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The dictatorship of the articulate

florentcrivello.com

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Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#81

Post by wzwy »

tsol wrote: post #16
jonahbenton wrote: post #7

"Dictatorship of the Articulate" is a quality phrase. The actual piece is a waste of time. Andreesson capitalism build worship supplemented by for instance American Enterprise Institute propaganda that does not reflect reality. Would downvote if I could.

It really is a great phrase. I think there's some truth to it. As someone who can be very articulate at times, the influence it lends me isn't always commensurate with my actual skill in that area. Put another way; I've found if you use enough big words and say enough clever things, people will treat you as if you're smart even on unrelated matters.

Great description.

I’m constantly impressed by how much people nod when I spout some nonsense. It’s dangerous, especially if you’re prone to believe every praise you receive.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#83

Post by philsnow »

systemvoltage wrote: post #72
michaelwww wrote: post #62

I think we can all agree that we would like less regulation on us when we are trying to do something, but I wonder how much less regulation we would accept on others who are trying to do something we don't like? I don't think many want to live in a world with no regulation, because some idiot would dumping old cars in the river by our house. I don't know if we're over-regulated or that the world has become more compl…

Those regulations can stay. If you ever worked on a complex highly regulated space such as architecture/construction; there are lot of things that get piled up that make no sense whatsoever even diving into the history and context of why it was written. For example, Oregon's gas pump law (you cannot fill your own gas), I remember diving into the actual law and reasons behind it said something along the lines of "Beca…

Say what you will about politics in Texas, but one thing they do that seems really right is institutionalized de-institutionalization via the Sunset Advisory Commission [0], whose job it is to periodically review government agencies' efficiency and relevance etc and provide a recommendation as to whether the pre-planned, automatic abolition of each agency should go forward or should be stayed another 12 years.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Advisory_Commission

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#84

Post by becquerel »

1dry wrote: post #63

Unspoken and underlying the author's entire worldview seems to be, "the more new things, the better," a not uncommon tunnel view in the engineering world. The purpose of regulation, ideally, is to ensure that whatever activity/process is being regulated is worth the cost(s) for the majority of people. Defining those terms and making that decision is precisely the job of regulators, who are ideally accountable to a de…

Is access to these resources really an engineering problem, rather than a matter of political fact? The people with the power to expand access, politicians, don't have any real incentive to.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#85

Post by MarkSweep »

briandon wrote: post #77
hackerlight wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying it's copy-pasted is a criticism of the aesthetic, not the build quality. Copy-pasting designs is just economies of scale and should lead to cheaper construction and design costs, all else held equal. I have no problem with regulations of apartment quality. Those are usually too lax. This is a point made elsewhere in the thread. We need more good regulations and less bad regulations. More regulations of build q…

There's technically no reason that copy-pasted skyscraper apartment buildings can't be built to a high standard, quality-wise, and it certainly may yield savings to the entity commissioning the project. But there's no reason they can't be built to a low standard (and this subthread is about Hong Kong, where that is certainly the case) and there's nothing preventing cheaply-built, shabby, cookie cutter housing from be…

Do you think the wait list for public housing would be longer or shorter if the government enforced your esthetic preferences on apartment construction?

Or to say it another way, your posting claims that HK housing is both too expensive and too low quality. If the government solved the low quality problem by banning it, it would probably make the expensive problem worse.

I’m not saying that housing quality should never be regulated. I’m saying that regulation can have side effects policy makers need to consider.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#86

Post by jstanley »

ttldr wrote: post #46

the article is certainly "Articulate", and i'm sure its content and message is agreeable to many in the community (myself included). no doubt that it speaks to the day-to-day chafes of working engineers and other technical folks in a corporate environment. taking a look at the author's startup[1] is interesting. it seems clear that he's trying to collapse employees' personal slack afforded by remote/async work. that…

What the author's startup does seems completely orthogonal to the idea presented in TFA, no?

