presumptuous and condescending.
>when your body and mind give out, that choice will be taken away from you and you will be taking time off from working, just not in a very pleasant way.
You mean when I'm not able to sustain long hours anymore? I'll have enough money saved to simply cut back on work. No spiraling health crisis necessary.
By "not having anything", I assume the OP is referring to things that give meaning.
>And no matter how much meaning and happiness you believe you are getting
This is awfully presumptuous and condescending.
>when your body and mind give out, that choice will be taken away from you and you will be taking time off from working, just not in a very pleasant way.
You mean when I'm not able to sustain long hours anymore? I'll have enough money saved to simply cut back on work. No spiraling health crisis necessary.
> I'll have enough money saved to simply cut back on work.
That part is the key. Otherwise it is just self imposed indentured servant-hood.
That part is the key. Otherwise it is just self imposed indentured servant-hood.
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> 3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?
Many studies have shown that extra work has negative value, particularly in intellectual disciplines.
Many studies have shown that extra work has negative value, particularly in intellectual disciplines.
You need to find something else to do and encourage your friends to do the same. This is incredibly unhealthy in so many ways. This is the gateway to anxiety, depression and physical disability. The human body is not meant to sit in front of a computer that many hours.
You will pay a price. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but you don't stay young forever.
Please help yourself before it's too late.
You will pay a price. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but you don't stay young forever.
Please help yourself before it's too late.
> Professionals get to opt in and get commensurate rewards.
More like professionals are forced in, but get commensurate rewards. Employment isn't flexible enough for people to really choose extra work for extra rewards. The "typical" (average, median, raced-to-the-bottom, whatever) amount people are willing to work and the typical amount they're willing to work for dictates what jobs are even out there. When you need roughly replaceable workers, you give them all roughly the same deal, so professionals aren't just competing on wages vs skill, but on the whole necessarily-mostly-homogeneous package.
I'm happy to have these extra benefits well above a living wage, but I'd take a fraction of my comp for a fraction of my hours in a heartbeat, but we're in a world where a FAANG wage/hour means basically FAANG hours.
More like professionals are forced in, but get commensurate rewards. Employment isn't flexible enough for people to really choose extra work for extra rewards. The "typical" (average, median, raced-to-the-bottom, whatever) amount people are willing to work and the typical amount they're willing to work for dictates what jobs are even out there. When you need roughly replaceable workers, you give them all roughly the same deal, so professionals aren't just competing on wages vs skill, but on the whole necessarily-mostly-homogeneous package.
I'm happy to have these extra benefits well above a living wage, but I'd take a fraction of my comp for a fraction of my hours in a heartbeat, but we're in a world where a FAANG wage/hour means basically FAANG hours.
When I was working in a factory (summer holiday job during my A-levels), onetime was paid at time-and-a-half.
Now I’m a software dev working in an office, the base pay is much better, but there is no overtime.
Now I’m a software dev working in an office, the base pay is much better, but there is no overtime.
One of my neighbors mentioned that they were offering triple time to work the 4th of July at the factory he works at. He didn't want to work, and thankfully there were enough people interested in the offer that he could have the day off.
> You can have a career as a software engineer with a 40 hour week if you want. It just won't be at Amazon.
Even if you are a software engineer you can make top-tier, simply insane amounts of money at most big companies with a sub-40 hour workweek.
It is simply a matter of finding the right team and having a good manager. The former is something you can affect and the latter can be luck. But you can definitely make some of the best compensation in CS and have cushy working hours if you play your cards right.
Even if you are a software engineer you can make top-tier, simply insane amounts of money at most big companies with a sub-40 hour workweek.
It is simply a matter of finding the right team and having a good manager. The former is something you can affect and the latter can be luck. But you can definitely make some of the best compensation in CS and have cushy working hours if you play your cards right.
> Union, yes!
Or at least guilds with 'base' contracts / conditions for employments.
Actors all get the same basic level of protection with regards to working conditions, pensions, health care (?), but that does not stop them from negotiating different salaries (with a floor?) for the "100x" performers.
Or at least guilds with 'base' contracts / conditions for employments.
Actors all get the same basic level of protection with regards to working conditions, pensions, health care (?), but that does not stop them from negotiating different salaries (with a floor?) for the "100x" performers.
Actors guilds are the exception to union typicality. Not the rule
I'm pretty sure Moses was not in a union.
Comparing today's IT workplace to the conditions that inspired Marx and the labor movement seems a tad naïve, to put it politely.
And yet, it seems to be working out fine for the actors and writers guilds... Unions are about dealing with the power asymmetry between a large organization and individual workers, which has nothing to do with the kind of work being done.
It works out well for the IT people as well, they're making much more than the average employee. Most could cut back on the hours by taking a hit in the salary. People value getting more money though.
Marx eventually settled on the position that it is not the conditions per se but the mechanisms that lead to them that are the issue, as they will always lead to the same fundamental problems. Which is the case - an IT worker has the same fundamental conflicts as a factory worker. At a certain level, losing these conflicts despite nominally better conditions doesn't necessarily lead to better outcomes.
If Marx was still alive today, I think that he would answer the question about how modern workers have such better conditions than those in early capitalism the exact same way as when people in his time said that proletarian had better conditions than the peasants before them, which was nominally true.
In any case, the prescriptions of how a 19th century proletarian could improve their life are essentially the same. The idea is that the interests of your employer will always he opposite yours, as a result you will only be able to improve your conditions by organizing with your fellow workers in order to tip the balance of power, and eventually it is in your interests to change the conditions that lead to this conflict to begin with.
If Marx was still alive today, I think that he would answer the question about how modern workers have such better conditions than those in early capitalism the exact same way as when people in his time said that proletarian had better conditions than the peasants before them, which was nominally true.
In any case, the prescriptions of how a 19th century proletarian could improve their life are essentially the same. The idea is that the interests of your employer will always he opposite yours, as a result you will only be able to improve your conditions by organizing with your fellow workers in order to tip the balance of power, and eventually it is in your interests to change the conditions that lead to this conflict to begin with.
Marx wasn't inspired by poor worker conditions: he wasn't an idealist and his writings aren't normative.
To claim that Marx isn't relevant for worker conditions today is to either misunderstand him or misrepresent him. The contradictions arising from social conflict can't be solved by air condition because they are bound to our mode of production.
To claim that Marx isn't relevant for worker conditions today is to either misunderstand him or misrepresent him. The contradictions arising from social conflict can't be solved by air condition because they are bound to our mode of production.
[At risk of veering OT here], it seems to me that Marx clearly was inspired by poor worker conditions; a good 1/3 of Capital is empirical discourse on worker conditions. I feel that there might be something more to your argument, so please elaborate if you feel the need.
I think this is a case of language being context-dependent and how the exact meaning of `inspired' depends on its use. I'll elaborate a bit but ultimately I'll say this:
Marx was inspired by the world around him, which consisted of poor worker conditions [0]. We can say this confidently because recent evolution in the study of ideology tells us exactly this: We are a product of our social and material environment, something we can't escape [1].
Anyway, my point is that the way CamperBob2 discusses the topic of Marx's inspiration makes it sound like a fundamental axiom of Marxism is the poor conditions of the working class and specifically their conditions during working hours. If this was true, we'd be able to conclude that the predictions of Marx [2] would be disproved by the gradual removal of these (poor) worker conditions.
We can show this isn't true by appealing to our shared knowledge about the world, where global inequality is increasing and where worker conflict was at the center of an (almost) successful presidential campaign. We can also show this with empirical data, where our shared knowledge may fail us. For instance, Marx predicted that the global rate of profit would continue to fall, the reasons for which are beyond the scope of HN. This has been demonstrated to be true by many Marxists along the years, of whom the most prominent since the rise of the IT-worker is the economist Andrew Kliman [3].
[0]: See Marx's theory of alienation and the concept of reification, for instances of this.
[1]: In particular, see Anthoni Gramsci through Louis Althusser and Slavoj Zizek.
[2]: Ranging from social conflict theory to capital accumulation, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the value-form and social conflict theory.
[3]: “The Persistent Fall in Profitability Underlying the Current Crisis: New Temporalist Evidence” by Andrew Kliman
Marx was inspired by the world around him, which consisted of poor worker conditions [0]. We can say this confidently because recent evolution in the study of ideology tells us exactly this: We are a product of our social and material environment, something we can't escape [1].
Anyway, my point is that the way CamperBob2 discusses the topic of Marx's inspiration makes it sound like a fundamental axiom of Marxism is the poor conditions of the working class and specifically their conditions during working hours. If this was true, we'd be able to conclude that the predictions of Marx [2] would be disproved by the gradual removal of these (poor) worker conditions.
We can show this isn't true by appealing to our shared knowledge about the world, where global inequality is increasing and where worker conflict was at the center of an (almost) successful presidential campaign. We can also show this with empirical data, where our shared knowledge may fail us. For instance, Marx predicted that the global rate of profit would continue to fall, the reasons for which are beyond the scope of HN. This has been demonstrated to be true by many Marxists along the years, of whom the most prominent since the rise of the IT-worker is the economist Andrew Kliman [3].
[0]: See Marx's theory of alienation and the concept of reification, for instances of this.
[1]: In particular, see Anthoni Gramsci through Louis Althusser and Slavoj Zizek.
[2]: Ranging from social conflict theory to capital accumulation, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the value-form and social conflict theory.
[3]: “The Persistent Fall in Profitability Underlying the Current Crisis: New Temporalist Evidence” by Andrew Kliman
A good 1/3 of Kapital is a discourse on why workers conditions are so bad, and that fits into an analysis of capitalism.
Marxism isn't a normative ideology. You could be a despotic monopoly leader and still be a Marxist. Whether worker conditions are good or bad at any instant in any place has no bearing on Marxist analysis.
Marxism isn't a normative ideology. You could be a despotic monopoly leader and still be a Marxist. Whether worker conditions are good or bad at any instant in any place has no bearing on Marxist analysis.
This is incredibly succinctly stated and exactly what I tried to say.
Complete bullshit. Do a job that is actually in demand, then nobody can force you to work more than you want.
And the 8 hour work day was supposedly introduced by Ford, not by Unions.
And the 8 hour work day was supposedly introduced by Ford, not by Unions.
Ford didn't invent the 8 hour day.[1]
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/how-the-8-hour-workday-chang...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/how-the-8-hour-workday-chang...
Thanks for the info. Article doesn't mention the reasoning behind Ford's move, though.
I still think the whole demand is completely backwards.
Article also mentions the info workers who work 12 hours and more - well they do it because they make good money that way. They'll retire by 40 and have the last laugh.
I still think the whole demand is completely backwards.
Article also mentions the info workers who work 12 hours and more - well they do it because they make good money that way. They'll retire by 40 and have the last laugh.
Most people working 12 hour days in tech and finance won't retire by 40. The factory workers the article mentions in the very next sentence won't either.
They can afford to take a long holiday at the very least. Compared to other workers, certainly. Or maybe they prefer to live in expensive housing instead of paying for spare time. Why shouldn't it be their choice?
As for factory workers, are you sure the issue is factories not paying enough? Or what exactly is going on in the US economy? What is so expensive? Why is there so much competition for jobs?
As for factory workers, are you sure the issue is factories not paying enough? Or what exactly is going on in the US economy? What is so expensive? Why is there so much competition for jobs?
There’s plenty of jobs in demand that still don’t pay enough to house and feed more than one person.
Unions are a way of making HR listen.
Unions are a way of making HR listen.
Which jobs would that be, can you give some examples?
Fast food worker?
Retail clerk?
Pretty much anything that falls under "essential jobs" during the pandemic fits the "in demand" label, and the vast majority of those pay low wages.
And no matter how easy it is for a company to replace a given worker in their job, no job should ever pay so little that the person in it cannot live on what they make from it.
Any business that cannot survive while paying its employees a true living wage does not deserve to exist, because it is offloading its costs onto the rest of us through the various social programs its employees depend upon to survive.
Retail clerk?
Pretty much anything that falls under "essential jobs" during the pandemic fits the "in demand" label, and the vast majority of those pay low wages.
And no matter how easy it is for a company to replace a given worker in their job, no job should ever pay so little that the person in it cannot live on what they make from it.
Any business that cannot survive while paying its employees a true living wage does not deserve to exist, because it is offloading its costs onto the rest of us through the various social programs its employees depend upon to survive.
>Any business that cannot survive while paying its employees a true living wage does not deserve to exist, because it is offloading its costs onto the rest of us through the various social programs its employees depend upon to survive.
That's not true. The rest of us would have to pay those costs anyway. It's not like the person wouldn't exist, if they didn't have a job.
That's not true. The rest of us would have to pay those costs anyway. It's not like the person wouldn't exist, if they didn't have a job.
Um...what?
Given the choices
a) Business pays employee a living wage; taxpayers pay nothing for that person's survival
b) Business pays employee a less-than-living wage; taxpayers pay partially for that person's survival
c) Person has no job; taxpayers pay fully for that person's survival
(Note, of course, that this leaves off choice d) Person has no job, or does not make enough from their job to survive; for whatever reason, they also cannot obtain welfare, and they die.)
...I think that most people would agree that the best of these three is (a). In that situation "the rest of us" most certainly do not have to pay those costs.
Furthermore, I think the more important point than "the person would still exist if they didn't have a job" is "other, better jobs would still exist if that company folded due to unprofitability, or was never created in the first place".
People have an inherent right to life, liberty, and property.
Businesses are not some sacred abstract; they exist purely to support people. Any privileges they have (down to and including their existence), we grant them, and we can revoke from them if they are not fulfilling their fundamental purposes.
Given the choices
a) Business pays employee a living wage; taxpayers pay nothing for that person's survival
b) Business pays employee a less-than-living wage; taxpayers pay partially for that person's survival
c) Person has no job; taxpayers pay fully for that person's survival
(Note, of course, that this leaves off choice d) Person has no job, or does not make enough from their job to survive; for whatever reason, they also cannot obtain welfare, and they die.)
