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Nobody cares

grantslatton.com

451–460 of 1001 posts

Re: Nobody cares

#451

This is a really uninformed article that comes off as just plain whiny. Taking the traffic curb example, it's entirely plausible that the person who designed that ramp isn't a cyclist, and didn't think about what it would actually be like to be a cyclist making that curve. I hired a contractor once, who was a fantastic one. We were designing some changes to one of our rooms, and he had a proposal that would have made…

it's entirely plausible that the person who designed that ramp isn't a cyclist, and didn't think about what it would actually be like to be a cyclist making that curve.

Can you even imagine any piece of automobile infrastructure being designed in a way that is dangerous to drivers, and those drivers' concern being downplayed with the excuse that perhaps the person who designed the infrastructure isn't an automobile driver and didn't think about what it would be like to be a driver?

That would be inconceivable, but when non-drivers are the ones whose safety is ignored in favor of automobile drivers' convenience, nobody cares.

Re: Nobody cares

#452
post #425

Its ironic, because this dude doesn't seem to care enough to even the slightest bit of research to understand why any of these problems he highlights are the way they are, and lazily attributes everything to OTHER people not caring. LEDs last longer, are more energy efficient, and also reduce light pollution because they are more directional[1]. Took me 30 seconds to google. There are enormous design standards for de…

It’s possible to install warm colored LEDs with very little blue light output though. You get all those benefits without giving up the more-suitable-for-night sodium light spectral benefits.

OK but blinding blue LEDs are most common substitutes, because it's the lazy default, and because people do not care. That's the point of the article.

Re: Nobody cares

#453
post #38

Man, I've been the engineer in situations like that bike lane and believe me, we care. Usually the engineers care. 99% of the time the contractor had some "value engineering" suggestions that the client was all too happy to take because it saved them a little money up front. As the engineer you can try to explain that it will be shitty, but they ... don't care.

A well known CEO noted that in a failing organization he was trying to devise a turn around plan for that everyone in the organization invariably blamed... the other teams! Not a one said "our team is responsible for our failure". The engineers blamed product, the product people blamed sales, etc. He said he provided this suggestion, "You are of course right (it's the other groups fault, and it might have been so), b…

There are two groups of people: blamers and doers. For example, people will often blame local government for issues such as not disposing of fly tipping garbage quick enough, but they will not do much to clean up the pavements with sofas or fridges around their house – a man with a van can often drive over these large bits of garbage to a recycling centre for like $30/£30 an hour. Sometimes people will say government is spending money poorly, but they will not have participated in any of the consultations the government did on the matter, even if they were online or accepted mail-in comments. And in workplaces, they will often blame other departments without having put in elementary effort to resolve the issues with them. Sometimes people will blame government services for collapsing – there are certainly many YouTubers that constantly moan about how bad public transit is in many regions of the US, but few will donate to groups and politicians that genuinely want to replan public transit. Few will campaign for them, which can be done online in the fraction of a time it takes to produce a video.

If an org gets taken over by the blamer culture, it is doomed. These people will make no attempt at fixing problems, even when that would sometimes take 5 minutes and an email, but they will moan. And they will blame, and sometimes they'll blame the person suggesting an easy and workable course of action to resolve the problems.

Interestingly, sometimes resolving the problem takes less effort than sustained moaning, and certainly less mental strain. And still, people who tend towards the blamer group will blame and moan. Though I make no insinuation that moaning doesn't have any other benefits (such as YouTube video revenue, virtue signalling, and similar) – it is clearly appealing to one of the two groups I mentioned.

Re: Nobody cares

#454

> We have examples like Elon who, through sheer force of will, defeats armies of people who don't care. For his many faults, you can't say the man doesn't care. I fully expected that bit. Can't say I would agree in any way though. If anything, a perfect example of a person with way too much agency and executive power and way too little restraint and rationality. The perfect anti social candidate to not care but to wa…

Elon only cares about enriching himself.

Re: Nobody cares

#455
post #425

Its ironic, because this dude doesn't seem to care enough to even the slightest bit of research to understand why any of these problems he highlights are the way they are, and lazily attributes everything to OTHER people not caring. LEDs last longer, are more energy efficient, and also reduce light pollution because they are more directional[1]. Took me 30 seconds to google. There are enormous design standards for de…

It’s possible to install warm colored LEDs with very little blue light output though. You get all those benefits without giving up the more-suitable-for-night sodium light spectral benefits.

Here in Baltimore the city seems to have purchased a huge batch of defective LEDs that are actually purple. It’s disturbing when you encounter one.

Re: Nobody cares

#456
post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you change ? Is it not allowed ?

Is that a rebuttal to the idea that the doctor doesn't care?

Why would you think it's a rebuttal?

Six months' wait to see your GP for an in-person visit is a worryingly long wait. If I heard someone say that they were required to wait that long for in-person doctor's visits, I'd wonder why they were still seeing that doctor and ask them polite questions to try to figure it out.

Re: Nobody cares

#457
post #425

Its ironic, because this dude doesn't seem to care enough to even the slightest bit of research to understand why any of these problems he highlights are the way they are, and lazily attributes everything to OTHER people not caring. LEDs last longer, are more energy efficient, and also reduce light pollution because they are more directional[1]. Took me 30 seconds to google. There are enormous design standards for de…

The ones in the article clearly go against the best principles at https://www.savingourstars.org/ though.

Re: Nobody cares

#458

This is a really uninformed article that comes off as just plain whiny. Taking the traffic curb example, it's entirely plausible that the person who designed that ramp isn't a cyclist, and didn't think about what it would actually be like to be a cyclist making that curve. I hired a contractor once, who was a fantastic one. We were designing some changes to one of our rooms, and he had a proposal that would have made…

If the person designing it can't consider the needs of people who are biking then they shouldn't have that job.

Re: Nobody cares

#459
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s nonsense. Some businesses exist purely to fund the ability to do exactly that thing as well as possible. Making money is a means to an end. It’s just that they always seem to lose to those that optimize for money.

I think some small businesses start because the owner wants to do something well. Sometimes this aligns with some group of customers and it's sustainable. Most small businesses fail of course. Usually because while they do a task well, they're bad at the business part. Once you get large (McDonald's in the parent thread) the focus is necessarily on the business part. At that scale it's not "doing the thing as well as…

One of the things that’s surprising about traveling to Europe and Japan is that this revenue maximizing business strategy isn’t as prevalent. You don’t see the same upsells everywhere and tipping culture is also mostly non-existent. Many US businesses managed to behave in a manner that was vastly less extractive to their customers for most of the last century as well. It really is possible to care about the quality of your business in some cultures, it’s just harder to do so here today.

Re: Nobody cares

#460

This is a really uninformed article that comes off as just plain whiny. Taking the traffic curb example, it's entirely plausible that the person who designed that ramp isn't a cyclist, and didn't think about what it would actually be like to be a cyclist making that curve. I hired a contractor once, who was a fantastic one. We were designing some changes to one of our rooms, and he had a proposal that would have made…

Ha. The traffic curb example is actually a good one. I don’t think it’s an excuse to build a potentially dangerous ramp because you aren’t a cyclist yourself. People who design ramps should be capable to do it properly. Imagine it were a ramp for wheelchairs and they would have decided that a 20 degree slope is doable.

This reminds me of Tempest in a Pothole, an episode of The Paper Chase TV show from 1984:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEFBX4M5LCQ&t=2896s

The thrust is that standards of accountability are (or should be) higher for a professional than for a random reasonable person.

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