It's possible for a person to be wrong on one thing (though I'm not taking a view on whether they are) and right on another thing.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#87

Post by hackerlight »

briandon wrote: post #77
hackerlight wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying it's copy-pasted is a criticism of the aesthetic, not the build quality. Copy-pasting designs is just economies of scale and should lead to cheaper construction and design costs, all else held equal. I have no problem with regulations of apartment quality. Those are usually too lax. This is a point made elsewhere in the thread. We need more good regulations and less bad regulations. More regulations of build q…

There's technically no reason that copy-pasted skyscraper apartment buildings can't be built to a high standard, quality-wise, and it certainly may yield savings to the entity commissioning the project. But there's no reason they can't be built to a low standard (and this subthread is about Hong Kong, where that is certainly the case) and there's nothing preventing cheaply-built, shabby, cookie cutter housing from be…

> There's technically no reason that copy-pasted skyscraper apartment buildings can't be built to a high standard.

> But there's no reason they can't be built to a low standard.

That's my point. Apartments being copy-pasted implies nothing about the build quality, so it's therefore a criticism of the aesthetic, which is what I took issue with.

> I'm telling you that HKers aren't seeing any of the "ability to have shelter" benefit you seem to be imputing to ugly, identical tower blocks. The wait list for copy-paste public housing is years long and it's a byzantine process to get into an apartment even then. Private copy-paste housing costs an arm and a leg for cubby-hole sized micro-apartments, so much so that 100-200 thousand people at any given moment are living in desperate conditions under spalling concrete, with rats and bedbugs, and shared toilets and "kitchens" that I suspect would give you the dry heaves if you were to take a tour of such places.

If you want to add more good regulations that enforce build quality, I'll be right there with you. I haven't seen a country or locale where the building code regulations have been good enough.

> being sold at exorbitant prices

> copy-paste housing costs an arm and a leg

Okay, so decommodify land, build more good public housing, and allow more private housing by reducing zoning restrictions. But "ugly" and "cookie cutter" and "identical" should not feature into the criticism.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#88

Post by briandon »

MarkSweep wrote: post #85
briandon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's technically no reason that copy-pasted skyscraper apartment buildings can't be built to a high standard, quality-wise, and it certainly may yield savings to the entity commissioning the project. But there's no reason they can't be built to a low standard (and this subthread is about Hong Kong, where that is certainly the case) and there's nothing preventing cheaply-built, shabby, cookie cutter housing from be…

Do you think the wait list for public housing would be longer or shorter if the government enforced your esthetic preferences on apartment construction? Or to say it another way, your posting claims that HK housing is both too expensive and too low quality. If the government solved the low quality problem by banning it, it would probably make the expensive problem worse. I’m not saying that housing quality should nev…

The aesthetics of public housing in HK is not a factor in the pace of public housing construction or the amount of public housing made available. Appearance and supply are completely unrelated. Supply is maintained at an always-woefully-inadequate level and many are allowed to live in squalor.

This, purely by happenstance, ensures a market for new and used low-quality, cramped private dwellings. In turn, everyone's dream is to manage to get a second apartment to lease out and/or emigrate so that they can retire in, for example, Canada, the UK, or the United States on the proceeds of the sale of their small, poorly-built apartment in a copy-paste high-rise.

Coincidentally, in HK, the government owns literally all of the land except for one or two tiny freeholds (e.g. a very old church is one that comes to mind) and derives a great deal of revenue from land sales (selling long-term leases, really, rather than the land) to property developers. The money from land sales is earmarked for infrastructure projects.

To reiterate: the notion that slapping together near-identical residential skyscrapers in HK helps make housing more accessible is incorrect. Appearance and availability are completely uncoupled here.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#89

Post by alpinemeadow »

This in my opinion was an anti-regulation tirade masked as a call to action to makers. I’ve worked now for a while with physical product development, and had worked before with web development. The main difference is that physical products have an ability to kill/maim/hurt you if not properly designed. I welcome regulations on electrical, mechanical and anything that will hurt you if improperly used. Most websites or consumer software in general won’t hurt you much. I would appreciate more discussion on the nuances of design and working with limitations; from the brief, from the target, from the regulatory and compliance landscape. The great innovations come in satisfying all those constrains , and end up with a great product at a great price

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#90

Post by mrwh »

I do have some sympathy with the general idea that we should be able to build a whole lot more than we are. The article takes some odd inspiration though. Marc "build but don't dare build near me" Andreessen. And Uber, which is a bonfire of money and has an infamously wasteful eng culture. Perhaps there's a meta-point being made that this is the best we can show in today's world. I hope not though. Surely there are better examples?
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