...I think that most people would agree that the best of these three is (a). In that situation "the rest of us" most certainly do not have to pay those costs.
Furthermore, I think the more important point than "the person would still exist if they didn't have a job" is "other, better jobs would still exist if that company folded due to unprofitability, or was never created in the first place".
People have an inherent right to life, liberty, and property.
Businesses are not some sacred abstract; they exist purely to support people. Any privileges they have (down to and including their existence), we grant them, and we can revoke from them if they are not fulfilling their fundamental purposes.
It's a completely backwards way of thinking. A "business" or "entity" can afford to pay x for service y. If x is too low for you, don't take the job. That's it.
It's pure fantasy to assume every employer could pay a living wage. For example, take house cleaning. What if some pensioner can spare 30$/week to have their house cleaned. How are they supposed to pay a living wage? If somebody steps forward and says OK, I'll clean the house for 30$, fine. If not, tough luck. But to demand the pensioner should pay a living wage (like what, 2000$ or more to have their house cleaned), or call them evil for not paying enough, is backwards and absurd.
It's pure fantasy to assume every employer could pay a living wage. For example, take house cleaning. What if some pensioner can spare 30$/week to have their house cleaned. How are they supposed to pay a living wage? If somebody steps forward and says OK, I'll clean the house for 30$, fine. If not, tough luck. But to demand the pensioner should pay a living wage (like what, 2000$ or more to have their house cleaned), or call them evil for not paying enough, is backwards and absurd.
Having a completely free choice whether or not to take a job is a luxury afforded to very few people.
Very few people can afford to pay other people a living wage. What's your point?
You only exhibit the socialist magic thinking again As if there are infinite resources, and the only problem is to redistribute them. That's not how the real work works. If you want to eat, somebody (possibly you) has to hunt or farm, gather resources, and so on. It's not a given that any number of people can simply earn a "living wage" or even have a job. Somebody has to create such jobs, that are productive enough to feed somebody.
Instead of complain about stinginess of businesses, prove your theories by creating jobs that pay better.
You only exhibit the socialist magic thinking again As if there are infinite resources, and the only problem is to redistribute them. That's not how the real work works. If you want to eat, somebody (possibly you) has to hunt or farm, gather resources, and so on. It's not a given that any number of people can simply earn a "living wage" or even have a job. Somebody has to create such jobs, that are productive enough to feed somebody.
Instead of complain about stinginess of businesses, prove your theories by creating jobs that pay better.
I didn't say anything about resource distribution, I was refuting your idea of "if you don't like the pay then don't take the job". It's a simple fact that this isn't a realistic way of seeing most people's choices.
However, yes, I would agree with previous commenters that if you can't afford to pay people enough to live on then you don't have a business that society should deem viable. If everyone in society was scrabbling around for resources then you might have a point, but in actual fact, the dominant situation is that there is a tiny group of people who are extraordinarily wealthy, a larger-but-still-not-massive group of people who are comfortable, and a great deal of people who get what's left, often not very much at all. Resources are so unfairly distributed I just don't find your argument at all persuasive.
Socialist thought doesn't assume infinite resources, it just says that democracy should be extended much further than it is right now, particularly to the workplace. We could "create" jobs collectively and not leave the decision of how much to pay to a small group of people who have all the power simply because they have the money to start with.
However, yes, I would agree with previous commenters that if you can't afford to pay people enough to live on then you don't have a business that society should deem viable. If everyone in society was scrabbling around for resources then you might have a point, but in actual fact, the dominant situation is that there is a tiny group of people who are extraordinarily wealthy, a larger-but-still-not-massive group of people who are comfortable, and a great deal of people who get what's left, often not very much at all. Resources are so unfairly distributed I just don't find your argument at all persuasive.
Socialist thought doesn't assume infinite resources, it just says that democracy should be extended much further than it is right now, particularly to the workplace. We could "create" jobs collectively and not leave the decision of how much to pay to a small group of people who have all the power simply because they have the money to start with.
Just because somebody is rich, doesn't imply there are many resources. It's just a debt owed by society, which can also go bankrupt. Jeff Bezos earning another Billion does not imply more houses have been created or more plants have been reared and so on. It just means people bought stuff from him, in return for a promise to pay them back in the future (money is a promise of future goods). If Bezos decided today to buy loads of grain with his Billions, to feed the poor somehwere, that grain would be missing somewhere else.
The talk about "businesses that society should consider viable" is nonsense, as the example of the pensioner wanting someone to clean their apartment shows. What should they do if society doesn't consider them "viable", commit suicide?
If society doesn't deem some business "viable", they can simply refuse to work for that business.
If you want to create jobs "collectively", sorry to say, you are in full blown socialist territory, and you will fail, for the same reasons that socialism always fail (because planning economies can't assign resources efficiently enough).
The talk about "businesses that society should consider viable" is nonsense, as the example of the pensioner wanting someone to clean their apartment shows. What should they do if society doesn't consider them "viable", commit suicide?
If society doesn't deem some business "viable", they can simply refuse to work for that business.
If you want to create jobs "collectively", sorry to say, you are in full blown socialist territory, and you will fail, for the same reasons that socialism always fail (because planning economies can't assign resources efficiently enough).
I would call yours the completely backwards way of thinking. Again, my thinking puts people at the center, not "businesses" or "entities", nor "money".
I don't call them evil for not paying enough.
I say they don't make enough to employ a cleaner as that cleaner's full-time job.
I don't call them evil for not paying enough.
I say they don't make enough to employ a cleaner as that cleaner's full-time job.
i say that "living wage" nonsense is hate speech. You are not just saying "oh those businesses can't afford to pay a living wage", you are saying they are greedy and make people poor and so on.
And the full-time job is not a valid argument. So if some company were to split their jobs into part time jobs, it would make it OK for you? I rather doubt that.
And the full-time job is not a valid argument. So if some company were to split their jobs into part time jobs, it would make it OK for you? I rather doubt that.
>Any business that cannot survive while paying its employees a true living wage does not deserve to exist
Given that we're talking about such businesses, the choice is between b and c, and b is clearly preferable.
Given that we're talking about such businesses, the choice is between b and c, and b is clearly preferable.
Depends on if B leads (via lower wages) to more of B to compete.
For example the government may say that to clean their facility, cleaning companies need to be able to do a, b, c and after that it all comes down to the price. Almost all of them can do a,b,c so they compete on price, on cleaning company is not paying taxes though so can offer lower prices and wins all deals, forcing all other companies to stop paying taxes to survive, and makes the whole trade in that area morally bankrupt.
See also: construction business & tipping.
For example the government may say that to clean their facility, cleaning companies need to be able to do a, b, c and after that it all comes down to the price. Almost all of them can do a,b,c so they compete on price, on cleaning company is not paying taxes though so can offer lower prices and wins all deals, forcing all other companies to stop paying taxes to survive, and makes the whole trade in that area morally bankrupt.
See also: construction business & tipping.
If type b companies are not allowed to exist, the market will then be able to support more type a companies and may ultimately have less type c individuals. It may result in a net decrease of social services used.
"In Demand" as in "can't find as many people as you want to fill the jobs". Unskilled work usually doesn't fall in that category.
Fast food, cleaning, warehouse busywork, etc.
This is also true for software production: we have made writing and deploying software so easy to do that the rate at which training of software developers to produce PRs has outpaced the ability for systems either human or automated to handle managing the introduction of risk in all this new code.
This talk [1] by by Mark Sherman of the Software Engineering Institute at CMU is about as dark as the summary of injuries Tim presents in his post. He mentions there are on the order of hundreds of thousands of CVE reports that there are neither time nor money to triage.
[1] https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/sherman/
This talk [1] by by Mark Sherman of the Software Engineering Institute at CMU is about as dark as the summary of injuries Tim presents in his post. He mentions there are on the order of hundreds of thousands of CVE reports that there are neither time nor money to triage.
[1] https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/sherman/
As a society, "injury" (defined broadly to include software bugs as well as knee damage) has always been accepted for certain benefits. At some point we decide that the injuries are worth the cost of progress.
We send astronauts to space knowing that we will kill about 1 in 30 of them. We let thousands die on roads so we can move around cities quickly.
Everything we enjoy about modern society has a certain amount of injury risk.
We are constantly saying skew the bugs, let's see what happens.
We send astronauts to space knowing that we will kill about 1 in 30 of them. We let thousands die on roads so we can move around cities quickly.
Everything we enjoy about modern society has a certain amount of injury risk.
We are constantly saying skew the bugs, let's see what happens.
People conflate risk (likelihood of the event) and hazard (amount of harm if the event happens) and I think it degrades our conversations. The issue with software is that hazard has quite a large range, due to class attack (hitting all instances of something at once, like a software update poisoned with malware) and I don't think even software developers understand the scale of a worst case scenario, let alone most politicians.
I feel like the idea that society has accepted software bugs for some other benefit is questionable, given that software has only had an impact on most people's lives for a relatively small period of time in relation to the amount of time humans have studied philosophy and ethics.
Edit: also I'm discussing security bugs where there are asymmetries in the risk profiles and threat models of actors and agents.
Edit: also I'm discussing security bugs where there are asymmetries in the risk profiles and threat models of actors and agents.
The word "efficient" isn't defined in the article. Is it a synonym for "productivity" (output per worker)?
Modern society seems obsessed by productivity. It's interesting for example that the mission statement for the Gates Foundation is to build a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. Why is that? What if I don't want to be productive? Am I still entitled to be healthy, or is health reserved for "productive" people?
In Cape Town, at the top of Table Mountain lives a species of little mammals, the dassie (rock hyrax). They spend most of their day staring into the void, not looking for food, not mating, doing nothing. (I know because I once spent a day watching them.) The official explanation is that they either stand guard for predators, or they stay immobile in the sun to keep warm.
But isn't it possible they're having an aesthetic experience? The scenery there is simply breathtaking, and changes constantly due to moving clouds just below. Contemplation is possibly the least productive activity one can think of; yet it's vital, if not for dassies, at least for us humans.
One possibility may be that we love productivity so much, simply because it's eminently, and easily, measurable: weight the output, divide by the number of workers, done.
We need a way to measure contemplation.
Modern society seems obsessed by productivity. It's interesting for example that the mission statement for the Gates Foundation is to build a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. Why is that? What if I don't want to be productive? Am I still entitled to be healthy, or is health reserved for "productive" people?
In Cape Town, at the top of Table Mountain lives a species of little mammals, the dassie (rock hyrax). They spend most of their day staring into the void, not looking for food, not mating, doing nothing. (I know because I once spent a day watching them.) The official explanation is that they either stand guard for predators, or they stay immobile in the sun to keep warm.
But isn't it possible they're having an aesthetic experience? The scenery there is simply breathtaking, and changes constantly due to moving clouds just below. Contemplation is possibly the least productive activity one can think of; yet it's vital, if not for dassies, at least for us humans.
One possibility may be that we love productivity so much, simply because it's eminently, and easily, measurable: weight the output, divide by the number of workers, done.
We need a way to measure contemplation.
> Am I still entitled to be healthy, or is health reserved for "productive" people?
Who pays for the sustenance of these idle people and why are they obligated to do it? Life is not sustained by manna from heaven. Life is sustained by the hard work of real people. Glorifying idleness is a giant "screw you" to the people who make civilization possible.
Who pays for the sustenance of these idle people and why are they obligated to do it? Life is not sustained by manna from heaven. Life is sustained by the hard work of real people. Glorifying idleness is a giant "screw you" to the people who make civilization possible.
We are of course not obligated, but it's a good bet that those who are currently idle will become productive if we enable them to do so, and we all stand to benefit. Teach a man to fish, and all that.
I'm all for helping people be productive. It's a shame to waste human potential. But if you have the ability to be productive and choose to be idle instead, nobody is under any obligation to feed, house, or clothe you. If you want things made by other people and you're able to work, you must work. Anything else is incompatible with basic tenets of fairness. And even ignoring fairness and descending to the level of crude practicality, when you take from the productive and give to the unproductive, the size of the former group shrinks and the latter one grows. Eventually, there's not enough productivity to go around and the whole thing collapses.
still, even really productive people (such as the ones sewing your shirt) can't yet have all of the above basic goods (let alone something extra), while yet other people (heirs, investors, ...) are consuming insane amounts of labor in no relation to the outputs of their "work" (if they do any). That's what our economic system is happily covering and it's decidedly not fair in any rational way. And its also leading to societal collapse if you're looking at the US.
I am fine with your reasoning as long as we apply the same measure of fairness to "trust-fund babies". If you do nothing and still get good food, big house and nice clothes just because your ancestors worked hard, how is that a fair setup?
That is a very clear answer to the question! So the health promise is simply transactional.
> the people who make civilization possible.
People like you?
People like you?
Increasing efficiency does increase productivity, but to increase productivity you don't have to increase efficiency. You just have to add more machines.
But when those machine can't eat anymore, you'll see productivity decline.
Related: https://theshiftproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Study...
But when those machine can't eat anymore, you'll see productivity decline.
Related: https://theshiftproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Study...
Sometimes I just lie down and look at the roof. I enjoy these times, but all sense of enjoyment would be lost the moment you develop a metric to track my contemplatative moments
Fair point. What I mean is, if we want to be allowed to be contemplative, even for brief periods of time, we need to help society find value in contemplation, or else it will be squeezed out of us.
The article start with the example of to cleaners that takes a break at their job and that is seen as inefficient in today's society. But I say this is most a misuse of the word and understanding of efficiency. Taking a break is a stop in productivity short term(cleaning in this example). Efficiency can actually be better by a break, by boosting productivity long term and thus reaching the goal (clean streets) with higher quality.
