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Groups never admit failure

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Re: Groups never admit failure

#41

Post by lumost »

jseliger wrote: post #2

I was on the board of a foundation that was charged with giving out money for a cause, and I found it very disillusioning because what I learned was that no matter what the foundation did, they would declare victory. Every project was victorious. Every project was a success. There was a lot of back slapping. There were a lot of high-sounding mission statements and vision statements, a lot of congratulations, a lot of…

An important corollary is that if you mistakenly attempt to rationally evaluate a program when everyone expects backslapping... then it's going to come across as a declaration of abject failure.

When stakeholders expect victory to look rosy, and instead it looks balanced then they'll believe something went wrong.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#42

Post by r3trohack3r »

poetically wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

Human's aren't the only species to do this. Yes, we are doing it at a novel scale, but boom/bust cycles of overpopulation are common in species that do not participate in a free exchange of goods and services.

Deer are a well studied example of a species that will expand beyond the ecosystem's natural carrying capacity - followed by a season where their population collapses from starvation. But deer do not chase profit.

I like to cut humans a bit of slack here. We are the first species I know of to identify we are exceeding our ecosystems carrying capacity and attempt to modify our own behavior to mitigate the looming bust cycle.

The worst thing I can say about humans is that we are collectively smart enough to identify we are causing damage to the ecosystem on a global scale but - so far - we are not collectively smart enough to effectively stop it. Though I think in time we will find we can curb this, and we will be smart enough to get through whatever damage we cause along the way.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#43

Post by someguydave »

poetically wrote: post #21
someguydave wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is your evidence for that claim?

That you'd be an entirely different person in another time and place? That's pretty obvious to anyone that has traveled anywhere other than the place they were born.

Not at all. For instance, identical twins raised apart have remarkably similar IQ test results, personalities, and habits.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#44

Post by bsder »

Animats wrote: post #3

A group will never admit they were wrong. A group will never admit, “We made a mistake,” because a group that tries to change its mind falls apart. I’m hard pressed to find examples in history of large groups that said, “We thought A, but the answer’s actually B.” Now that is a useful insight. It's a big problem for voluntary associations. Companies can sometimes change their culture, but it usually requires replacin…

> It took a huge number of casualties before high command got it that charging into machine guns does not work.

Well, there was a nice posting here (hopefully someone will find it) about WWI and that 1) stasis was effectively inevitable and 2) you do have to charge the enemy occasionally or you can't maintain your stasis (it prevents them from moving their artillery forward).

Edit: Thank you, malcomwhite. https://acoup.blog/2021/09/17/collections-no-mans-land-part-...

Re: Groups never admit failure

#45

Post by nawgz »

mlyle wrote: post #29
poetically wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common confusion. My argument is with profits and not with human nature because human nature is malleable. People can change their eating habits, they can change their transportation habits, they can change institutional arrangements that favor profits over well-being, they can change the forms of market transactions they find valuable. This isn't anything deep. These are just basic facts.

Grandparent said. > > Money is the medium of transaction of human needs and desires. Profit causes global warming only in so much as it fulfills human needs and desires for light, heat, transportation, industry, and energy in general. Vs. > My argument is with profits and not with human nature because human nature is malleable. People can change their eating habits, they can change their transportation habits To the…

> I don’t understand the gymnastics

100 corporations produce 70% of the pollution, this is the common mantra right? I don’t think there’s any gymnastics here. It’s clear that the unchecked power of corporations - structures entirely dedicated to profit - has lead to unchecked damages against the environment as single men are enabled to take terrible actions and then hide (legally speaking) behind the amorphous profit entity.

Perhaps this is “human nature” in as much as the nature of the most depraved of us is to destroy everything in pursuit of self interest, but it’s, philosophically speaking, an extremely weak and narrow-minded argument you make here to imply the modern man is to blame for the modern problems, and not those powerful in his society

Re: Groups never admit failure

#46

Post by mlyle »

poetically wrote: post #33
mlyle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grandparent said. > > Money is the medium of transaction of human needs and desires. Profit causes global warming only in so much as it fulfills human needs and desires for light, heat, transportation, industry, and energy in general. Vs. > My argument is with profits and not with human nature because human nature is malleable. People can change their eating habits, they can change their transportation habits To the…

What exactly in human nature requires profit?

No one has said human nature requires profit. You made the claim that profit motive, and not human nature was behind all these ills; others claim that those ills being profitable just represents human nature.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#47

Post by mlyle »

nawgz wrote: post #45
mlyle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grandparent said. > > Money is the medium of transaction of human needs and desires. Profit causes global warming only in so much as it fulfills human needs and desires for light, heat, transportation, industry, and energy in general. Vs. > My argument is with profits and not with human nature because human nature is malleable. People can change their eating habits, they can change their transportation habits To the…

> I don’t understand the gymnastics 100 corporations produce 70% of the pollution, this is the common mantra right? I don’t think there’s any gymnastics here. It’s clear that the unchecked power of corporations - structures entirely dedicated to profit - has lead to unchecked damages against the environment as single men are enabled to take terrible actions and then hide (legally speaking) behind the amorphous profit…

> 100 corporations produce 70% of the pollution, this is the common mantra right?

If you don't ascribe any of the pollution to the individuals and industries using their products, and only to the initial production, sure.

E.g. if you blame the company making the gasoline and not the person burning it in their car. Or the company shipping goods to consumers, but not the consumer ordering and receiving them.

I don't view this as a particularly useful way to view things, though.

That is, capitalism is really efficient at delivering on what end-customers want. If that ends up being bad in some way, well-- the only solution is one of:

* Convince people not to want the thing

* Prevent the thing from causing the harm, by regulation or taxing the externality

* Choose a less efficient economic system and hope that the problem goes away by being less efficient

Re: Groups never admit failure

#48

Post by DantesKite »

I feel the same way about charities. There are some great ones out there, but I think it takes a special culture and unique circumstances to not eventually be corrupted by bad actors.

I still feel if you want to change the world, one of the best ways is to build an ethical business.

Re: Groups never admit failure

#49

Post by tangjurine »

smabie wrote: post #27
poetically wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to like heroin as well. What is your point?

What's your point? People do things they like. You can't stop them.

Wait, but don't countries stop people from doing heroin, and various other things people don't like?

Re: Groups never admit failure

#50

Post by jschveibinz »

tehjoker wrote: post #35
jschveibinz wrote: post #6

I can’t agree more with this post. This brings to mind some Milton Friedman quotes: * Governments never learn. Only people learn. * One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. * He moves fastest who moves alone. * Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own… *…

> One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. It's useful to remember what Friedman's advice did to Chile when he supported the Pinochet regime. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-chicago-boys-i... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/ma...

Just to clarify, Milton Friedman most likely did not “support” the Pinochet regime. Here is another article on the topic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2008/07/milton-...

Nevertheless, Friedman’s words stand on their own, and I thought that the addition of the quotes worked well with the post. I am not making political statements, because I don’t find them to be appropriate for HN. Peace.

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