121–130 of 370 posts
>I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Being German I would like to think that while there's always opportunity to be more introspective about your history over the last few generations we've done an okay job of correcting some historical mistakes, and that's a pretty decently sized group. >If you want to change the world to a better place…
A group will never admit they were wrong. A group will never admit, “We made a mistake,” because a group that tries to change its mind falls apart. I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Now that is a useful insight. It's a big problem for voluntary associations. Companies can sometimes change their culture, but it usually requires replacin…
Its really a popularity problem in that there is a doctrine of "we need something survivable in BVR and active ADA" but we don't like talking about that situation as much as pew-pew A-10s are cool and we always plan to fight the last war where there was no BVR or ADA threat (not after the first few days...)
Inevitably we will someday go up against an opponent that is willing to take BVR RoE risks and is capable and willing to do ADA (anti-aircraft guns and missiles). At that point the drones and A-10s are simply out of the fight, in fact the entire Air Force is out of the fight until either another procurement cycle or hope that the ground Army, despite having no air support at all, somehow knocks out the opfor so our undefended planes can fly again.
That's why we have a doctrine, however uncool to talk about, of keeping BVR-proof and ADA-proof weapons systems around, there is a situation where they're quite useful.
Really its not even ADA-proof, its more generically "capable of operating in an environment where we do not already have total utter complete air supremacy".
There is a logistical theory that air supremacy is so expensive that nobody but the USA can sustain it, although it goes guarantee huge USA losses until supremacy is lost, so that's not really politically viable. "They're going to wipe our ground forces out by air and there's nothing we can do about it until they run out of armament" is something that's supposed to happen to other nations, not the US, so its a very hard sell politically.
>I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Being German I would like to think that while there's always opportunity to be more introspective about your history over the last few generations we've done an okay job of correcting some historical mistakes, and that's a pretty decently sized group. >If you want to change the world to a better place…
I don't want to take anything from the generally commendable and impressive German efforts in that regard, as you say, over a period of several generations. At the same time, one has to acknowledge to get there, Germany was physically destroyed, its territory dismembered and occupied, it effectively ceased to exist as a sovereign state for a period, etc, etc. It's not much of an example of a group spontaneously deciding they'd got it wrong.
>I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Being German I would like to think that while there's always opportunity to be more introspective about your history over the last few generations we've done an okay job of correcting some historical mistakes, and that's a pretty decently sized group. >If you want to change the world to a better place…
>I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Being German I would like to think that while there's always opportunity to be more introspective about your history over the last few generations we've done an okay job of correcting some historical mistakes, and that's a pretty decently sized group. >If you want to change the world to a better place…
Counterpoint: GiveWell has a link "Our Mistakes" directly on the main navigation bar! https://www.givewell.org/about/our-mistakes It's beautiful to see such behavior <3
>I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Being German I would like to think that while there's always opportunity to be more introspective about your history over the last few generations we've done an okay job of correcting some historical mistakes, and that's a pretty decently sized group. >If you want to change the world to a better place…
As someone living in Germany as well, Germans love to tell others how things are done. This is only possible if you have the moral high ground. Musterschüler an all that.
I was on the board of a foundation that was charged with giving out money for a cause, and I found it very disillusioning because what I learned was that no matter what the foundation did, they would declare victory. Every project was victorious. Every project was a success. There was a lot of back slapping. There were a lot of high-sounding mission statements and vision statements, a lot of congratulations, a lot of…
I strongly suspect this was a US-based foundation. That behavior is not exclusive to the USA, but much, much more predominant here. It's almost a stereotype of US (individual and corporate) behavior.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money is the medium of transaction of human needs and desires. Profit causes global warming only in so much as it fulfills human needs and desires for light, heat, transportation, industry, and energy in general. Your argument is not with profit but with human nature, which in its infinite ambition always desires more. Removing the profit motive is like shooting the messenger, your fundamental issue remains unaddress…
> Your argument is not with profit but with human nature As capitalism and profit on capital only started on the steps to being the prevailing economic system in the fourteenth century, in pockets of Europe, I wonder what year it became "human nature" worldwide exactly - 1350? 1848?
I have seen in my work that individual tasks present failures as successes in their final reviews, and I can't think of any examples of a task that admitted "this didn't work out" even though many of the projects I'm thinking of are R&D and really didn't work out at all.