Most management try to think scenarios in closed simplified systems with in- and outputs at a certain time, but by doing this the bigger picture is missed. For example: By neglecting the cleaners wellbeing (physically and mentally) the output may be good cleaning for a while but as times go with no break the wellbeing decrease and so the output.
The problem with this argument is that it's less important than the one in the article but easier to undermine. What if a soulless bureaucrat read it and thought, "OK then, I'll try it out and see if it increases productivity" and find that, even in the long term, it doesn't. Is that enough justification to remove breaks? If course not. The truth is, it's irrelevant whether it increases efficiency.
It reminds me of someone who believes that all torture is morally wrong, but then adds "and it doesn't work anyway". Now if someone can find a situation where it does work then they can undermine that position with addressing the core argument.
It reminds me of someone who believes that all torture is morally wrong, but then adds "and it doesn't work anyway". Now if someone can find a situation where it does work then they can undermine that position with addressing the core argument.
> reminds me of someone who believes that all torture is morally wrong, but then adds "and it doesn't work anyway".
This is not really the way the argument goes though. Person A says “torture is repugnant and should be banned”; person B responds “well how will we ever get a prisoner to answer the questions we need”.
And then person A points out that trained interrogators who build some kind of trust or at least mutual respect with those they are interrogating literally always get better results than the adversarial tough guys who jump to inflicting pain, and that if you ask effective experienced interrogators even from repressive horrible regimes, they’ll tell you “nah, skip the torture, because you’ll waste a lot of trouble getting completely worthless results. When you torture someone they’ll tell you whatever you want to hear to make you stop, and the garbage they spew under torture is never actionable. It takes a lot of hard work to undo the damage and regain enough trust to get useful information, if it’s even possible at all”.
This is not to say that torture would be fine if only it were effective, but rather that the people who torture are lying when they cite its effectiveness or potential. The people who turn to torture (or instruct others to do so) are not actually doing it because they get valuable information out of it; that’s just a rationalization. They’re really doing it for (a) the sadistic psychopathic pleasure in the act, or (b) to terrorize and degrade as an end in itself.
The folks who defend torture based on some hypothetical efficacy (always without evidence, or sometimes with “evidence” that falls apart like wet toilet paper once exposed to the most cursory examination) reveal themselves to be not only morally repugnant but also dishonest and disingenuous. Unless they are extremely naïve (e.g. schoolchildren) it is not worth having this or any other debate with them, because they are not arguing in good faith.
This is not really the way the argument goes though. Person A says “torture is repugnant and should be banned”; person B responds “well how will we ever get a prisoner to answer the questions we need”.
And then person A points out that trained interrogators who build some kind of trust or at least mutual respect with those they are interrogating literally always get better results than the adversarial tough guys who jump to inflicting pain, and that if you ask effective experienced interrogators even from repressive horrible regimes, they’ll tell you “nah, skip the torture, because you’ll waste a lot of trouble getting completely worthless results. When you torture someone they’ll tell you whatever you want to hear to make you stop, and the garbage they spew under torture is never actionable. It takes a lot of hard work to undo the damage and regain enough trust to get useful information, if it’s even possible at all”.
This is not to say that torture would be fine if only it were effective, but rather that the people who torture are lying when they cite its effectiveness or potential. The people who turn to torture (or instruct others to do so) are not actually doing it because they get valuable information out of it; that’s just a rationalization. They’re really doing it for (a) the sadistic psychopathic pleasure in the act, or (b) to terrorize and degrade as an end in itself.
The folks who defend torture based on some hypothetical efficacy (always without evidence, or sometimes with “evidence” that falls apart like wet toilet paper once exposed to the most cursory examination) reveal themselves to be not only morally repugnant but also dishonest and disingenuous. Unless they are extremely naïve (e.g. schoolchildren) it is not worth having this or any other debate with them, because they are not arguing in good faith.
I was in two minds about mentioning that analogy in case someone attempted to address the content directly, which is what you've done. It really misses the point of what I was saying. The point was, if you can imagine a person that did make an argument like I said - however unlikely it is that you think it is that anyone actually would - then hopefully you could see that it does not communicate their point of view well. As it's an analogy, the idea is that this lesson would carry over to what the parent comment was saying.
Yes, I understand the point you’re trying to make, and this analogy is fine insofar as it refers to some kind of fictional/hypothetical conversation about torture.
But this characterization of anti-torture arguments is a straw man, not reflective of how the discussion goes in practice, and itself missing the point of converations about torture’s essential ineffectiveness.
But this characterization of anti-torture arguments is a straw man, not reflective of how the discussion goes in practice, and itself missing the point of converations about torture’s essential ineffectiveness.
“The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
— George Orwell, 1984, 1949
— George Orwell, 1984, 1949
>The truth is, it's irrelevant whether it increases efficiency.
Exactly that's what I want to point out. The talking in the article is not about efficiency or productivity, but that there is a moral compass we have to uphold whatever path we chose to take.
Exactly that's what I want to point out. The talking in the article is not about efficiency or productivity, but that there is a moral compass we have to uphold whatever path we chose to take.
> The truth is, it's irrelevant whether it increases efficiency.
Why? Efficiency means performance per unit of effort. Being more efficient means you can take more smoke breaks, and still perform the same.
Why? Efficiency means performance per unit of effort. Being more efficient means you can take more smoke breaks, and still perform the same.
While you're correct by the definition, it still kinda misses the issue because the main point was productivity, not efficiency.
Its true that with limited demand being more efficient would give you more break time. That's however not the reality as there is always more to do.
Now it's suddenly profitable to remove all breaks as long as the extra time offsets the reduced efficiency.
Its true that with limited demand being more efficient would give you more break time. That's however not the reality as there is always more to do.
Now it's suddenly profitable to remove all breaks as long as the extra time offsets the reduced efficiency.
> “All of the overcapacity that has been squeezed out of our healthcare system; we now wish we had it. All of the redundancy in our food production that has been consolidated away; we want that, too. We need our old, local supply chains — not the single global ones that are so fragile in this crisis. And we want our local restaurants and businesses to survive, not just the national chains.”
Just In Time - the machine that changed the world (See Toyota Production System)
Just In Time works great, until it doesn't. The factory works at 1 unit per minute, demand is pretty inelastic. Society is pretty elastic, if a bunch of people decide they want toilet paper TODAY, the Just In Time system is going to starve out.
Just In Time - the machine that changed the world (See Toyota Production System)
Just In Time works great, until it doesn't. The factory works at 1 unit per minute, demand is pretty inelastic. Society is pretty elastic, if a bunch of people decide they want toilet paper TODAY, the Just In Time system is going to starve out.
Just In Time works great; that and other efficiencies have brought humanity to a world so cosmically wealthy, so infinitely more developed than robust decentralized green (ie. medieval peasant standard of living) economies, that its inhabitant can lounge around eating bon-bons getting obese while endlessly resharing on social media the same photo of one shop out of thousands being out for a day or two of a luxury as a devastating indictment of Just in Time.
[deleted]
There were a lot of articles written about the Great Toilet Paper shortage, but in reality after a short period of time everyone got all the toilet paper they needed.
I think the system responded very well.
I think the system responded very well.
The word missing from the post is "headroom". In critical systems it's more often called safety margin.
If you let the beancounters squeeze out headroom in the name of greater efficiency, you sacrifice resilience and reliability. In other news, water is wet.
If you let the beancounters squeeze out headroom in the name of greater efficiency, you sacrifice resilience and reliability. In other news, water is wet.
Funnily enough - margin of safety is also exactly what works best in capital(ist) markets. See Graham&Dodd, or Buffett&Munger.
This reminds me that capitalism will probably be just fine once people are reminded (yet again) about what risk is, and that they should treat all their counterparties well, to get those long term win-win situations.
This reminds me that capitalism will probably be just fine once people are reminded (yet again) about what risk is, and that they should treat all their counterparties well, to get those long term win-win situations.
> This reminds me that capitalism will probably be just fine once people are reminded (yet again) about what risk is
Can you elaborate on this? What is the risk, and what do people need to be reminded of?
Can you elaborate on this? What is the risk, and what do people need to be reminded of?
I feel like I need to plug Zvi Mowshowitz's "Immoral Mazes" series of blogposts here, as it goes pretty in-depth into the whole matter of efficiency, slack, and "how hard should we work".
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS
It would be more efficient if you added the actual link
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS ?
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/kNANcHLNtJt5qeuSS ?
I actually intended to, but when I finished writing the comment I forgot to paste the link in. Thank you.
I'm currently reading The Divide by Jason Hickel, a book that explores the origin and causes of global inequality. This article reminded me of the book's chapter about the enclosure movement in Britain: Families used to just farm and live off the land. The enclosure movement made most of this land the property of the aristocracy, who would then lease it back out to farmers - but they would keep increasing the price of the lease, so the farmers now had to work themselves to death and use every means to increase yield, in order to keep up, and not get replaced by someone else. It was much more efficient than the previous subsistence farming. (And left many thousands without a home or the means to support themselves)
The farmers probably paid the aristocracy before as well under a different name. What prevented the aristocrats to increase it before?
No, the aristocracy didn't own the land before it was enclosed - the land used to just be commonly owned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
Here is the link to the book on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32603498-the-divide
The part about Amazon reminded me of one of the best quotes from Frank Herbert's Dune:
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind.“
- Frank Herbert, Dune Chronicles
- Frank Herbert, Dune Chronicles
The key question that is missing in the article - efficient for whom, buyers or sellers? Too often (but not always), business is a zero sum game. Make customers pay 20% more without extra cost and your business will be 100% more profitable (assuming 20% profitability). Or, which happens more often, cheapen quality/cost by 20% while retaining the price, and your profitability doubles.
Competition is supposed to enforce efficiency on sellers, but the temptation to cheapen quality is just too big, because it turns out customers are less picky than they should've been in theory, and are ready to give up quality for something free (as free social network) or cheaper (as cheaper sugar-laden food). So when your competitor cheapens quality and it goes down well with the customers, what else can you do besides watching your market share shrinks?
EDITED: typos.
Competition is supposed to enforce efficiency on sellers, but the temptation to cheapen quality is just too big, because it turns out customers are less picky than they should've been in theory, and are ready to give up quality for something free (as free social network) or cheaper (as cheaper sugar-laden food). So when your competitor cheapens quality and it goes down well with the customers, what else can you do besides watching your market share shrinks?
EDITED: typos.
The efficient for whom par is clearly stated all along, with even a direct mention:
> and (for the business) efficient
Otherwise on the bigger point about competition: it doesn’t seem to me the landscapes are that tight, except when you’re in the efficiency game.
If your target is Amazon, you’re in for a ride and can leave your ethics in the closet. If your goal is to find a viable niche where you can grow with your customers, you won’t be in a zero-sum, drive the prices to the ground kind of rat race.
Finding that kind of niche if of course far from easy, now I’d argue a rat race to become the next Amazon isn’t either.
> and (for the business) efficient
Otherwise on the bigger point about competition: it doesn’t seem to me the landscapes are that tight, except when you’re in the efficiency game.
If your target is Amazon, you’re in for a ride and can leave your ethics in the closet. If your goal is to find a viable niche where you can grow with your customers, you won’t be in a zero-sum, drive the prices to the ground kind of rat race.
Finding that kind of niche if of course far from easy, now I’d argue a rat race to become the next Amazon isn’t either.
An article I read recently makes a similar point on maximizing only one side of supply and demand and the effects for consumers and “quality”, in this case, how animals are killed. Good read: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/7/8/21311327/farmers...
>what else can you do
Either follow the suit or cater to subset of customers who value quality.
Either follow the suit or cater to subset of customers who value quality.
One can't lament about maximized efficiency in societies and corporations while ignoring competition. If Amazon doesn't optimize, Alibaba will take over and nothing will change for the better. If we put more "humanity" in our food production, our food will become more expensive and most people will opt for cheaper, imported food. There are always dependencies, consequences, prerequisites for interventions in the natural order of things and far too many articles get written in total ignorance of these. And far too often, bad examples of modern consumer products (like the grocery-ordering fridge or Facebook) are used to argue against efficiency.
Reminds me of this pg classic [1]:
> When we say that one kind of work is overpaid and another underpaid, what are we really saying? In a free market, prices are determined by what buyers want. People like baseball more than poetry, so baseball players make more than poets. To say that a certain kind of work is underpaid is thus identical with saying that people want the wrong things.
> Well, of course people want the wrong things. It seems odd to be surprised by that. And it seems even odder to say that it's unjust that certain kinds of work are underpaid. Then you're saying that it's unjust that people want the wrong things. It's lamentable that people prefer reality TV and corndogs to Shakespeare and steamed vegetables, but unjust? That seems like saying that blue is heavy, or that up is circular.
In the same way, it’s “lamentable” that people buy mass-produced products that are slightly inferior and cheaper, but not surprising.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html?viewfullsite=1
> When we say that one kind of work is overpaid and another underpaid, what are we really saying? In a free market, prices are determined by what buyers want. People like baseball more than poetry, so baseball players make more than poets. To say that a certain kind of work is underpaid is thus identical with saying that people want the wrong things.
> Well, of course people want the wrong things. It seems odd to be surprised by that. And it seems even odder to say that it's unjust that certain kinds of work are underpaid. Then you're saying that it's unjust that people want the wrong things. It's lamentable that people prefer reality TV and corndogs to Shakespeare and steamed vegetables, but unjust? That seems like saying that blue is heavy, or that up is circular.
In the same way, it’s “lamentable” that people buy mass-produced products that are slightly inferior and cheaper, but not surprising.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html?viewfullsite=1
You can fool some of the people all of the time; therefore you should rationally invest all your efforts in maximizing resource extraction from those people. That means the less foolish aren't provided with good choices, so how can society evolve to choose good stuff?
