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Nobody cares

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Re: Nobody cares

#531

Post by HL33tibCe7 »

My instinctive, gut reaction is to hate this article, because I suspect its written by the kind of person who thinks they are better than everyone else.

But on deeper reflection I think they are actually right. Our civilisation became great because people took pride in their work - and not just at the crop level: the average poor tailor or cobbler would take 100x more pride in their work than the average government employee today. This is a problem — I suspect largely caused by the internet and technology warping people’s reward mechanisms - and it needs addressing.

Re: Nobody cares

#532

Post by Seattle3503 »

rgovostes wrote: post #499

One thing that depresses me is how ugly our cities have become. Buildings that go up are designed with a total lack of aesthetic intention. In Seattle, ostensibly there is a design review committee for multifamily and commercial buildings, but it doesn't appear to have made the city look any better, and their 2025 goals include "streamlining the Design Review process to be quicker and less costly for applicants, and…

> One thing that depresses me is how ugly our cities have become. Buildings that go up are designed with a total lack of aesthetic intention. In Seattle, ostensibly there is a design review committee for multifamily and commercial buildings, but it doesn't appear to have made the city look any better, and their 2025 goals include "streamlining the Design Review process to be quicker and less costly for applicants, and reducing the number of projects that are required to go through Design Review."

> This is the committee that's supposed to care about this, and they don't. And the architects don't because they're not being paid to make a beautiful façade. And the developers don't because they want to finish construction as quickly and cheaply as possible. And the residents of the city don't care because they're apathetic about living in a beautiful environment.

There is a tradeoff between affordability and aesthetics. Lengthy review processes make housing more expensive. Seattle cares, but it cares more about affordability. With the cost of housing right now I think that's the right call. Who cares how beautiful grand buildings appear when you have people living in the street?

Re: Nobody cares

#533

Post by akoboldfrying »

rgovostes wrote: post #499

One thing that depresses me is how ugly our cities have become. Buildings that go up are designed with a total lack of aesthetic intention. In Seattle, ostensibly there is a design review committee for multifamily and commercial buildings, but it doesn't appear to have made the city look any better, and their 2025 goals include "streamlining the Design Review process to be quicker and less costly for applicants, and…

Do you think New York and Florence have those beautiful buildings because their local design review committees had high standards? I don't.

I think aesthetics should nearly always come second to other concerns, except in very specialised cases. For a start, it's largely a matter of personal taste. "Streamlining the design review process" is something I wish was more of a priority where I live. Those rates (local property tax) dollars are much better spent on almost anything else in my opinion.

Re: Nobody cares

#534

Post by [deleted] »

azeirah wrote: post #210

> The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care. I was working in this space! And I got fired for refusing to work on more upsell features for clients like Coca Cola and such. I don't want to work on adding fucking ADS into c…

[deleted]

Re: Nobody cares

#535

Post by InsideOutSanta »

DharmaPolice wrote: post #77

As someone who works for a local government bureaucracy - not caring is a coping mechanism because if you let every sub-optimal thing bother you then you'd just burn out. Very few jobs are structured in a way that those directly involved can determine how things are done so there is no real value in caring about how long a process takes. Where people have some agency you might be surprised how much people do care eve…

This is the answer. It's not just government bureaucracy, large corporations are intentionally built to diffuse responsibility in order to allow the corporation to do things any single person would find abhorrent. This means that if you see something you want to fix, you most likely can't, because nobody is really fully responsible for that thing or can directly do anything about it.

So you just hit your head against wall after wall after wall until you burn out, and that's how you learn to just do your job instead.

Re: Nobody cares

#536

Post by xanderlewis »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #339
throwaway2037 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt people in Japan care more or less than anywhere else. They do care more than most countries where I have visited or lived. There is a real send of "excellence" about their public behaviour that is hard to replicate. For example, when you queue to board a train, people stay to the side to allow passengers to exit. After others have exited, they board the train. (Tourists sometimes make the mistake of rushing…

This is how trains work in Bangkok also, and Thai culture is very different from Japanese culture. This is just how trains work in that place. It’s not deeper than that.

Same in the UK. Isn’t waiting for others to get off before you get on just basic courtesy? There are definitely individuals who don’t do this, but most do. Same in lifts.

Other than that, I completely agree that people in Japan seem to care and take their jobs more seriously than elsewhere. Though my Japanese friends would probably tell me that it’s not because they deeply care — really they’re just terrified of standing out. Still, perhaps the resulting society is worth it! High trust is great.

Re: Nobody cares

#537

Post by bibelo »

I totally agree with the article and the examples. Problem here in France is the same: many people do not care. I would not say it's a majority, but a minority is enough to ruin other people's lives.

I'm really annoyed by the noise. From the deafening motorbike engine in the street, to the idiot with his speaker vomitting rap music, to the neighbor having a party until 3AM, they do not care.

Why is that? Mostly because modern western civilizations promote a me-first culture. Look at these personal developpment books: it's mostly about caring for yourself, barely about the others. When it's about the others, it's to advance your interests.

We do not learn from infancy to put others' interests first. Basic principles and values like selflessness are taught NOWHERE. When a problem arises here in France, you get yet another law to restrict and punish. We should just teach peoples to care for others.

I'm longering for a world when people care, where people who are "lovers of themselves", "not open to any agreement, without self-control, without love of goodness" will have disappeared,

and where "there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving", where this is applied: "All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must do to them", will be the standard.

Re: Nobody cares

#538

Post by azeirah »

aaron695 wrote: post #371
azeirah wrote: post #210

> The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care. I was working in this space! And I got fired for refusing to work on more upsell features for clients like Coca Cola and such. I don't want to work on adding fucking ADS into c…

McDonald's touch-screen were only profitable because users ordered more. Possibly Covid and processes to get costs down have changed this, but not to begin. I feel like your comment falls under "Nobody cares" I love the touch screens and having the time to order what I want. I used to rush my order at the checkout and never got exactly what I wanted. If you did a start-up 'ethical ordering' you'd care, made money, an…

I was working so hard to change the internal culture for this.

I did not succeed.

It's ran by business people who want to make money. Not by philosophers.

Re: Nobody cares

#539

Post by nusl »

hoosier2gator wrote: post #344

As a physician who does care, I found it interesting that he chose to include doctors in this tirade but then patted himself on the back for squashing bugs quickly and feeling badly about having written buggy code. I know that there are outliers, but in meeting and working with literally hundreds of other physicians at this point in my career, I can count on one hand the doctors who truly do not care. And boy do we f…

My personal experience with multiple doctors, some in primary care and others in hospitals, is that they often don't care and just want to get you out of the door.

Bring up some symptoms not immediately easily attributed to something? Sorry, those are "nonspecific symptoms" and they can't help you. Maybe see a specialist, maybe not. Figure it out.

Obviously this isn't all of them, but it is definitely a decent chunk.

Re: Nobody cares

#540

Post by akoboldfrying »

photonthug wrote: post #466
bruce511 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a cop out. There are lots of alternatives to McDonald's. There are lots of alternatives to most things. Some cost more money though. That's kinda the point.

What if I can't drive all the way to an ad-free restaurant or for that matter an ad-free gas pump? What if I buy a plane ticket to get out of this bad situation and the airline is using the emergency PA to harass their captive audience of paying customers to join their miles club? What can't be avoided must endured, but there is no reason for people like you to insist that this is fine or normal, or that it's somethi…

You seem to believe that you're entitled to certain things that are provided by other businesses -- but on your terms.

I don't know why you think that.

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