Heat loss from big corporate projects • Hacker News Board

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#31

Post by noway421 » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 9:39 AM UTC

RyanZAG wrote: post #3

The whole system where all of these projects generally go towards some form of advertising where we convince people to buy things they don't really need is a far worse form of heat loss than this. Buying the latest shiny smartphone every year isn't just the heat loss of thousands of engineers making it slightly thinner, it's the actual loss of all the resources that went into last year's batch of smartphones that end…

Getting a new smartphone is what people want. They wouldn't have an exciting thing to gift or to receive on Christmas. They would get tired of the way it looks all the time. They wouldn't be able to show it off to their friends. They wouldn't be delighted with the new UI. Life would be a bit more boring in one more way.

Why would you say no to them?

Not the most important thing in the world? Sure. Something that millions of people want and are willing to spend 1% of their annual pay check? Yes.

Saying that it makes no sense constitutes a very destructive thinking. When you start thinking of what "makes" or "not makes" sense, you stop being empathetic. There's always a better, "more right", more proper thing to do and millions of people are just wasting their time on something they don't need. But aren't they human beings? Isn't having irrational wants rooted in the humanity itself?

Planned economy was dealing in the same maxims. "People need food". "People need shelter". Also tools and military equipment. Fashion clothes? Nah, screw that, useless. Beauty items? Shenanigans of capitalists. Some variety of food? We don't have resources for that.

We know how that ended up.

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#32

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 9:44 AM UTC

golergka wrote: post #24

RyanZAG wrote: post #3

The whole system where all of these projects generally go towards some form of advertising where we convince people to buy things they don't really need is a far worse form of heat loss than this. Buying the latest shiny smartphone every year isn't just the heat loss of thousands of engineers making it slightly thinner, it's the actual loss of all the resources that went into last year's batch of smartphones that end…

Your statement about new shiny smartphone being a heat loss implies that there's some objective measure of what's worthy of resources and what's not. I don't think so. Life has no meaning, and there's no inherent value in anything. How people decide to spend resources that they have is their responsibility. Thankfully, money, together with open markets is an extremely effective mechanism of conciliating millions of s…

which is very far from the truth

I'm not sure it is, it's hardly as if adverts are just lists of facts about the product you are buying. All that changed with Edwards Bernays. When I see an advert on television that is telling me I need to buy a specific model of car to be a good father then I know I'm seeing propaganda.

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#33

Post by nitwit005 » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 9:45 AM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #6

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this the perfect example of lack of markets inside companies? i mean the consumers of your reports are either perfectly prepared to pay your department enough to keep the reports coming, or they don't want them that much. but without a free floating price the larger company will never know. Roald Coase probably has something to say on it

How can you have a market inside a company? Markets depend on having multiple suppliers and multiple customers. Nokia tried having internal competition and it didn't go well. Something like it can work though. Many years ago I worked for Philip Semiconductor at the Mullard factory in Southampton in a department that designed and built production and test equipment. We had a formal project process where if the custome…

Plenty of companies have some scheme where you have to "pay" for some internal service from your team/organization budget. If teams are paying for something it's easy to justify keeping it.

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#34

Post by lulmerchant » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 9:53 AM UTC

RyanZAG wrote: post #3

The whole system where all of these projects generally go towards some form of advertising where we convince people to buy things they don't really need is a far worse form of heat loss than this. Buying the latest shiny smartphone every year isn't just the heat loss of thousands of engineers making it slightly thinner, it's the actual loss of all the resources that went into last year's batch of smartphones that end…

Perhaps we need some form of central authority to regulate perceived value. On an unrelated note, anybody here interested in buying a Trabant?

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#35

Post by pygy_ » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 10:06 AM UTC

noway421 wrote: post #31

RyanZAG wrote: post #3

The whole system where all of these projects generally go towards some form of advertising where we convince people to buy things they don't really need is a far worse form of heat loss than this. Buying the latest shiny smartphone every year isn't just the heat loss of thousands of engineers making it slightly thinner, it's the actual loss of all the resources that went into last year's batch of smartphones that end…

Getting a new smartphone is what people want. They wouldn't have an exciting thing to gift or to receive on Christmas. They would get tired of the way it looks all the time. They wouldn't be able to show it off to their friends. They wouldn't be delighted with the new UI. Life would be a bit more boring in one more way. Why would you say no to them? Not the most important thing in the world? Sure. Something that mill…

I think it's a false dichotomy.

We use money and investment as a distributed resource allocation system.

It's kind of worked so far, but it is fundamentally flawed and on a catastrophic trajectory.

We've created a self-amplifying dissipative system without any kind of braking system, and we're already wasting the earth away faster than it regenerates.

The growth religion must be dispelled. I hope we can find a system that captures the positive aspects of capitalism while stopping the current destruction/consumption wave.