One important example of this is pensions. Some people argue that we should settle for less consumption and economic growth. However, our concept of retirement is predicated on these. If you want to change the workings of the economy, you have to reinvent retirement first, or you'll end up with the elderly starving.
Food's a fun example, because there's currently too much of it. At least in my part of the world, the price of various foods is moderated by the government buying or selling huge stocks of it.
My bigger concern about that is all of the fossil fuels getting wasted doing the haber-process for food nobody's going to use.
My bigger concern about that is all of the fossil fuels getting wasted doing the haber-process for food nobody's going to use.
One way I heard efficiency described is the idea of a race car falling apart at the end of a race, doing its job in the most efficient manner as possible.
Of course, this is pretty much inadvisable in every day life. We need some 'inefficiency' to ensure that our stuff won't break apart at the wrong time.
Of course, this is pretty much inadvisable in every day life. We need some 'inefficiency' to ensure that our stuff won't break apart at the wrong time.
But otoh, this kind of efficiency is probably the reason why washing machines and other household items are now breaking sooner than before ("planned" obsolescence)
I also blame consumers here. Are you willing to pay $100 for a better quality washing machine? Most people are not.
But even if I want to spend more, how will I know I am no spending more on inefficient stuff like a touchscreen on my fridge? Spending more money is sadly not equal to better quality, but I don't know what designates it.
In my experience, getting a couple of years old used premium item (which used to be like double the price) for the same price of a new consumer item is always a good idea for example for Notebooks.
Compared to new plastic consumer class crap, older premium dell notebooks have excellent usability, they last forever and you can even throw them around without worrying about their metal outer layer breaking.
The downside is that they might look ugly for some people.
Also most people I recommended this, dismissed the idea, because buying stuff used were somehow unthinkable for them?
I just don’t get it.
Compared to new plastic consumer class crap, older premium dell notebooks have excellent usability, they last forever and you can even throw them around without worrying about their metal outer layer breaking.
The downside is that they might look ugly for some people.
Also most people I recommended this, dismissed the idea, because buying stuff used were somehow unthinkable for them?
I just don’t get it.
Buy industrial/commercial appliances. They're ugly as hell and last forever. Except... people want nice looking things.
This.
You would look at the warranty policies and guarantees. A 10 year warranty product is going to be better than one with a 3 year warranty.
There's a pretty good correlation between the two, let's not pretend otherwise.
Is there? How strong? Out of that $100 how much of extra weeks of usage will I get and with what confidence level?
Also - Is it affected by the level of hardness in the local water and my patterns of usage ajd types of detergent I use? Does additional reliability affect any other parameters like energy and water usage?
In a multi-variable comparison like this it is impossible to say much about future past 5 years with much certainty, while the price is single biggest objective metric.
Also - Is it affected by the level of hardness in the local water and my patterns of usage ajd types of detergent I use? Does additional reliability affect any other parameters like energy and water usage?
In a multi-variable comparison like this it is impossible to say much about future past 5 years with much certainty, while the price is single biggest objective metric.
I think we are, but the data isn't there. It's the lemon market.
I don't believe we would even know what we ate if there wasn't laws in place.
I don't believe we would even know what we ate if there wasn't laws in place.
Well, in some ways it a rational choice by consumers: often times the newer product is does the job better, is quieter, using less resources.
Supposedly it's one of the reasons why homes (but not land) tend to depreciate in Japan: newer structures meet newer, higher safety standards. When you live in an active earthquake zone (also: typhoons), why wouldn't you want one that takes in account the seismic developments of the previous thirty years (generally how often rebuilds are done)?
It's all very well to say to it'd be nice for appliances to last longer, which isn't a 'wrong' statement, but looking at the efficiency gains over the last 20-30 years is quite remarkable.
We may now be hitting diminishing returns, so perhaps should turn to durability more, but it's not like buying new didn't get you anything in recent years.
Supposedly it's one of the reasons why homes (but not land) tend to depreciate in Japan: newer structures meet newer, higher safety standards. When you live in an active earthquake zone (also: typhoons), why wouldn't you want one that takes in account the seismic developments of the previous thirty years (generally how often rebuilds are done)?
It's all very well to say to it'd be nice for appliances to last longer, which isn't a 'wrong' statement, but looking at the efficiency gains over the last 20-30 years is quite remarkable.
We may now be hitting diminishing returns, so perhaps should turn to durability more, but it's not like buying new didn't get you anything in recent years.
there's a time horizon attached to efficiency that needs to be considered. Sometimes this time horizon is not explicitly examined, but is just assumed.
For the case of a racing car, if the engineers were told to design it with maximum efficiency possible, and it only has to last the race, then yes, why not have it break and fall apart at the end, if doing so means it runs at a very high efficiency?
For the case of a racing car, if the engineers were told to design it with maximum efficiency possible, and it only has to last the race, then yes, why not have it break and fall apart at the end, if doing so means it runs at a very high efficiency?
It's not very efficient to win the race if you have to replace the car every race.
> The end-game · Efficiency, taken to the max, can get very dark.
This is the main point behind most of the works of Jacques Ellul, we're re-discovering it at our own expense decades later.
> The Ellulian concept of technique is briefly defined within the "Notes to Reader" section of The Technological Society (1964). It is "the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul
This is the main point behind most of the works of Jacques Ellul, we're re-discovering it at our own expense decades later.
> The Ellulian concept of technique is briefly defined within the "Notes to Reader" section of The Technological Society (1964). It is "the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul
I work in an environment where everything can be measured: emails sent, calls answered, CRM cases resolved, SMS sent and so on. I can even see if anyone went to the toilet at a particular time. And I simply ignore half of it. The jobs that are being monitored are already bad enough: monotonous, repetitive,and etc. And tbh, by ignoring half of all these metrics,I somehow have almost issue free workforce, as opposed to the other department that follows it by letter. Let's be efficient but let's not go completely crazy either.
Raises the question: do you ever wonder whether your monitoring of the employees will someday, itself, start to get monitored?
“See how easily our technologies turn on us? The more power you think you have, the more quickly it slips from your grasp.“
- Tracer Tong, Deus Ex
The older I get, the more prophetic that quote becomes.
- Tracer Tong, Deus Ex
The older I get, the more prophetic that quote becomes.
This resonates with me a lot.
I chuckle sometimes when I see things like your fridge (or a smart kitchen) will order items for you by predicting things for you need. In future, it seems tech will do transactions with other tech with lesser human involvement, all in the name of efficiency. And then this will trigger another recursive cycle of optimizations.
The rate at which tech is changing and along with it our society is way faster than rate at which humans can find a coping mechanism. We do not know what we are sleepwalking into.
I chuckle sometimes when I see things like your fridge (or a smart kitchen) will order items for you by predicting things for you need. In future, it seems tech will do transactions with other tech with lesser human involvement, all in the name of efficiency. And then this will trigger another recursive cycle of optimizations.
The rate at which tech is changing and along with it our society is way faster than rate at which humans can find a coping mechanism. We do not know what we are sleepwalking into.
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Big enterprises are (too) great at improving efficiency for their low-level workers. On the other hand they utterly fail to do so with the middle management.
The alternative theory would be that middle management does its job efficiently but it is a different one than the job description says.
The alternative theory would be that middle management does its job efficiently but it is a different one than the job description says.
Low-level work can often be measured in some way, and that's the kind of "efficiency" one can improve most easily. Whereas the whole point of having middle management in a firm is to deal with the many things that can't be measured easily,
The question is not always "Is this efficient?" but "Who is this efficient for?"
A lot of the things that he is describing are very efficient for the company providing them, and now less so for the customer.
A lot of the things that he is describing are very efficient for the company providing them, and now less so for the customer.
Efficiency goes dark when the measure is myopic. If the system took in account the quality of food rather than the price tag .. the efficiency wouldn't be a problem. Quantity over quality in a way.
There is a broader point here: maximizing local efficiency in systems leads to greater fragility overall. The current COVID crisis highlights this very well with shortages due to global supply chains.
Several times in my software engineering career, I've experienced cases where super-optimizing a system leads to later removing the optimzation due to critical bugs found much later (threading, racing conditions, producing invalid data, etc.), thus leading to less performant than before software.
Efficiency is not the problem, because the term "efficient" by itself is meaningless. You have to define what you consider the "costs" to minimize or the "benefits" to maximize to even be talking about efficiency.
In many cases, the quantity that is being optimized is simply profit.
In many cases, the quantity that is being optimized is simply profit.
Yes, the article mentions the metrics movement that allows these efficiency calculations. Other variables need to be added to the equation to maximized (and minimized) such as employee well-being.
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I am reminded of this observation from another thread:
> If we suppose that the goal of society is to produce the greatest utility, and that the utility wealth provides an individual is sub-linear (i.e. twice as much money makes you less than twice as happy), then inequality is inefficient resource allocation.
> However, we also suppose that some level of inequality can lead to greater productivity, and thus greater utility overall. The question is then what level produces the best outcome?
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14505342
> If we suppose that the goal of society is to produce the greatest utility, and that the utility wealth provides an individual is sub-linear (i.e. twice as much money makes you less than twice as happy), then inequality is inefficient resource allocation.
> However, we also suppose that some level of inequality can lead to greater productivity, and thus greater utility overall. The question is then what level produces the best outcome?
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14505342
He points to a real problem, but the solution is - what? We are not in a position to say "efficiency must stop", all we can say is ~"this efficiency drive has serious drawbacks" - which we can say in all perpetuity to no avail.
I'm wondering if this is might be a problem of "incomplete models". Defined such, the human need for "inefficient gaps" in their work could be factored into the models, and we might get something that resembles a less controlled mode of production again, which doesn't burn out the workforce.
But I wouldn't hold my breath.
I'm wondering if this is might be a problem of "incomplete models". Defined such, the human need for "inefficient gaps" in their work could be factored into the models, and we might get something that resembles a less controlled mode of production again, which doesn't burn out the workforce.
But I wouldn't hold my breath.
Normally one optimises GDP because that's (a) more or less measurable, and (b) more or less correlates with things that individual wants out of society. Part of Bray's point is that going for too much efficiency is like going for pure returns at the expense of risk, another part is that GDP is merely means, not the end, and blindly optimising for GDP continues to do so even when increasing GDP starts negatively correlating with having a worthwhile society.
Efficiency yes, but please to measure in human utility per input, not in currency output per input?
Efficiency yes, but please to measure in human utility per input, not in currency output per input?
A few points:
* People scale poorly. There is a reason Agile favors a "less is more" approach.
* There is more than one dimension. Money is an easy metric, but not the sole one. Diminishing returns kick in when we optimize for frog$kins.
* Wisdom is hard to communicate. If human wisdom were cumulative, we should have long ago reached some paradise where everyone shares their toys nicely. Doesn't happen, and great parents are followed by dull kids. And the wiser parents somehow have less offspring than the fools. This, too, is counterproductive.
* People scale poorly. There is a reason Agile favors a "less is more" approach.
* There is more than one dimension. Money is an easy metric, but not the sole one. Diminishing returns kick in when we optimize for frog$kins.
* Wisdom is hard to communicate. If human wisdom were cumulative, we should have long ago reached some paradise where everyone shares their toys nicely. Doesn't happen, and great parents are followed by dull kids. And the wiser parents somehow have less offspring than the fools. This, too, is counterproductive.
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This is such an obvious and basic truth to most working people that it barely merits saying. It is only we that have to "work it out". That's why many of us that do this work are so valuable to our employers: we aim for efficiency without asking what it is efficient for.
Efficiency without a specific goal doesn't mean anything. It's like Philip K Dick's Autofac. Just a replication machine.
Efficiency without a specific goal doesn't mean anything. It's like Philip K Dick's Autofac. Just a replication machine.
"Item: Speaking of which, it seems that when you have a problem with a business, the process for solving it each year becomes more and more complex and opaque and irritating and (for the business) efficient."
Hey, I was there! Back in the '90s, IBM was getting too many support calls for AIX forwarded to the AIX team, so they introduced another layer of phone tech support to cut down on it.
Hey, I was there! Back in the '90s, IBM was getting too many support calls for AIX forwarded to the AIX team, so they introduced another layer of phone tech support to cut down on it.
> It’s important to realize that Amazon isn’t violating any rules, nor even (on the surface) societal norms.
Not taking orders from robots, or having your agenda defined by robots/automatic scripts, should in fact be a societal norm. One can argue with a human boss, however bad or mean or stupid they are. You can't argue with a robot and that's what makes people's lives miserable.
Not taking orders from robots, or having your agenda defined by robots/automatic scripts, should in fact be a societal norm. One can argue with a human boss, however bad or mean or stupid they are. You can't argue with a robot and that's what makes people's lives miserable.
> They’re winning, but everyone’s losing.
Huh. Interesting. I think it’s the other way around. Efficiency leads to more convenience and better prices. Thus, I have more time and money to spend on things that really matter to me. The most basic “item” is for example a dish washer. How many hours and water was wasted before doing this work by hand?
Huh. Interesting. I think it’s the other way around. Efficiency leads to more convenience and better prices. Thus, I have more time and money to spend on things that really matter to me. The most basic “item” is for example a dish washer. How many hours and water was wasted before doing this work by hand?
Then you belong to "they" in this case :D
People working like robots in warehouses and factories are certainly not winning. They have neither more time, nor more money.
People working like robots in warehouses and factories are certainly not winning. They have neither more time, nor more money.
I still wash our dishes by hand. I quite like doing it, it's almost like a meditation and it doesn't take much longer than using a dishwasher.
I do that too from time to time. I hate drying dishes, but washing has the same effect on me like you describe.
However, I love having the option to just start the dish washer and do other stuff instead.
However, I love having the option to just start the dish washer and do other stuff instead.
This is exactly the point he addresses in his final paragraph. Efficiency is great, but up to a point, and we've passed it.
