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Care Doesn't Scale

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Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#191

Post by moolcool »

anticorporate wrote: post #78
mempko wrote: post #71

What most don't understand is that the economy IS us caring for each other. When you go to a restaurant when you are hungry, or a store to get what you need, or a hospital when you get sick, you are getting care. Virtually most people are taking care of other people. And yes it doesn't scale because it takes all of us to care for each other.

> What most don't understand is that the economy IS us caring for each other. But when those businesses we seek care from scale, the system is no longer closed. A portion of the care I give or receive is siphoned off and sent to shareholders or a wealth business owner. When caring happens through capitalism, a portion of our care is depleted with every transaction.

It's an interesting conflict. As the businesses scales, small losses which would be acceptable in a smaller operation will scale as well. Maybe a mistake people make as they scale is being too quick to give up the extra couple french fries.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#192

Post by empath75 »

delichon wrote: post #123

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. -- Adam Smith Care doesn't scale but self-inte…

People do depend a lot on the benevolence of the butcher and the brewer and the baker, because while regulation and inspections and laws and so on are there to stop out and out sociopaths from killing people in pursuit of profits, a lot of people that do their jobs are doing it because they think their job provides some value to the community at large, and they try to do it in a way that doesn't harm people.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#193

Post by triceratops »

aniviacat wrote: post #3

> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person. What does this imply, that two parents cannot care for three children? I disagree.

Two parents, all alone, without a community around them. Yeah it's near-impossible.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#194

Post by jimbokun »

dkarl wrote: post #131
crabmusket wrote: post #54

> There was some pain in that realization. So many of my utopian dreams—what if we could live in a society where everyone can get the food, the housing, the healthcare, the opportunities for growth that they deserve—come from a place of wishing that we could live in a world where people are cared for. I'd like to offer some comfort to the author on this score. Food, housing, healthcare broadly... while these are all…

> The food system is different from homecooked meals This is a good point, and everything I've heard from parents says that it's parents, not children, who identify home-cooked meals with care. Children notoriously prefer prepackaged industrially processed food over whole foods prepared with care and love. In order to feel cared for, all children need is to trust that the person caring for them will make sure they ge…

> Children notoriously prefer prepackaged industrially processed food over whole foods prepared with care and love.

In most cases, this is probably due to the care givers training their children to prefer that kind of food because they don't make many home cooked meals.

I don't even know if it's true, though. When I was a kid, the best food in the world were the home made meals my grandmother made, especially on the holidays. Remember as a teenager telling my Grandma her meals were better than any restaurant I had ever eaten at, and meaning it in all sincerity.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#195

Post by bccdee »

openrisk wrote: post #155
intended wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes across as a comment on the headline and not the article. The article had a very specific circumstance it built upon - how much human time time it takes to help kids. This doesn’t scale, in the context of the article. Your statement would translate into a point on economics and organization, than individual care. This still obscures the fact that many critical functions don’t scale. I would add that these t…

The article defines care "scarcity" rather narrowly, almost tautologically > In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person Yes, but there are many moments in a day / one's life, and care is needed and appreciated at various levels of "deepness". Further, how much care (and what type) is needed depends enormously on what society has managed to scale with the right organizational…

Well, everyone's a kid for the first few years of their life, and children require a lot of care. The elderly require care. The unwell require care. Everyone wants care some of the time.

We do have cultural institutions to do much of this work. Parents care for kids. Adults care for aging parents. Romantic partnerships exist so that people can reciprocally care for each other. Still, we have to fill in the gaps for kids without parents, seniors without kids, and sick people. The demand for therapy and sex work proves that people will pay a lot of money to be cared for, even when they don't need it to survive.

> So in the end the question is: how much of this type of exclusive (and scarce) caring capacity does society really need?

A lot, apparently.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#196

Post by jimbokun »

hedvig23 wrote: post #177
steveBK123 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the same problem for JIT supply chains falling apart during COVID. It's very hard to sell slack to management and so in "well run organizations" it ends up trending towards zero. And then everyone is surprised at the resulting catastrophes.

It's pretty simple no, the model that is reasonable and antifragile is within our grasp, a model that includes degrees of error more than it reifies hewing towards 0 carrying costs. It's more the good will and good faith across the board to use that known simple math, as sneaky monkey minds in our midst see that if they defect they can win some edge in the short term (and again, a better model shows the true utility…

It's aligning the incentives of top management with the slightly longer term outcomes. If stock grants are based on this quarter's performance, "slack" seems much less important.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#197

Post by taylorius »

moolcool wrote: post #150
taylorius wrote: post #16

I think in the future, descendants of today's LLM models and some future version of Tesla's Optimus could create a paradigm shift in how care is given. I'm hopeful that when I get old, and inevitably come to need some help with living, that such a solution will be available.

I think this is a gross and psychopathic vision of the future. Tell your grandmother that you're going to automate away her need for human connection. What a terrible indignity. I hate my industry.

Psychopathic? I think that's a ridiculous statement. No-one said anything about automating any human connection. I can tell you that my wife is a full time carer for her parents, and though she does it willingly and with love, it exerts a great toll on her, both physically, and mentally. So if we're going to far-too-easily use words like "psychopathic" - I could just as well say that ignoring that cost is psychopathic. Knowing what her role as a carer has cost her in terms of quality of life, I would never want to subject my children to the same. That is entirely different to maintaining human connection with older relatives.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#198

Post by bccdee »

hprotagonist wrote: post #63
durumu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the average tutor is better than the average lecturer. But if I watch a YouTube lecture, then I might have access to the best lecturer in the world, or at least a 99%ile lecturer, e.g 3blue1brown. This only works because of the scale -- it wouldn't be possible for millions to get access to tutors this good 1 on 1.

but can you argue with them for an indeterminate period of time in earnest dialogue until the idea goes CLICK inside your head? You cannot, and so the value is much lessened because that critical access isn’t present.

Do you always need that kind of prolonged argument whenever you learn a new concept?

> Sometimes the YouTube video is more helpful than the private tutor.

University lectures work like that. First the general lecture, which has 300 students and is not interactive. Then the tutorial, where students who want extra help can consult individually with a TA. Attendance for tutorials was typically much lower in my experience, because a lot of students thought the lecture was plenty and wanted to spend the time on something else.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#199

Post by velcrovan »

delichon wrote: post #123

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. -- Adam Smith Care doesn't scale but self-inte…

Just want to add that so many freshman-level thinkers who are fond of this idea forget that democratically enacted regulation and oversight also count as self interest.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#200

Post by MichaelZuo »

crabmusket wrote: post #101
MichaelZuo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it’s theoretically possible and theoretically economical for individual care ‘to happen’, it doesn’t in practice for the housing economy. If anything it’s decreasing year by year on average. Especially when you look at construction quality, the average quality of say new built condos in any major city has gone way way down since the 90s. Of course on average condo designs have on average gotten fancier with…

Maybe it doesn't in America. Nor here in Australia. Some European cities are showing that better is in fact possible by strongly supporting co-operative housing sectors which are better for residents. But that would break the American taboo against government intervening usefully in private markets for human rights (in this case, shelter). More from a recent report by Australia's business council of coops and mutuals…

‘Society and governments’ can also ‘decide’ that the Sun is revolving around the Earth… so decisions and policies on paper cannot be fully credible by themselves…

What is the actual tangible evidence that the aforementioned issues are avoided?

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