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#36

Post by OscarCunningham » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 10:17 AM UTC

Nition wrote: post #10

RyanZAG wrote: post #3

The whole system where all of these projects generally go towards some form of advertising where we convince people to buy things they don't really need is a far worse form of heat loss than this. Buying the latest shiny smartphone every year isn't just the heat loss of thousands of engineers making it slightly thinner, it's the actual loss of all the resources that went into last year's batch of smartphones that end…

Isn't it funny, the amount of things like this that go on in the system we've created. Like how weird is it that "competition" - two companies both working on the same things against each other, without sharing what they know - can be better for the consumer than if both companies worked together. None of this is really going to change unless we can somehow make a world where making the world a truly better place can…

It seems to me like competing companies actually are incentivised to share information with each other. That would allow them both to cut costs. Does anyone know why they don't do this? Or know of examples where they do do this?

Of course competition would force them both to lower prices after they cut costs, but this will lead to increased demand so both companies should be making more profit. Also if they have a third competitior then they will both be gaining customers from them.

EDIT: Actually this happens all the time, just mediated by money. My economist brain switched off for a second. I was imagining a situation like "You tell us that trade secret in exchange for this one". But this situtation would require a "coincidence of wants". Money alleviates that problem. So this does happen all the time, it just looks more like "Even though you're our competitors we'll give you secret X in exchange for $n".

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#37

Post by noja » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 10:24 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #13

noja wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. But what are people meant to do? The information isn't there. Should I chuck away my diesel car and buy a Tesla? I'd certainly have a psychological reward for that, but what about the huge amount of energy/resources already invested in the diesel car? "But your old car will be used by someone else" people will say, and then it all starts to get complicated. We need tools to make this decision clearer.

You should probably keep your car but use it as little as possible. Try getting a bike.

But I would still have the energy/resource investment that is the car. As underutilised car is a problem too.

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#38

Post by OscarCunningham » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 10:33 AM UTC

noja wrote: post #9

RyanZAG wrote: post #3

The whole system where all of these projects generally go towards some form of advertising where we convince people to buy things they don't really need is a far worse form of heat loss than this. Buying the latest shiny smartphone every year isn't just the heat loss of thousands of engineers making it slightly thinner, it's the actual loss of all the resources that went into last year's batch of smartphones that end…

Exactly. But what are people meant to do? The information isn't there. Should I chuck away my diesel car and buy a Tesla? I'd certainly have a psychological reward for that, but what about the huge amount of energy/resources already invested in the diesel car? "But your old car will be used by someone else" people will say, and then it all starts to get complicated. We need tools to make this decision clearer.

If the government implemented Pigovian taxes on pollution and carbon emissions then you wouldn't have to worry about this. The decision about whether it was environmentally sound would be baked into your decision about which option had better value for money.

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#39

Post by shoo » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 10:45 AM UTC

> But, it kept them busy, and let them show off, and they can take that all the way to the bank by way of a performance review system that optimizes for Shiny New Things.

Yup. At least some of the generated heat can be captured in the form of bullet points on resumes, which can be used as leverage for promotions or new jobs.

Perhaps from a whole-system or whole-company perspective the result may be a net loss, but the endeavour may be quite postive for many of the people involved who are making or executing the decisions.

Re: Heat loss from big corporate projects

#40

Post by concrete-faucet » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 10:57 AM UTC

OscarCunningham wrote: post #36

Nition wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it funny, the amount of things like this that go on in the system we've created. Like how weird is it that "competition" - two companies both working on the same things against each other, without sharing what they know - can be better for the consumer than if both companies worked together. None of this is really going to change unless we can somehow make a world where making the world a truly better place can…

It seems to me like competing companies actually are incentivised to share information with each other. That would allow them both to cut costs. Does anyone know why they don't do this? Or know of examples where they do do this? Of course competition would force them both to lower prices after they cut costs, but this will lead to increased demand so both companies should be making more profit. Also if they have a th…

> Does anyone know why they don't do this? Or know of examples where they do do this?

Just about any capital-intensive industry cooperates. Your computer is made by any one of a few dozen companies; open it up and you'll see a bunch of parts made by suppliers. Open up a computer made by a competitor and you will see that most of the parts come from the very same suppliers.

The auto industry is both the same and different. I worked for an automotive electronics company in college. We'd get a binder full of specification in Japanese or German or French, translate it to English, and run the validation on the same part that went into a Ford or GM car, but with a few changes to the firmware to satisfy the differences in specifications. Most of the time, these things went out the door with no labels so the companies could put on their own.

Then there is collaboration between the automakers themselves. The new 10-speed transmission in Ford and GM trucks is a joint venture between the two. For decades, all automatic transmissions in BMWs came directly from GM. The new Mercedes Benz pickup truck is based on a Nissan. The upcoming Toyota Supra was joint developed with BMW. The new Diesel engines in Fords are co-developed with PSA. It goes on and on...