Most of today's innovations are not freeing up people's time on the scale that the washing machine or dishwasher did. On the contrary, many of them are using up time without any productivity gains. Smartphones and Facebook have not improved any other part of the economy besides their own.
Edit: See this interview which makes the point very well https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/robert-gordon-inter...
Most of today's innovations are not freeing up people's time on the scale that the washing machine or dishwasher did. On the contrary, many of them are using up time without any productivity gains. Smartphones and Facebook have not improved any other part of the economy besides their own.
Edit: See this interview which makes the point very well https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/robert-gordon-inter...
Or worse, the gains from efficiency improvements aren't benefitting the end-users anymore.
Agreed
There's a point where more automation does not mean things become easier.
Let's take the same dishwasher example. Of course it saves a lot of time for a family of four, for example. Pop it in and you're done.
But for example, for a single person, this makes much less sense. Because the time it takes for putting it in the dishwasher, waiting to fill the machine and running the cycle is longer than just washing the damn dishes.
No automation is "free". And overautomation causes problems as well.
There's a point where more automation does not mean things become easier.
Let's take the same dishwasher example. Of course it saves a lot of time for a family of four, for example. Pop it in and you're done.
But for example, for a single person, this makes much less sense. Because the time it takes for putting it in the dishwasher, waiting to fill the machine and running the cycle is longer than just washing the damn dishes.
No automation is "free". And overautomation causes problems as well.
Well, the wall-clock time may be longer, but the human time is much shorter. As long as you have one meal's worth of slack in the amount of crockery you have, the dishwasher wins by a country mile in the amount of effort expended.
Yes, but as I said, and the math changes for different automations, the time (and ease) vary
Automate dishwashing for a 10 party dinner: no brainer
Automate dishwashing for one plate, one fork and one knife. Not advantageous
Automate generating a manual report that takes 30min and needs to run everyday: no brainer also
Automate a report that needs one piece of data that's easy to get and needs to run once a month: does it really matter?
Automate dishwashing for a 10 party dinner: no brainer
Automate dishwashing for one plate, one fork and one knife. Not advantageous
Automate generating a manual report that takes 30min and needs to run everyday: no brainer also
Automate a report that needs one piece of data that's easy to get and needs to run once a month: does it really matter?
Are convenience and efficiency the ultimate goals to optimise for? Were our ancestors less happy because they had to wash dishes by hand?
Yes, because the time and effort spent on the creation of the dishwasher is less than the total time and effort required to hand wash dishes, which means there's now a savings in resources when using the dishwasher, and that savings could be used for more productivity elsewhere (and perhaps producing an even more labour/resource saving device). This eventually avalanches into a state where the absolute minimum resources required are spent for a task, thus allowing more tasks to be done with the finite resources available. This translates to more wealth and quality of life.
Except for dishwasher factory workers. Progress is inevitable, I'm questioning whether progress actually increases happiness.
Let’s ask women if they want to go back to hand washing garment
Professor Julian Birkinshaw judges that we may go from knowledge era where technologies lower transaction costs to zero to post-knowledge era where we use our knowledge to make more people feel better emotions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVP0tb6FzCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVP0tb6FzCs
Distributism would solve these problems, I'm just not sure we could ever get there with the current vested interests getting in the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
Their is great irony in the most hierarchical religious intuition in the history of the world arguing in favour of economical decentralisation after having forcefully resisted protestantism for centuries
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A lot of Christian democratic ideals basically fits into the description "market socialism without the red", usually sprinkled with socially conservative views.
It's notable that in a lot of Europe, the welfare systems we have today, for example, while they happened under pressure or fear of socialism, were pushed through with the help of Christian democrats.
E.g. Bismarcks pension and healthcare bills that effectively formed the first large-scale welfare system were blatant attempts at stemming the growing support for what he saw as dangerous socialist parties becoming a threat to the established order - while stealing some of their social policies he proceeded to ban dozens of groups and newspapers and arrest their leaders. But he passed those bills with the help of the conservative Christian "Zentrum", the forerunner of Merkel's CDU, by appealing to Christian values.
It's notable that in a lot of Europe, the welfare systems we have today, for example, while they happened under pressure or fear of socialism, were pushed through with the help of Christian democrats.
E.g. Bismarcks pension and healthcare bills that effectively formed the first large-scale welfare system were blatant attempts at stemming the growing support for what he saw as dangerous socialist parties becoming a threat to the established order - while stealing some of their social policies he proceeded to ban dozens of groups and newspapers and arrest their leaders. But he passed those bills with the help of the conservative Christian "Zentrum", the forerunner of Merkel's CDU, by appealing to Christian values.
There are even more radical denominations - I know of a few Christian anarchists, it's an interesting worldview.
We should aim to have distributed systems because they are more resilient. Everyone knows the story about Gorbachev and the US supermarket but we conveniently forget it when it comes to forging our own monopoly.
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Whoever is downvoting this - you're being absolutely absurd, this is a basic statement of fact that you can look up on wikipedia.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have been told that "socialism" means "state power over the economy" and refuse to engage with enough socialist/communist theory to see what it actually is. Which gets you strange projects like the above.
For that audience, and over-simplifying greatly: all communists are trying to create a decentralized system that evenly spreads power, and the main split among them is how to actually do that. Anarchists think we should build decentralized power structures until they've replaced our current centralized ones. Marxist-Leninists think we should replace the state with one that promises to implement communism later.
Distributism reads a lot like somebody heard of Marxism-Leninism, thought it was dumb, reinvented anarcho-communism in response, and then described the result as opposed to communism, even though it's largely the same idea as one of the main branches of communist theory.
For that audience, and over-simplifying greatly: all communists are trying to create a decentralized system that evenly spreads power, and the main split among them is how to actually do that. Anarchists think we should build decentralized power structures until they've replaced our current centralized ones. Marxist-Leninists think we should replace the state with one that promises to implement communism later.
Distributism reads a lot like somebody heard of Marxism-Leninism, thought it was dumb, reinvented anarcho-communism in response, and then described the result as opposed to communism, even though it's largely the same idea as one of the main branches of communist theory.
> create a decentralized system that evenly spreads power
That's simply not feasible, because many centralized systems are a lot more effective than decentralized ones. And centralized systems can't be run via a committee or via direct democracy either, so you will always have some people with outsized decision-making power. At least when you reward these actors with wealth (as opposed to raw political influence, as in socialist countries) they can then go and deploy that wealth on pro-social things, like many of wealthiest businesspeople do in the US. Distributism has the right idea, it's just not universally applicable.
That's simply not feasible, because many centralized systems are a lot more effective than decentralized ones. And centralized systems can't be run via a committee or via direct democracy either, so you will always have some people with outsized decision-making power. At least when you reward these actors with wealth (as opposed to raw political influence, as in socialist countries) they can then go and deploy that wealth on pro-social things, like many of wealthiest businesspeople do in the US. Distributism has the right idea, it's just not universally applicable.
There is no socialist philosophy that objects to centralization of power as long as it is kept in check and limited to it's usefulness
Even Anarchism doesn't say that no one should have outsized decision-making power. Just that it shouldn't be the same people every time, that there should be a good reason for it and that it should be kept in check. The old anarchist example was that of the pirate ship :)
Also, decentralized systems are not always less efficient than centralized systems. Sometimes they are much more efficient, it depends on what you are optimizing for exactly.
Indeed, centralized decision-making, while viable sometimes, need not be pluripotent, and it can be limited enough that it doesn't actually create a power imbalance. Many human societies actually operated in such a way.
If you actually wish to read up a bit more on that, I'd suggest in the extreme of reading up on anarchism. If you use debian, you should be able to apt-get install anarchism :)
Even Anarchism doesn't say that no one should have outsized decision-making power. Just that it shouldn't be the same people every time, that there should be a good reason for it and that it should be kept in check. The old anarchist example was that of the pirate ship :)
Also, decentralized systems are not always less efficient than centralized systems. Sometimes they are much more efficient, it depends on what you are optimizing for exactly.
Indeed, centralized decision-making, while viable sometimes, need not be pluripotent, and it can be limited enough that it doesn't actually create a power imbalance. Many human societies actually operated in such a way.
If you actually wish to read up a bit more on that, I'd suggest in the extreme of reading up on anarchism. If you use debian, you should be able to apt-get install anarchism :)
> Just that it shouldn't be the same people every time, that there should be a good reason for it and that it should be kept in check. The old anarchist example was that of the pirate ship
Peter Leeson has written extensively on the way actual pirate ships were run. He sometimes calls himself an anarchist, but he makes it clear in his work that these ships were relying on carefully-tuned institutional designs that were not all that far from what we would now call liberal, representative government.
Peter Leeson has written extensively on the way actual pirate ships were run. He sometimes calls himself an anarchist, but he makes it clear in his work that these ships were relying on carefully-tuned institutional designs that were not all that far from what we would now call liberal, representative government.
I don't see how that conflicts at all with what I said.
Even in the most extreme of situations, such as a pirate ship, there would be less hierarchy than in our society (this is due to analysis of economic hierarchy).
That is exagtly what I said.
Even in the most extreme of situations, such as a pirate ship, there would be less hierarchy than in our society (this is due to analysis of economic hierarchy).
That is exagtly what I said.
That was essentially my conclusion as well. It is quite sad.
> In practice, interest rates stay low, governments can borrow more or less for free, and all sorts of crazily doomed shit is getting investment funding.
Please continue this while I find something to get VC funding
Please continue this while I find something to get VC funding
When you optimize a complex system for single variable you get suboptimal strange and shitty results. This is revelation that every software engineer and gamers know by heart after year of experience.
Just think how much more efficient porn is than the real thing.
Pretty much everyone in management should read “Slack” by Tom DeMarco. And try to make changes to free up that time for their reports. It will pay off.
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Efficiency is very unevenly distributed. If only my local and national administration would be half as efficient as Amazon!
Many things are so much less efficient now, though.
Where formerly we ate what was in season, we now have produce shipped around the globe, sometimes raw foods shipped across the ocean and turned into process foods and then shipped right back again. We eat meat in nearly every meal.
We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick; now we cling to half-life for years or decades.
We used to let our kids out the front door when they were bored, now we drive them all over town for everything in their busy calendar.
When we wanted to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them, quickly making ourselves useful. Now we spend years learning totally unrelated stuff, just to prove that we're human beings with a pulse who can be hired.
Now, flying across the world to have fun is 'necessary,' because parks and natural areas in our own backyards are not enough.
etc...
Where formerly we ate what was in season, we now have produce shipped around the globe, sometimes raw foods shipped across the ocean and turned into process foods and then shipped right back again. We eat meat in nearly every meal.
We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick; now we cling to half-life for years or decades.
We used to let our kids out the front door when they were bored, now we drive them all over town for everything in their busy calendar.
When we wanted to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them, quickly making ourselves useful. Now we spend years learning totally unrelated stuff, just to prove that we're human beings with a pulse who can be hired.
Now, flying across the world to have fun is 'necessary,' because parks and natural areas in our own backyards are not enough.
etc...
The modern world is a version of the paperclip maximizer thought experiment[1], which was devised to warn about the dangers of "AI" but applies much better to us with our ordinary "I".
We make more and more things we don't need, in ever greater quantities, using more and more resources, and destroy the planet in the process. We won't stop until there's nothing left.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence
We make more and more things we don't need, in ever greater quantities, using more and more resources, and destroy the planet in the process. We won't stop until there's nothing left.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence
Yes, the "paperclip maximizer" already applies: corporations. I can't remember the post, but someone wrote that corporations are effectively an AI which maximizes profit. In many ways, we have already invented AI; its objective function is to maximize profits, often to the detriment of, well, everything.
Would that be Charlie Stross's essay (and the subsequent CCC talk): Dude, You Broke The Future?[0]
0: https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future
0: https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future
That's the one! Thank you for finding it.
no - a corporation is not the same as an AI that effectively maximizes profits.
An AI that is more intelligent than a human may be able to come up with plans for profit maximization that no humans can come up with.
A corporation is only going to be able to come up with a plan that a human _could_ come up with.
A corporation is merely a sociopathic human intelligence that is hell bent on profit-maximization.
An AI that is more intelligent than a human may be able to come up with plans for profit maximization that no humans can come up with.
A corporation is only going to be able to come up with a plan that a human _could_ come up with.
A corporation is merely a sociopathic human intelligence that is hell bent on profit-maximization.
Think of what it would take to produce a phone, for example. A single person could not possibly know enough to do so. Our cleverest work their whole lives just to know enough to design some small part. There's just too much to know, too much to orchestrate, coordinate. Even to build one, let alone a million.
Yet, a single corporation is intelligent enough to do this.
I think we already have achieved super-human intelligence.
Yet, a single corporation is intelligent enough to do this.
I think we already have achieved super-human intelligence.
"I, Pencil" by Leonard Read is very relevant to this thought
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Pencil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Pencil
Arguably, the ability to divide labour and ability is precisely human. That said yes, it is super-individual intelligence and it does scale incredibly well.
Perhaps a nitpick, but a corporation might act to combine the profit-maximising virtues of a number of different humans, to give a result that no single one of them is capable of. Combining the innovation of one with the amorality of another, for instance.
Related to this, on the morality dimension, corporations can introduce a diffusion of responsibility [0] and enable a collection of humans to commit to profit-maximising acts that no single one of them would do. Less ominously, teams of cooperating researchers may do something similar on the innovation dimension: their combined efforts act as a 'super researcher' beyond the ability of any single human researcher.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility
Related to this, on the morality dimension, corporations can introduce a diffusion of responsibility [0] and enable a collection of humans to commit to profit-maximising acts that no single one of them would do. Less ominously, teams of cooperating researchers may do something similar on the innovation dimension: their combined efforts act as a 'super researcher' beyond the ability of any single human researcher.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility
There are algorithms for combining many imperfect models into something much closer to reality than the best model - 'wisdom of crowd' effects etc. There are definitely human organisations that come up with smarter plans than could be come up with by the smartest human in those particular organisations.
