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I just took a look at your project - you really need to simplify the README. I read the whole thing but it’s still not clear to me what you app actually does. I have no idea what a “Social Operating System” is supposed to be. Seems like it’s a web/mobile app framework, but it’s completely unclear why I would want to use it. You need an “elevator pitch”. There are hundreds of frameworks, if you want developers to use…
As someone who works for a local government bureaucracy - not caring is a coping mechanism because if you let every sub-optimal thing bother you then you'd just burn out. Very few jobs are structured in a way that those directly involved can determine how things are done so there is no real value in caring about how long a process takes. Where people have some agency you might be surprised how much people do care eve…
Why doesn’t Japan have this problem?
Japan has some of these problems. For example: they do not care about homeless people. In Japan, I saw a homeless person sleeping between two car lanes, amongst some bushes. Literally 50cm of space separating cars, and he was lying there with his possessions.
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Why doesn’t Japan have this problem?
The OP is kind of wrong, because Japan has a different set of issues that Nobody Cares about that the OP hasn't understood Japan enough in Japan to immediately consider. Ironically, one could say that the OP failed to spend 1% longer thinking about this part of their claim to imagine that a different society might perhaps have different "nobody cares" that are not immediately visible to them, before making it. Japan…
I think that's the opposite. They care too much. That collective school cleanup example above has a similar extreme. If you literally live to work, you'll forget about caring for yourself and collapse.
Tokyo Government just introduced a 4 day work week for its workers. You'd be surprised how much friction there has been to this, by the workers.
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…
As someone who works for a local government bureaucracy - not caring is a coping mechanism because if you let every sub-optimal thing bother you then you'd just burn out. Very few jobs are structured in a way that those directly involved can determine how things are done so there is no real value in caring about how long a process takes. Where people have some agency you might be surprised how much people do care eve…
Why doesn’t Japan have this problem?
If you mean the bureaucracy - every one of my coworkers there grumbled about dealing with government morass the same way we complain about the DMV here.
Just sayin'.
Of course, I'm kind of outside the "incentive system," so I do it for different reasons.
Yes, it's frustrating, when I encounter obvious "Person didn't care" stuff. Sometimes, it infuriates me, but usually, it helps me to feel that I need to care more about my own work.
I'm not sure that I buy that every example given is a "Person didn't care" instance. I feel that personal values may play a part, in interpreting the work.
Also, when you run large organizations/municipalities, small numbers become big numbers, quite easily, and you are often serving folks with very different priorities. Can't make everyone happy. Often, unfortunately, folks decide to make the weakest people unhappy.
Want people to care? Incentivize them. That's not just money. Treat the people (and their work) better. Hire and promote good managers. Stand up to unreasonable demands from above, etc. If you are an "above" person, then don't be insecure. Let the people under you, stand up to you, if you are being unreasonable. It really doesn't hurt as much as you might think. You always have the power to force your will, anyway, but I found that it was a good idea to listen to my employees.
Everybody has a limit to their capacity To Care About Things. It's not fixed in stone, people can care about more things and more deeply, but at any given time it's essentially some finite capacity. A glass-half-empty mentality (like the author's) is to look at everything that people don't care about and despair, while a glass-half-full mentality is to look at everything people do care about and remain optimistic abo…
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, thank you for writing this.
I have a pet theory that selling products and services that reduce people's ability to look after their own needs (either directly or as a side-effect), while marketing that the same product actually improves your life is one of the key business strategies of our generation.