261–270 of 318 posts
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Yes, exactly. People who just want a stable job are in it for the (stable) money.
99% of people who work are just in it for the money. You’re a very blessed individual if you’re doing it for the love of the job rather than because you have to pay the bills and buy food.
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The main problem is the lack of responsibility all along the chain. 25 years and people who shifted blame and were OK with people going to prison so their bonus would not be impacted are still enjoying life out of jail. Seeing this lack of consequence how can you expect people to behave ethically?
I still can't believe that no-one in the Post Office leadership has been prosecuted for perverting the course of justice or fraud. They "reclaimed" lots of money from the falsely accused postmasters, so I don't see why that isn't treated as fraud.
Defrauding an organization? Baaaaad. Defrauding hundreds or thousands of employees all at the same time? Good!
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Exactly, I’m glad you mentioned it because there are many who can’t see through the smoke. This is the long con but I still struggle to understand the motive there, if for nothing else, is it the simple ideal that government should be small? Why go through all the trouble?
Democratic governments tends to create and maintain a lot of checks and balanced on corporations. Things like workers rights, consumer rights, product quality, environment protections, etc etc. Many things that corporations would love to do to make more money are illegal. That makes it harder to earn money. Removing such barriers seems like a pretty straightforward motive to me.
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So what is your point?
My point is if you don't think the ship was already sinking you are hopelessly naive. Consider the possibility that scientific funding is net social negative (scary, I know, but possible, if the only people in the system are fraudsters at the top and good scientists forced to chase after or try to replicate or refute fraudulent results for careerist reasons). Then cutting all funds would be socially good.
The solution is never, and I do literally mean never, burn it all down. This is a populist message because it’s easy and appeals to the lowest common denominator of human. It’s intellectually lazy, and supremely evil in its simplicity.
Yes, the institution is flawed. Because all institutions are flawed. It should be improved, not set on fire. These are solvable issues. But proclaiming the best solution is no solution is the worst kind of anti-solution. Everyone loses. Everyone. There are no winners in this mentality, only losers and slightly less losers.
The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…
There's no methodology at work, it's just indiscriminate firings to cull as many people as possible. This is clear from other other departments where they fired everyone they could. "Coding error" is just a modern version of "the dog ate my homework". Lame but people will swallow it. They knew what they were doing, they just regret getting caught. Sadly, once the firings, rehirings, refirings, court cases, and compen…
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There's no methodology at work, it's just indiscriminate firings to cull as many people as possible. This is clear from other other departments where they fired everyone they could. "Coding error" is just a modern version of "the dog ate my homework". Lame but people will swallow it. They knew what they were doing, they just regret getting caught. Sadly, once the firings, rehirings, refirings, court cases, and compen…
> There's no methodology at work, it's just indiscriminate firings to cull as many people as possible. That is the methodology, though. Musk's biography (I believe) contains a bit about how one of his business strategies when trying to make drastic changes is to just fire, fire, fire, fire people. And if you don't realize afterward that you fired too many, and have to hire back at least 10% of them, then you didn't f…
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I mean, I feel like you might be aware of this, but what you're describing is literally PR and propaganda. Many millions of people get social security/etc payments every month from the federal government, but of course that doesn't count. "Keep the gov out of my medicare!" anyone? People have a real short memory and nobody appreciates the lack of mercury and arsenic in their sausages today, it's all about "what are y…
I'm speaking to the experience of dealing with the government. It's not propaganda, this is literally what happens. Everyone independently coming to the same conclusion based on their personal experience isn't propaganda. It's reality. Have you ever tried to deal with the government. I have unfortunately had a lot of dealing with Social security, medicare, medicaid, etc. From having to deal with aging parents. Yes, p…
Your experience isn’t real. What I mean is, you’re not actually talking about your experience, you’re talking about a very small subset of it.
When things work right, the result is invisible. Nobody sees payments that come in on time, meat that isn’t rotten, chemicals that aren’t in our water supply, or roads that aren’t shoddy. The visible part is when things DON’T work right. Since this is all you can see, this is all you think it is.
We cannot imagine a time without these regulations and bureaucrats because we haven’t lived it. But, it did exist. And it was horrifying. Evil beyond the comprehensions of modern men.
We have, largely, eliminated that. However, we did it too well. Now, modern men do not understand the plight. They do not understand that companies used to knowingly sell HIV infected medicine. They do not understand that chemicals used to leave newborns with facial deformities. They do not understand that meat used to kill you. They do not understand that our elderly worked until death. They do not understand that tobacco used to plague our country. They do not understand that people used to live at work. They do not understand that union members and their family were massacred on the streets.
You’re walking a fine line. I recommend working to understand what problems these institutions solve, and then research how good they are at solving them. I assure you, it is much, much higher than you think.
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Well then, that's pretty much an indictment of capitalism.
Communism doesn't fare any better under that rubric. Any unbridled 'ism' taken to its extreme tends to fail most human centered tests.
The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…
A slightly less obvious problem with trimming fat is that an amount of fat within any system is good to have if you think long-term. 1. Fat is useful leeway. In critical times, it can be trimmed without otherwise disrupting the operation. Once you have eliminated fat during the good times, you can’t do it in the bad times. 2. A lean system without any fat by definition is tailored to just the current situation. It ha…
I think if humanity strived more for the latter, we might align ourselves better with sustainable prosperity and contentment.