If you're talking about AI with 'smarter than us the way we're smarter than chickens' as the standard I suppose I'd have to agree, but it seems like there's a big, very vaguely defined stretch between 'very smart human' and 'makes a very smart human look like an imbecile'
If you're talking about AI with 'smarter than us the way we're smarter than chickens' as the standard I suppose I'd have to agree, but it seems like there's a big, very vaguely defined stretch between 'very smart human' and 'makes a very smart human look like an imbecile'
Universal Paperclips is a wonderful game:
http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips
http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips
well said, this is the premise of Das Kapital in modern words.
I understand your sentiment to some degree, but I also see the benefits of modern development:
> [food]
Even when we live in rather harsh conditions we can have a balanced diet (where I live, without modern means of transportation, my diet would be exclusively Barbary figs, fish and mussels. If I wanted meat, someone would have to tend goats and sheep full time and that person would have to roam a huge area to find enough food for them).
> [medicine]
I am not dying of an infection, I take antibiotics.
> [raising kids]
Kids can now easily try out things their parents never did, understood or appreciated. The cost for the parents is negligible while the benefit for the kids can be tremendous. (That's why know how to play the flute, how I got into software development and into theatre).
> [education]
I have at least a basic understand of the problem domain when writing software for chemists or biologists; I understand political processes and have a broad cultural knowledge. Even when I don't know, I know that I don't know.
> [travel]
I really understand that there are different cultures, way beyond hearsay. That allows me (to some degree) to critically reflect on my own culture, to understand what shaped it.
> [food]
Even when we live in rather harsh conditions we can have a balanced diet (where I live, without modern means of transportation, my diet would be exclusively Barbary figs, fish and mussels. If I wanted meat, someone would have to tend goats and sheep full time and that person would have to roam a huge area to find enough food for them).
> [medicine]
I am not dying of an infection, I take antibiotics.
> [raising kids]
Kids can now easily try out things their parents never did, understood or appreciated. The cost for the parents is negligible while the benefit for the kids can be tremendous. (That's why know how to play the flute, how I got into software development and into theatre).
> [education]
I have at least a basic understand of the problem domain when writing software for chemists or biologists; I understand political processes and have a broad cultural knowledge. Even when I don't know, I know that I don't know.
> [travel]
I really understand that there are different cultures, way beyond hearsay. That allows me (to some degree) to critically reflect on my own culture, to understand what shaped it.
Re: antibiotics, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbcwi7SfZE argues that we’ve lost respect for the effectiveness of antibiotics. That ties in with the original argument that we’ve become less efficient, or at least effective, if it’s true.
I want to play the devil's advocate so forgive the extra cynicism;
> Even when we live in rather harsh conditions we can have a balanced diet
We can have a balanced diet, but it is not the cheapest or most convenient; 40% of Americans are obese, and there is so much we can fault willpower for it. Heart disease, diabetes etc. being top killers, we are still actually dying and suffering from mal-nutrition. The system that fills 90% of our supermarkets with crap food is very efficient for itself, but that efficiency is not shared with the entirety of population.
> I am not dying of an infection, I take antibiotics.
Yet we stumbled so hard supplying basics like masks in a rather middling pandemic. High efficiency supply chains came at the cost of high fragility, again a cost paid by the entirety of population.
Besides, death is not the worst of all fates. E.g. 1/8 of Americans are on antidepressants, and this rate is increasing sharply. 10 percent of kids are diagnosed ADHD, 60% of which are pushed amphetamines, again at increasing rates. Is this an increase in efficiency? For whom?
> Kids can now easily try out things their parents never did, understood or appreciated.
Novelty at all costs is the core mission of AI recommended content pushed to kids. Do you think a nation that can't fight with high obesity rate is really doing well with limiting screen time? Do we know the long term effects of this 'stimulation obesity'? Again, this is efficiency for the company that profits from the engagement, and we're just gonna roll with the experiment and see where the costs will show up.
> I understand political processes and have a broad cultural knowledge
Look at the quality of political discourse dominating the US. Does it sound educated, able to reflect critically, able to allow ideas fight instead of people? Many attended to college, paid high tuition sure, but what was gained in the end? The system they attended, the admin class grew and made money very efficiently indeed. Did it reflect to the quality of education?
> I really understand that there are different cultures, way beyond hearsay
Almost the entire rest of the world already understands this because certain dominating "cultures" long been in their land, whether by force or through TV, internet, merchandise, food etc. Kids in far far away places grew up with Batman, McDonalds, Coca Cola, they watched MTV when TV was a thing, now we're letting YouTube decide what they should find relevant etc. The fact that an American is required to travel to understand there are different cultures is an exception and a privilege.
> Even when we live in rather harsh conditions we can have a balanced diet
We can have a balanced diet, but it is not the cheapest or most convenient; 40% of Americans are obese, and there is so much we can fault willpower for it. Heart disease, diabetes etc. being top killers, we are still actually dying and suffering from mal-nutrition. The system that fills 90% of our supermarkets with crap food is very efficient for itself, but that efficiency is not shared with the entirety of population.
> I am not dying of an infection, I take antibiotics.
Yet we stumbled so hard supplying basics like masks in a rather middling pandemic. High efficiency supply chains came at the cost of high fragility, again a cost paid by the entirety of population.
Besides, death is not the worst of all fates. E.g. 1/8 of Americans are on antidepressants, and this rate is increasing sharply. 10 percent of kids are diagnosed ADHD, 60% of which are pushed amphetamines, again at increasing rates. Is this an increase in efficiency? For whom?
> Kids can now easily try out things their parents never did, understood or appreciated.
Novelty at all costs is the core mission of AI recommended content pushed to kids. Do you think a nation that can't fight with high obesity rate is really doing well with limiting screen time? Do we know the long term effects of this 'stimulation obesity'? Again, this is efficiency for the company that profits from the engagement, and we're just gonna roll with the experiment and see where the costs will show up.
> I understand political processes and have a broad cultural knowledge
Look at the quality of political discourse dominating the US. Does it sound educated, able to reflect critically, able to allow ideas fight instead of people? Many attended to college, paid high tuition sure, but what was gained in the end? The system they attended, the admin class grew and made money very efficiently indeed. Did it reflect to the quality of education?
> I really understand that there are different cultures, way beyond hearsay
Almost the entire rest of the world already understands this because certain dominating "cultures" long been in their land, whether by force or through TV, internet, merchandise, food etc. Kids in far far away places grew up with Batman, McDonalds, Coca Cola, they watched MTV when TV was a thing, now we're letting YouTube decide what they should find relevant etc. The fact that an American is required to travel to understand there are different cultures is an exception and a privilege.
> I have at least a basic understand of the problem domain when writing software for chemists or biologists
While that may be efficient in certain scenarios, what are the odds of winning that lottery?
As market efficiency shows up in income, and incomes have held stagnant even as the population gains more and more education, we know that most people aren't winning. They are only losing.
While that may be efficient in certain scenarios, what are the odds of winning that lottery?
As market efficiency shows up in income, and incomes have held stagnant even as the population gains more and more education, we know that most people aren't winning. They are only losing.
> We used to let our kids out the front door when they were bored, now we drive them all over town for everything in their busy calendar.
Now, now. We can't really do the former any more in most of America; there's nowhere for kids to go. Overstrict zoning, and massive property developments plopped down in outlying low-land-value areas, has killed suburbia and replaced it with exurbia. Most detached single-family homes in America are now in "housing islands" in the middle of huge stretches of nothing, only accessible to urban centers by highways. (And without viable public transit accessible to said kids, because adults are too car-obsessed to fund it.)
And that's not really more or less efficient; it's just silly and self-defeating. People buy these houses precisely for the dream of suburbia; but they find it isn't there to be found. It's not a vicious cycle; it's simply a trick, a con, on the part of the property developers, misleading people into thinking they can have their whole family integrated with the life of a city despite living many miles away from it with no easy access.
A child could have a "busy calendar" in the 1950s—friends, hobbies, clubs, sports, etc.—and get along just fine, because they actually could walk to everything in town, because they functionally lived "in" the town they lived in. (Or they didn't live "in" a town at all, but rather "on a farm" — but that used to be its whole own lifestyle with its own coping mechanisms. Now suburban children may as well live on a farm as well—but without even the livestock to bother.)
Now, now. We can't really do the former any more in most of America; there's nowhere for kids to go. Overstrict zoning, and massive property developments plopped down in outlying low-land-value areas, has killed suburbia and replaced it with exurbia. Most detached single-family homes in America are now in "housing islands" in the middle of huge stretches of nothing, only accessible to urban centers by highways. (And without viable public transit accessible to said kids, because adults are too car-obsessed to fund it.)
And that's not really more or less efficient; it's just silly and self-defeating. People buy these houses precisely for the dream of suburbia; but they find it isn't there to be found. It's not a vicious cycle; it's simply a trick, a con, on the part of the property developers, misleading people into thinking they can have their whole family integrated with the life of a city despite living many miles away from it with no easy access.
A child could have a "busy calendar" in the 1950s—friends, hobbies, clubs, sports, etc.—and get along just fine, because they actually could walk to everything in town, because they functionally lived "in" the town they lived in. (Or they didn't live "in" a town at all, but rather "on a farm" — but that used to be its whole own lifestyle with its own coping mechanisms. Now suburban children may as well live on a farm as well—but without even the livestock to bother.)
> Where formerly we ate what was in season, we now have produce shipped around the globe, sometimes raw foods shipped across the ocean and turned into process foods and then shipped right back again. We eat meat in nearly every meal.
If you live in a coastal city, it may actually be more efficient (on a J-per-kg basis) to have something shipped from far away on a boat than over land in a truck. I'm sure there's cross-over point between the two that can ostensibly be calculated.
If you live in a coastal city, it may actually be more efficient (on a J-per-kg basis) to have something shipped from far away on a boat than over land in a truck. I'm sure there's cross-over point between the two that can ostensibly be calculated.
From reading the article, it appears the author is talking about efficiency and convenience.
>Where formerly we ate what was in season, we now have produce shipped around the globe, sometimes raw foods shipped across the ocean and turned into process foods and then shipped right back again. We eat meat in nearly every meal.
The author touches upon this when he chooses to wait at the butcher for fresh bacon vs walking into a grocery store and leaving a minute later with plastic wrapped water logged bacon. The convenience (i.e "efficiency") is the multitude of options available at the grocery store, at the cost of human interaction and quality.
>We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick; now we cling to half-life for years or decades.
I think this falls outside of the articles context
>We used to let our kids out the front door when they were bored, now we drive them all over town for everything in their busy calendar.
This culture was created from "stranger danger" and helicopter parenting.
>When we wanted to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them, quickly making ourselves useful. Now we spend years learning totally unrelated stuff, just to prove that we're human beings with a pulse who can be hired.
As mentioned, author talks about the loss of humanity.
>Now, flying across the world to have fun is 'necessary,' because parks and natural areas in our own backyards are not enough.
It is convenient to do so, and like the grocery store, there are more options
>Where formerly we ate what was in season, we now have produce shipped around the globe, sometimes raw foods shipped across the ocean and turned into process foods and then shipped right back again. We eat meat in nearly every meal.
The author touches upon this when he chooses to wait at the butcher for fresh bacon vs walking into a grocery store and leaving a minute later with plastic wrapped water logged bacon. The convenience (i.e "efficiency") is the multitude of options available at the grocery store, at the cost of human interaction and quality.
>We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick; now we cling to half-life for years or decades.
I think this falls outside of the articles context
>We used to let our kids out the front door when they were bored, now we drive them all over town for everything in their busy calendar.
This culture was created from "stranger danger" and helicopter parenting.
>When we wanted to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them, quickly making ourselves useful. Now we spend years learning totally unrelated stuff, just to prove that we're human beings with a pulse who can be hired.
As mentioned, author talks about the loss of humanity.
>Now, flying across the world to have fun is 'necessary,' because parks and natural areas in our own backyards are not enough.
It is convenient to do so, and like the grocery store, there are more options
Your basic premise actually is fact, not opinion, despite the weak evidence you present.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox
Planet Money had a great episode on this with Nordhaus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox
Planet Money had a great episode on this with Nordhaus.
Anti-modernity is a tiresome perspective. It's always the same: the past was some kind of lost idealistic state and the contemporary world is a fallen and corrupt one inimical to the human spirit. Every generation has had people who thought this way, going back at least as far as the Sumerians. so what? Writing something doesn't make it true. In reality, technology has been a huge boon to humanity, and the more of it we have, the better.
> Where formerly we ate what was in season, we now have produce shipped around the globe, sometimes raw foods shipped across the ocean and turned into process foods and then shipped right back again
Yes. Now instead of eating salt pork and tubers all winter, we can enjoy a healthy and balanced diet year-round. How inefficient.
> We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick; now we cling to half-life for years or decades.
People like Stephen Hawking can lead a full life. How inefficient.
> We used to let our kids out the front door when they were bored, now we drive them all over town for everything in their busy calendar.
Travel across town can happen in minutes, not hours. Our kids can visit their friends and have rich social connections instead of helping with the corn harvest. How inefficient.
> When we wanted to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them, quickly making ourselves useful. Now we spend years learning totally unrelated stuff, just to prove that we're human beings with a pulse who can be hired.
Previously, you were born into a trade and just joined your father's guild. Now someone of any background can prove himself via an impartial process and work on problems he feels passionate about. How inefficient.
> Now, flying across the world to have fun is 'necessary,' because parks and natural areas in our own backyards are not enough
Now people can experience all humanity has to offer instead of limiting their perspectives to whatever backwater their parents happened to call home. How inefficient.
