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The dictatorship of the articulate

florentcrivello.com

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Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#311

Post by diordiderot »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #268
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #156

This is what I consider the modern face of Fascism. I know you're not supposed to use that word, because it really upsets Fascists. But really, long passionately argued essays about how democratic governance is stopping us from returning to the good old days and we should let the powerful do whatever they want. Using dubious emotional arguments like laundromats can't be historic buildings? Calling things dictatorship…

This comment can only originate from someone who has lived in democracy all their life. Having travelled the world for most of my life, and saw dictatorship at work, I think a lot of HN and Twitter evil sensors need serious calibration. It's like looking at somebody with diabetes and saying they have terminal AIDS.

These days HIV is much easier to live with than diabetes.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#312

Post by diordiderot »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #257
thrown_22 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they also made the trains run on time. I guess Switzerland is the fascist capital of the world with their perfect time tables. The reason why fascism is bad isn't because it ignores the trappings of American kleptocracy, it's bad because it kills people.

Ha, I nearly brought that myth up as further evidence: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/ Why do people have such a false, cartoon-like, impression of what actual historical fascist movements did? But you're right, it's much more important that he killed people: > Fascist squads, militias inspired by Mussolini but often created by local leaders, swept through the countryside of the Po Valley and the Pugli…

so funny that what are now mainstream left of center parties in europe are labeled as 'radicals'

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#313

Post by svnt »

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #214
kortilla wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False dichotomy. Look at the delays and cost balloons of the HSR project. They have nothing to do with safety of workers. You can adopt modern safety standards and still wipeout a ton of roadblocks to actually get started much sooner by just generally using eminent domain more freely and not empowering people to so easily stop projects with lawsuits.

Precisely! I saw an NDC Cooenhagen talk recently. I think it was called “Biggest mistakes in programming” or something like that. In the talk the guy mentioned at some point fixing a db problem. The way he described it, he was contracted to describe the problem and provide guidance on how to fix it. Not to actually fix, just analyse and describe the solution. But the problem was so simple he just made the fix and off…

Probably there was a long history of people proposing fixes to this particular problem. While a specific technical issue was obvious to him, the problem was not understood at that level by those in charge. Those in charge also had far more to lose than he did by accepting the input of yet another expert on faith.

Chalking this up to pointless bureaucracy is in a sense the inverse of the “build it like that but six inches to the left” class of requests from non-technical stakeholders.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#314

Post by lupire »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #102
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #91

There's a reason we don't just "let the builders build". We used to do that (certainly to a massively greater extent than we do now), and the result was that although a few of them managed to construct monuments we can all be proud of, most of them built a pile of crap and/or damaged the places they built in and the people they nominally built for. This is true of literal buildings, but it's also true of a great many…

Indeed. As the saying goes, legislation is often written in blood. Like how the Triangle fire led to a rule that "you can't lock all the exits of a building, even if you're worried your workers will take unauthorized breaks".

There are two kinds of regulations: "don't hurt other people for your own benefit", and "do something that is theoretically helpful ignoring the cost/benefit to the people it helps" like adding safety features.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#315

Post by selimthegrim »

cortesoft wrote: post #288
selimthegrim wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family actually were Muslims in the US in 1950, and I’m a little irritated at the suggestion of lacking agency.

I am not sure where you got the idea that I was saying a Muslim wouldn’t have agency. I am only saying that if a Muslim was dropped in the middle of the country in the 1950s, they would likely encounter difficulties that a white man wouldnt, and that assuming you could just go anywhere in the 1950s and be easily successful is not equally true for everyone.

Muslims can be white too. Muslim isn’t a race.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#316

Post by shaftoe »

dnrvs wrote: post #234
shaftoe wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascists believe in a strong authority. This article is arguing to have less of one, inherently more laisse faire. Democracy doesn't mean freedom. What you're describing is the modern face of communism. I know you're not supposed to use the word because it really upsets communists.

The article is arguing that the people the author agrees with should have more authority to do what they want and the people they disagree with should have less. And when those people won't leave then "we need to be okay ruffling some feathers". Sounds pretty fascist aligning to me.

