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Accountability Sinks

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Re: Accountability Sinks

#151

Post by smallmancontrov »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124
xg15 wrote: post #49

One example that's missing from the list is the TV series 24. A recurring plot point was that, yes, of course torture is bad and it's against the rules and we don't do it, etc etc, but it just so happens that here is such an exceptional, unprecedented, deeply urgent emergency situation where we need to have the information now or horrible things will happen, we need the hero who breaks the rules and goes on torturing…

I watched a season of Chicago PD , and noticed that they had a convenient "plot accelerator." Whenever they got to a point, where the detectives and CSI would be painstakingly going through the evidence, sifting out clues, they'd throw the suspect into "the cage," and beat a confession out of them.

Every police show aggressively pushes the "civil rights bad" angle. Maybe once a season they will graciously consider "maybe civil rights good?" for part of an episode before concluding "no, civil rights bad."

Re: Accountability Sinks

#153

Post by t_luke »

The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have some capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible.

The people who get what they want in these situations are the ones who are prepared to behave sufficiently unreasonably. This is a second order consequence of 'unaccountability' that Davies misses. For the customer, or object of the system, it incentivises people to behave as unpleasantly as possible — because it's often the only way to trigger the exception / escalation / special case, and get what you want.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#154

Post by t_luke »

The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have some capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible.

The people who get what they want in these situations are the ones who are prepared to behave sufficiently unreasonably. This is a second order consequence of 'unaccountability' that Davies misses. For the customer, or object of the system, it incentivises people to behave *as unpleasantly as possible* — because it's often the only way to trigger the exception / escalation / special case, and get what you want.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#155

Post by lucianbr »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #66

My go-to example of a whole mesh of "accountability sinks" is... cybersecurity. In the real world, this field is really not about the tech and math and crypto - almost all of it is about distributing and dispersing liability through contractual means. That's why you install endpoint security tools. That's why you're forced to fulfill all kinds of requirements, some of them nonsensical or counterproductive, but necess…

I wonder what the difference is between cybersecurity and civil aviation safety. At a glance they both have a lot of processes and requirements. Somehow on one side they are as you said, a way to deal with liability without necessarily increasing security, while on the other safety is actually significantly increased.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#156

Post by 1dom »

I read most of this agreeing with everything the author was saying, sometimes in a "I already thought that" but often in a "huh, that's a really cool insight." I quite like the style too.

As a Brit though, I was completely blindsided by the inclusion of Dom Cummings. I'd forgotten he existed. Seeing his and Boris' attitude to PPE provision discussed in a positive light without any mention of the associated scandal[1] made me a bit uncomfortable. Without getting too political, they claimed to have solved a problem, but whether or not it was a justifiable, sensible or legitimate solution is probably going to be debated for decades.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_regarding_COVID-...

Re: Accountability Sinks

#157

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

When dealing with companies, small claims court can be an amazing tool to fix the "nobody is responsible so you hit a wall" issue. The court sends a letter to the company, and either the company figures out who is responsible for dealing with it, or whatever process for collecting unpaid judgements eventually deals with the company (e.g. the famous "sheriff comes to repo the bank's furniture" example).

For companies, this is also fine, because in most cases the built-in processes work well enough, and in others people just give up, that handling the escalations through their legal department is manageable.

Unfortunately, this approach only helps for the subset of cases where the issue is monetary and/or can wait (and only if it happened in a country with a working small claims system).

Re: Accountability Sinks

#159

Post by Pamar »

freehorse wrote: post #147
Pamar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just an oversimplification though. If you had any experience about travel industry (or logistics) you would understand things much better. Here is an example for you (from logistics): Sending a truck from Berlin to - say - Györ may cost 3 times less than sending the same truck from Györ to Berlin - even on the same exact date. Is this because shipping companies try to make money out of nothing, for you?

And what is the actual explanation that actually makes sense (apart from profit increase)? I have booked flights A->B->C and got down at B because that was cheaper than booking A->B only. Not sure where this all makes sense at all.

The full explanation would take a wall of text (and still let you unconvinced because you feel entitled to do as you please, probably).

Super-condensed version: civilian flight are a pretty difficult "product" to handle efficiently. Price increases until 1 minute before closing the airplane doors, then falls to zero. On top of that, the product "provider" also needs its own product in order to move personnel and technicians all over the globe, but of course they cannot just cannibalize their own products beyond the point of profitability.

Plus they have to handle rebookings and passenger protection in cases like delays, sudden airport close-down and so on. (Have you ever been on a waiting list, btw?).

All this is pretty complicated to manage already, so they need to exert as much control as possible on yield and occupancy.

TL;DR: a flight is not a bus ride. So if you just decide to cut it short the airline will try to reuse your vacant space for whatever reason.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#160

Post by finnh »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #151
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a season of Chicago PD , and noticed that they had a convenient "plot accelerator." Whenever they got to a point, where the detectives and CSI would be painstakingly going through the evidence, sifting out clues, they'd throw the suspect into "the cage," and beat a confession out of them.

Every police show aggressively pushes the "civil rights bad" angle. Maybe once a season they will graciously consider "maybe civil rights good?" for part of an episode before concluding "no, civil rights bad."

s/show/department/
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