> Where formerly we ate what was in season, we now have produce shipped around the globe, sometimes raw foods shipped across the ocean and turned into process foods and then shipped right back again
Yes. Now instead of eating salt pork and tubers all winter, we can enjoy a healthy and balanced diet year-round. How inefficient.
> We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick; now we cling to half-life for years or decades.
People like Stephen Hawking can lead a full life. How inefficient.
> We used to let our kids out the front door when they were bored, now we drive them all over town for everything in their busy calendar.
Travel across town can happen in minutes, not hours. Our kids can visit their friends and have rich social connections instead of helping with the corn harvest. How inefficient.
> When we wanted to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them, quickly making ourselves useful. Now we spend years learning totally unrelated stuff, just to prove that we're human beings with a pulse who can be hired.
Previously, you were born into a trade and just joined your father's guild. Now someone of any background can prove himself via an impartial process and work on problems he feels passionate about. How inefficient.
> Now, flying across the world to have fun is 'necessary,' because parks and natural areas in our own backyards are not enough
Now people can experience all humanity has to offer instead of limiting their perspectives to whatever backwater their parents happened to call home. How inefficient.
It is easy to call your perspective subjective, and people often will. You have listed many variables here, and considered together they paint a certain picture of the world. And yet, someone else could come up with many more other variables which would paint a completely different picture and outcome. Our life and the world in general are indeed very complex.
However, when I hear proponents of the anti-modernity, it is hard to take them seriously because I immediately start to wonder why is it that that they don't walk the walk and demonstrate the correctness of their estimation of the inadequacy of the modern world by moving their lives to a small village, a forest, a wild the tribe or any other place still existing today that lives by the old standards.
There is no shortage of these places, that by modern standards should be considered prehistoric. There are many perfectly functional tribes existing today, that are still operating in largely the same way as they did thousands of years ago. They live in tight connection with nature, they don't use technology, they are not subjected to apparently very dangerous and devious hazards of our modern world like small smartphone screens, long commutes in personal vehicles and overwhelming amounts of freedoms that we suffer in the city life. These tribes would be perfectly willing to accept in new members because in their present condition they always require more workforce. If the tribe life is not what one is looking for, it would surely be just as easy to move out into a forest or another natural place. 100% of the problems discussed in this topic would be completely resolved by changing the life situation in this way.
And yet you don't see people moving out of the modern society into prehistoric tribes by the hundreds of thousands. They complain about how bad the life is in the modern world, and yet don't take any of the obvious steps available to them for quickly resolving all of the issues.
This observation makes me seriously question how much of what these people say and what they are complaining about can we really trust even as accurate representations of what they believe. Life is much easier and makes much more sense when we start judging what people believe by what they do and not by what they say.
However, when I hear proponents of the anti-modernity, it is hard to take them seriously because I immediately start to wonder why is it that that they don't walk the walk and demonstrate the correctness of their estimation of the inadequacy of the modern world by moving their lives to a small village, a forest, a wild the tribe or any other place still existing today that lives by the old standards.
There is no shortage of these places, that by modern standards should be considered prehistoric. There are many perfectly functional tribes existing today, that are still operating in largely the same way as they did thousands of years ago. They live in tight connection with nature, they don't use technology, they are not subjected to apparently very dangerous and devious hazards of our modern world like small smartphone screens, long commutes in personal vehicles and overwhelming amounts of freedoms that we suffer in the city life. These tribes would be perfectly willing to accept in new members because in their present condition they always require more workforce. If the tribe life is not what one is looking for, it would surely be just as easy to move out into a forest or another natural place. 100% of the problems discussed in this topic would be completely resolved by changing the life situation in this way.
And yet you don't see people moving out of the modern society into prehistoric tribes by the hundreds of thousands. They complain about how bad the life is in the modern world, and yet don't take any of the obvious steps available to them for quickly resolving all of the issues.
This observation makes me seriously question how much of what these people say and what they are complaining about can we really trust even as accurate representations of what they believe. Life is much easier and makes much more sense when we start judging what people believe by what they do and not by what they say.
You could say city folks have a revealed preference to live in the city, to be kind of sickly, and to have few kids. Or you could say city life is like an addictive drug, and when people say "I wish I could get out", they're being sincere. I wonder which perspective is more true.
We can start talking about "revealed preferences" once it's very cheap to move out of the city and to the country, and when it's equivalently cheap to move into a city. As long as big cities are absurdly expensive to live in and have all the good jobs, I'd say it's mostly path dependence at play.
(Also, as someone who moved to a small town, married and has a kid, I desperately want to get back to a large city - small towns are depressing and soul-suckingly boring.)
(Also, as someone who moved to a small town, married and has a kid, I desperately want to get back to a large city - small towns are depressing and soul-suckingly boring.)
OTOH...
As someone who grew up in a medium-small city, moved to a large city, watched it get larger, and then moved to a small town (and who has no kids), I desperately want to stay the hell away from large cities. The sheer unrelenting friction of everything would kill me. And it's cheaper here.
As someone who grew up in a medium-small city, moved to a large city, watched it get larger, and then moved to a small town (and who has no kids), I desperately want to stay the hell away from large cities. The sheer unrelenting friction of everything would kill me. And it's cheaper here.
I haven't taken the hypothesis as "anti-modernity" but simply, "we can do yet better". These points declare benefits but felt like strawmen to me. It is better than it was in many ways and there are many ways we will continue improving. Often identifying those opportunities is part of achieving them.
> Eating
Yes, that's why we do it but many eat repetitively and miss out on a lot of flavors and discovery they would likely enjoy, especially if poor. I wish high product quality would also be sustainably industrialized.
> Death
I hope to live well then die quickly and inexpensively. Being brain-dead on life support brings me no value and would cost my family a lot. It was legally mandated where I live in Washington state for a long time.
> Kids
Raising the bar on safety by creating laws that punish parents for letting their kids walk to the park or school or roam in the "hood" on their own is real. They used to "visit their friends and have rich social interactions) running freely around their neighborhood. That written, this seemed a point of evidence stretched in the article.
> Learning
I have to agree that this was a weak point. It forgoes the benefits of cross-disciplinary research and the advances due there. But the description references college degrees as a stamp of approval rather than as a source of knowledge (and perhaps wisdom) which, in some cases, applies and is a shame.
> Travel
Yes, a limited set can experience more. The hedonic treadmill is real and it does seem we've lost appreciation for what we have as well as our stewardship of those resources and ability to create more of them. We chase the "best" and often miss out on much.
In conclusion, yes the article was imperfect and most of us can agree that modernity brought many advantages but we seem a bit stuck in some ways and there have been unforseen and undesirable outcomes. Identifying where allows us to continue making it better and doing so more broadly.
> Eating
Yes, that's why we do it but many eat repetitively and miss out on a lot of flavors and discovery they would likely enjoy, especially if poor. I wish high product quality would also be sustainably industrialized.
> Death
I hope to live well then die quickly and inexpensively. Being brain-dead on life support brings me no value and would cost my family a lot. It was legally mandated where I live in Washington state for a long time.
> Kids
Raising the bar on safety by creating laws that punish parents for letting their kids walk to the park or school or roam in the "hood" on their own is real. They used to "visit their friends and have rich social interactions) running freely around their neighborhood. That written, this seemed a point of evidence stretched in the article.
> Learning
I have to agree that this was a weak point. It forgoes the benefits of cross-disciplinary research and the advances due there. But the description references college degrees as a stamp of approval rather than as a source of knowledge (and perhaps wisdom) which, in some cases, applies and is a shame.
> Travel
Yes, a limited set can experience more. The hedonic treadmill is real and it does seem we've lost appreciation for what we have as well as our stewardship of those resources and ability to create more of them. We chase the "best" and often miss out on much.
In conclusion, yes the article was imperfect and most of us can agree that modernity brought many advantages but we seem a bit stuck in some ways and there have been unforseen and undesirable outcomes. Identifying where allows us to continue making it better and doing so more broadly.
You're not wrong, but at the same time, our western lives have lead to the exploitation of both the people and the resources of less economically developed nations.
It seems our geographic removal from that exploitation leads to an emotional removal from it in a lot of people too
It seems our geographic removal from that exploitation leads to an emotional removal from it in a lot of people too
The less economically developed nations that are now being raised from poverty at an unprecedented rate? I don't support extractive colonialism or anything like that, but it's weird how free and open trade is so often described as one nation "exploiting" another.
Developing nations are actually very happy to have work instead of abject poverty which was their state before.
Im sure nations are very happy with increasing GDP, and im sure families are happy to receive 5c/h manufacturing clothes for a multibillion dollar multinational corperation.
Just because their lives are better doesnt mean we are doing good. Not to mention that india and most of africa wouldnt be living in abject poverty were it not for western colonialism.
Let's go to your country, destroy your society and culture, then build a factory and pay you pennies. Then you can thank me for pulling you out of poverty. It's a tough sell
Just because their lives are better doesnt mean we are doing good. Not to mention that india and most of africa wouldnt be living in abject poverty were it not for western colonialism.
Let's go to your country, destroy your society and culture, then build a factory and pay you pennies. Then you can thank me for pulling you out of poverty. It's a tough sell
> Our kids can visit their friends and have rich social connections instead of helping with the corn harvest.
The reason our kids don't help with the corn harvest and have "rich social connections" (?) is that we hire immigrants do it, paying them as little as possible and denying them basic rights.
The reason our kids don't help with the corn harvest and have "rich social connections" (?) is that we hire immigrants do it, paying them as little as possible and denying them basic rights.
Is it the immigrants harvesting corn you are thinking about:
https://www.crushpixel.com/stock-photo/harvesting-machine-fi...
Maybe corn is the wrong example. But most harvesting in still done manually, by immigrants.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-undocument...
> "Farmworkers, Mostly Undocumented, Become ‘Essential’ During Pandemic"
> "Immigrant field workers have been told to keep working despite stay-at-home directives, and given letters attesting to their “critical” role in feeding the country."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-undocument...
> "Farmworkers, Mostly Undocumented, Become ‘Essential’ During Pandemic"
> "Immigrant field workers have been told to keep working despite stay-at-home directives, and given letters attesting to their “critical” role in feeding the country."
That’s still a lot to unpack.
Seasonal workers coming in for harvest have a tough job, but it has nothing to do with kids occupation.
For a comparison point, french wineyards use a flock of workers coming from everywhere around europe (including french students and unemployed) to harvest grapes for a few weeks and go back to whatever they were doing.
It doesn’t need to be some tangled mess of undocumented immigrants with no rights, no contracts etc., that part is more to me a reflection of US politics than anything.
Seasonal workers coming in for harvest have a tough job, but it has nothing to do with kids occupation.
For a comparison point, french wineyards use a flock of workers coming from everywhere around europe (including french students and unemployed) to harvest grapes for a few weeks and go back to whatever they were doing.
It doesn’t need to be some tangled mess of undocumented immigrants with no rights, no contracts etc., that part is more to me a reflection of US politics than anything.
US politics, and probably the history of farming in the country. Megascale farms with labour being a commodity have been the standard since before the country was founded.
Average farm size, in America, is around 450 acres. Not even a square mile. Maybe 'megafarm' is an exaggeration.
Average farms in low and middle income countries are under 5 acres, in other rich countries they're around 75 [1].
Plantations are like nation-states - inefficient, but powerful enough to bankrupt smaller competitors in the same market.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1...
Plantations are like nation-states - inefficient, but powerful enough to bankrupt smaller competitors in the same market.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1...
Have you ever heard of the industrialization of agriculture? We dont use humans to pick up everything anymore. If that were the case your food would cost 100 times more.
You could take a bigger perspective and in this bigger perspective we outsource a lot of dangerous and dirty work to countries where human rights hardly exists, or can be bought.
Ever heard about sweat-shops and children in mines? This goes for parts of the food industry as well - bananas springs to mind as an example.
We do use human labour, just not as much in the west, and most of us live in convenient ignorance.
Ever heard about sweat-shops and children in mines? This goes for parts of the food industry as well - bananas springs to mind as an example.
We do use human labour, just not as much in the west, and most of us live in convenient ignorance.
And just 70 years ago we had similar circumstances in the western world. There is no reason to believe that sweat shops and child labour won't go away in developing countries as well.
That's the thing about progress, you can be better off than yesterday, and still have a shit load of problems to solve.
That's the thing about progress, you can be better off than yesterday, and still have a shit load of problems to solve.
I hear you.
Still, from what I gather we’ve peaked the heck out of this industrialization and not enough of the gains have reached enough people. As people we know better, but as industrialized conglomerates all that is out the window.
Seeing how the world is ruled at present I’m weary of the outlook.
Still, from what I gather we’ve peaked the heck out of this industrialization and not enough of the gains have reached enough people. As people we know better, but as industrialized conglomerates all that is out the window.
Seeing how the world is ruled at present I’m weary of the outlook.
You're purposefully misinterpreting the parent's point to discredit them in a way that fits your agenda.
Every single one of your examples represents the ideal outcome of the use of modern technology, as if most people's diet during Winter is more nutritious than dried or pickled meat and produce, or as if the only alternative to driving your kids to a friend in an SUV is to let it do hard manual labor on a field.
Every single one of your examples represents the ideal outcome of the use of modern technology, as if most people's diet during Winter is more nutritious than dried or pickled meat and produce, or as if the only alternative to driving your kids to a friend in an SUV is to let it do hard manual labor on a field.
> we now have produce shipped around the globe
That is in fact extremely efficient, as it allows to grow food in an industrial way: at scale, with optimal process and conditions.
> We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick
And also to remain sick forever when we were curably sick, for lack of cures. Amputated limbs for simple infections, lifelong toothaches, broken backs, skin, ear and eye infections, fleas, etc.