If you can tell me that I cannot do something with my property, and I want the freedom to tell you to take a hike, I don't see how that makes me a fascist.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#317

Post by stonemetal12 »

treis wrote: post #259
yodelshady wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Airlines do well, and they're heavily regulated. But they don't have armies of engineers doing nothing whilst court cases are worked out. The flip side of that is monopoly. The only recent aviation accidents that have happened, have done so because, put bluntly, the FAA knows they didn't stand a chance if they blocked the only (US) big-jet maker from upgrading its planes. Were there (US) competitors, which on…

That's not really true. The MAX issues were in large part a result of trying to keep the same type rating. An almost entirely artificial requirement generated by the FAA. In an ideal world Boeing would have said this is the Max, it's slightly different and you need to do a little training to get used to the difference. But that means a new type rating which causes all sorts of operational headaches.

My understanding is what you are suggesting is how it works. The only question is how to measure "slightly different". FAA thought the differences were bigger than slightly and needed more than a little training. So Boeing tried to use software to paper over the differences.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#318

Post by wyre »

shswkna wrote: post #241
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #91

There's a reason we don't just "let the builders build". We used to do that (certainly to a massively greater extent than we do now), and the result was that although a few of them managed to construct monuments we can all be proud of, most of them built a pile of crap and/or damaged the places they built in and the people they nominally built for. This is true of literal buildings, but it's also true of a great many…

I believe you will not come to an agreement with those that find that the opposite is true (‘let builders build’) because ultimately it boils down to one’s outlook on life and what we deem important (‘our value system’). By arguing in favour of regulation, you have a set of assumptions and expectations that support your view. For example, in the literal case of buildings, you might be thinking of rent-seekers and gre…

Others have commented on the other fallacies in your post but you say

>If evolution had been “conservative”

When has evolution not been conservative? Tiny changes over the span of generations is certainly not liberal or radical. It took what, hundreds of thousands of years if not more for us to evolve into Homo sapiens and develop intelligence.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#319

Post by kansface »

rwl wrote: post #120
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #91

There's a reason we don't just "let the builders build". We used to do that (certainly to a massively greater extent than we do now), and the result was that although a few of them managed to construct monuments we can all be proud of, most of them built a pile of crap and/or damaged the places they built in and the people they nominally built for. This is true of literal buildings, but it's also true of a great many…

There was also a cost in human life. I saw a photo exhibition [1] about the construction of the Bay Bridge once, containing many beautiful shots from the point of view of the workers. The photos were taken by Peter Stackpole, a 20 year old kid who basically just talked his way onto the boats that took the workers out to the site. He took photos of the towers as they were being riveted together, of the cables being wo…

> But it's hard for me to see that as a bad thing

I'd buy this argument so long as you actually sit down to do the math at hand. Did you add up the man years we now spend waiting on safety? How does that compare to the lives we saved waiting, or the money we spent doing so? I'm personally guessing a very large amount of the required waiting exists chiefly for bureaucratic needs, not human. How much of that extra 6T$ and 7 years went to saving lives in the first place? How many other lives could we have saved with it if we had it in hand?

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#320

Post by cardiffspaceman »

njarboe wrote: post #291
hourago wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by people who have never, and will never work a job that could be dangerous It may be even worse. Quite often people that suffers from dangerous jobs will also support the situation as they fear the uncertainty of what change may mean. That a worker in a dangerous environment is willing to accept it to get food on the table does not mean that it is the right work environment. But, of course, the main proposers of u…

Some people (mostly men) actually enjoy dangerous situations. Especially if there is a purpose for the danger. Look at all the people doing extreme sports. The military, police, and fire fighters are the main jobs left for people like that. There used to be a lot more.

Apropos of building suspension bridges, different people apprehend the danger of situations differently. I recognized this when I read that Alex Honnold doesn't like to be on ledges. When I climb, I love ledges and given about 12 inches of ledge I would host a party. But I never could climb without a belay the way Honnold does. I could never jam my fist into a crack in granite and just hang from it. ETA I don't have Honnold's talent.

Also I think when people are in a hard-core feed-my-family situation, they dig deep into their resolve, follow the safety rules, and avoid looking down.

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