> to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them
Yes, sent as an apprentice at an artisan's shop, probably before age ten. Or working in the fields (all that nice ploughing, by hand) or just learning your father's trade.
That is in fact extremely efficient, as it allows to grow food in an industrial way: at scale, with optimal process and conditions.
> We used to die quickly at home when we were incurably sick
And also to remain sick forever when we were curably sick, for lack of cures. Amputated limbs for simple infections, lifelong toothaches, broken backs, skin, ear and eye infections, fleas, etc.
> to learn how to do a job, we'd talk to someone doing it and start working directly under them
Yes, sent as an apprentice at an artisan's shop, probably before age ten. Or working in the fields (all that nice ploughing, by hand) or just learning your father's trade.
These all seem like valuable, positive aspects of progress and increased efficiency to me.
Waiting a year to eat another in-season fruit or vegetable is a bad thing that we ought to use technology to solve. It’s not wholesome or contentment or whatever, it’s a bad, unproductive limitation.
Apprenticeships often lead to servitude and heavily suppressed wages, more similar to indentured servants. It is not a glamorous or romanticized vision of steadily mastering a craft.
All of your examples follow this pattern. It reads like Luddite anti-progress fantasy and glorification of past limitations like a sort of noble savage lie.
Waiting a year to eat another in-season fruit or vegetable is a bad thing that we ought to use technology to solve. It’s not wholesome or contentment or whatever, it’s a bad, unproductive limitation.
Apprenticeships often lead to servitude and heavily suppressed wages, more similar to indentured servants. It is not a glamorous or romanticized vision of steadily mastering a craft.
All of your examples follow this pattern. It reads like Luddite anti-progress fantasy and glorification of past limitations like a sort of noble savage lie.
I dont know, I kinda prefer living a half-life.
In a sense everyone is damaged in one way or another.
In the meanwhile there is always a chance of getting a new cure.
Except when you are no longer available..
In a sense everyone is damaged in one way or another.
In the meanwhile there is always a chance of getting a new cure.
Except when you are no longer available..
I have a very personal/weird opinion on this issue. I'm type 1 diabetic, so I must have insulin or else I have a couple painful weeks to live, at best.
On the one hand, yes, modernity keeps me alive, at far greater than "half-life," thanks to control theory and hi-tech sensor technology. But on the other hand modernity was the very thing which caused my t1d in the first place -- environment is thought to cause t1d, with rates much higher in developed countries.
This issue is one of those 'what does it all mean' type of issues, for me personally.
On the one hand, yes, modernity keeps me alive, at far greater than "half-life," thanks to control theory and hi-tech sensor technology. But on the other hand modernity was the very thing which caused my t1d in the first place -- environment is thought to cause t1d, with rates much higher in developed countries.
This issue is one of those 'what does it all mean' type of issues, for me personally.
Effeciency makes luxuries possible. Luxuries are stacked effeciencies.
pojntfx(6)
This guy sure has a bone to pick with Amazon. Did so much change in the 5 years he worked for them?
Does he? It doesn't seem like he's arguing they're really doing anything "wrong", other than being caught up in a larger societal process and doing what society is saying is good and rewarding:
> It’s important to realize that Amazon isn’t violating any rules, nor even (on the surface) societal norms. Waste is bad, efficiency is good, right? They’re doing what’s taught in every business school; maximizing efficiency is one of the greatest gifts of the free market. Amazon is really extremely good at it.
This idea that capitalist efficiency is not something to blame the capitalist for, but is an effect of the mode of production of society overall is really very much a Marxist idea, and yet like your assumption that Bray is berating Amazon, people tend to similarly believe Marx hated capitalists.
But like Marx praised capitalism into the skies for its efficiency yet criticised its bad sides, Bray is also pointing out that this efficiency has good sides. It's just that it also has bad sides, and we should worry that we blindly keep accepting the bad sides even as the toll it takes rises:
> It’s hard to think of a position more radical than being “against efficiency”. And I’m not. Efficiency is a good, and like most good things, has to be bought somehow, and paid for. There is a point where the price is too high, and we’ve passed it.
> It’s important to realize that Amazon isn’t violating any rules, nor even (on the surface) societal norms. Waste is bad, efficiency is good, right? They’re doing what’s taught in every business school; maximizing efficiency is one of the greatest gifts of the free market. Amazon is really extremely good at it.
This idea that capitalist efficiency is not something to blame the capitalist for, but is an effect of the mode of production of society overall is really very much a Marxist idea, and yet like your assumption that Bray is berating Amazon, people tend to similarly believe Marx hated capitalists.
But like Marx praised capitalism into the skies for its efficiency yet criticised its bad sides, Bray is also pointing out that this efficiency has good sides. It's just that it also has bad sides, and we should worry that we blindly keep accepting the bad sides even as the toll it takes rises:
> It’s hard to think of a position more radical than being “against efficiency”. And I’m not. Efficiency is a good, and like most good things, has to be bought somehow, and paid for. There is a point where the price is too high, and we’ve passed it.
Words like efficiency and freedom are loaded terms that have an implicit context. It's always important to ask what the context actually is. Efficient to what end, or freedom to do what. All too often we discover that we are not the beneficiaries of the efficiencies and freedoms being discussed.
Some great commentary here :)
I for one am enjoying being not so efficient this morning.
I for one am enjoying being not so efficient this morning.
There is also another side to efficient systems: as you remove the slack, they become fragile. The inefficiencies are what allows systems to adapt to changing environments.
You could also think of this as the bias-variance tradeoff, lack of generalization, or overly specific adaptation.
This can be seen in the supply chains and economies right now with the COVID-19 impact. Economies with ultra-efficient supply chains (like the US or Western Europe) are being hit the worst, while those with slack and inefficiencies (like Central/Eastern Europe post-communist countries) can absorb the impact much better.
You could also think of this as the bias-variance tradeoff, lack of generalization, or overly specific adaptation.
This can be seen in the supply chains and economies right now with the COVID-19 impact. Economies with ultra-efficient supply chains (like the US or Western Europe) are being hit the worst, while those with slack and inefficiencies (like Central/Eastern Europe post-communist countries) can absorb the impact much better.
> Twenty years ago, France introduced a 35-hour workweek. Their economy still functions.
It seems to be quite anemic.
It seems to be quite anemic.
It's the seventh largest economy in the world with a per-capita GDP of $42k.
Notably, looking up graphs of GDP per capita of France and the UK and putting them next to each other, I'd challenge anyone to see when the change happened.
One thing that comparing GDP per capita growth tends to show is that global and regional overall development totally swamps even seemingly large changes like the 35 hour week.
What the change also tends to gloss over is that the number of hours worked per worker in France is not particularly low. According to OECD, for 2019 it stood at 1505 vs. 1538 for the UK or 1386 for Germany. The reduction in France, to the extent it changed anything, may have distributed work a bit more but it did not suddenly drastically reduce the hours worked.
The average number of hours worked per worker dropped somewhat over the few years after the reform, but it dropped across all the major OECD countries, and by similar rates.
One thing that comparing GDP per capita growth tends to show is that global and regional overall development totally swamps even seemingly large changes like the 35 hour week.
What the change also tends to gloss over is that the number of hours worked per worker in France is not particularly low. According to OECD, for 2019 it stood at 1505 vs. 1538 for the UK or 1386 for Germany. The reduction in France, to the extent it changed anything, may have distributed work a bit more but it did not suddenly drastically reduce the hours worked.
The average number of hours worked per worker dropped somewhat over the few years after the reform, but it dropped across all the major OECD countries, and by similar rates.
For past 30 years us gdp per capita ppp has been consistently ~35% greater, which is to say that the roughly grow at the same rate
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=France+and+us+gdp+per+...
Here is a ratio to illustrate my point better (the ratio is roughly flat)
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=France+divided+by+us+g...
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=France+and+us+gdp+per+...
Here is a ratio to illustrate my point better (the ratio is roughly flat)
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=France+divided+by+us+g...
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I thought the 8 hour work week was introduced by Ford, because he figured out it would maximize productivity. Not by Unions. Pretty sure Tim Bray has turned full socialism, to be honest.
If an "efficiency rate" leads to too many injuries, it is not the best "efficiency rate". I don't think you need Unions to figure that out, it is in the capitalist interest to then reduce the efficiency rate.
I find the whole idea of discussing "how much should we work" very telling. It comes from a position of high privilege and ignorance - the idea that we live in abundance, and stuff only needs to be distributed somehow.
If you are naked in the jungle, the question is not "how many hours should I work", the question is "what do I have to do to survive". If it takes 80 hours to build shelter, make a fire and hunt some food, then you'll work 80 hours.
If you manage to build stuff that reduces your work load, good for you. Like in the jungle, build a net that automatically catches fish, so you don't have to spent so many hours hunting. Not you have spare time. Good for you. But don't ask some imaginary entity (god? capitalism? the government?) to provide you with your spare tie and assign your jobs.
I'd like to add that to me the story of the 8 hour work week is also a warning before corporate employment. Because if 8 hours maximize your productivity, it means you are wasted after 8 hours. All you can still hope to do is eat and watch some TV. But that's not a reason to me to blame corporations . If you don't like it, negotiate with the corporations to work only part time, or seek to improve your skills so that you can ask for more money and afford more spare time. Nobody owes anybody a job.
If an "efficiency rate" leads to too many injuries, it is not the best "efficiency rate". I don't think you need Unions to figure that out, it is in the capitalist interest to then reduce the efficiency rate.
I find the whole idea of discussing "how much should we work" very telling. It comes from a position of high privilege and ignorance - the idea that we live in abundance, and stuff only needs to be distributed somehow.
If you are naked in the jungle, the question is not "how many hours should I work", the question is "what do I have to do to survive". If it takes 80 hours to build shelter, make a fire and hunt some food, then you'll work 80 hours.
If you manage to build stuff that reduces your work load, good for you. Like in the jungle, build a net that automatically catches fish, so you don't have to spent so many hours hunting. Not you have spare time. Good for you. But don't ask some imaginary entity (god? capitalism? the government?) to provide you with your spare tie and assign your jobs.
I'd like to add that to me the story of the 8 hour work week is also a warning before corporate employment. Because if 8 hours maximize your productivity, it means you are wasted after 8 hours. All you can still hope to do is eat and watch some TV. But that's not a reason to me to blame corporations . If you don't like it, negotiate with the corporations to work only part time, or seek to improve your skills so that you can ask for more money and afford more spare time. Nobody owes anybody a job.
> I thought the 8 hour work week was introduced by Ford, because he figured out it would maximize productivity. Not by Unions.
The Haymarket Massacre happened 30 years prior to Ford introducing the 8 hour workday in his plants. Furthermore, there had been labor agitation resulting in 8-hour days in other parts of the country decades before Ford did so.
The Haymarket Massacre happened 30 years prior to Ford introducing the 8 hour workday in his plants. Furthermore, there had been labor agitation resulting in 8-hour days in other parts of the country decades before Ford did so.
Thanks for the information.
Nevertheless the claim that only Unions can reduce work hours is simply false. People can negotiate their contracts. Many people work less than 40 hour work weeks.
Nevertheless the claim that only Unions can reduce work hours is simply false. People can negotiate their contracts. Many people work less than 40 hour work weeks.
> People can negotiate their contracts.
I’d wager that’s true for perhaps 10-20% of the workforce at best.
I’d wager that’s true for perhaps 10-20% of the workforce at best.
You're very optimistic :)
And why would you say that is the case? Bad personal finance skills (high mortgage, student debt...)?
How many people even try to negotiate their work hours? I'd believe you if you claimed less than 10% even think about it, the others just accept their lot as the norm.
How many people even try to negotiate their work hours? I'd believe you if you claimed less than 10% even think about it, the others just accept their lot as the norm.
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"The theoretical basis of alienation within the capitalist mode of production is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labour. Although the worker is an autonomous, self-realized human being, as an economic entity this worker is directed to goals and diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie—who own the means of production—in order to extract from the worker the maximum amount of surplus value in the course of business competition among industrialists." -- that's Wikipedia on Marx' theory of alienation.
Sounds weirdly similar and weirdly appropriate.
Sounds weirdly similar and weirdly appropriate.
"But, wealth! If we all work less, we’ll be poorer, right? Because the total cash output of the economy is a (weird, nonlinear) function of the amount of work that gets put in."
In the previous sentence or so, there was talk about margins of healthcare, which have disappeared. These margins don't exist without more work.
Maybe it is rather that we are working with more things with less effort, rather than doing few things well.
Also cash and work have some correlation, but I think there is higher more profound correlation with work and total amount of products such as roads and buildings. Cash rarely stays in bank accounts but circulates and randomly spawns service and concrete products.
Everyone should work, all the time, to leave this a better place than we found it. And there is still much work to do.
In the previous sentence or so, there was talk about margins of healthcare, which have disappeared. These margins don't exist without more work.
Maybe it is rather that we are working with more things with less effort, rather than doing few things well.
Also cash and work have some correlation, but I think there is higher more profound correlation with work and total amount of products such as roads and buildings. Cash rarely stays in bank accounts but circulates and randomly spawns service and concrete products.
Everyone should work, all the time, to leave this a better place than we found it. And there is still much work to do.
[deleted]
Wouldn’t a more parsimonious explanation be that the job previously consisted of a safe part and a dangerous part, and it was easier to automate the safe part, so now more of a human's time on the job is spent doing the dangerous part?
If you imagine the "safe part" of the job as "slack" (i.e. imagine that the employees were previously half working, and half doing nothing—not that they actually were, but it makes the model clearer), then they've effectively just gotten rid of all the slack, and so made the employees do twice as much work per work day. If there's a constant small probability of injury per item packed, then of course doing twice as much work per work day, will lead to twice as many injuries per employee per work day. You'd have gotten the same number of employee-injuries out per items-packed in, no matter what time scale that packing occurred on.