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Care Doesn't Scale

stevenscrawls.com

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Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#91

Post by _heimdall »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #66
hardlianotion wrote: post #55

Care does scale and the human race is evidence of that. It is centralisation that doesn't scale well.

but centralization is in many ways the thing that is needed to scale all sorts of other things.

I'd argue that centralization allows a scale that otherwise wouldn't have been possible, but at the cost of added fragility and externalized costs.

We produce way more corn in the US today than we could without a centralized industry, but we do so by subsidizing the hell out of an industry that is driven only by how much volume of corn is produced. Nutritional quality of the food produced is ignored, damage to the land is ignored, damage to the broader environment is ignored, etc.

We grow a small amount of corn on our land. We absolutely don't have as high or consistent yields as an industrial farm, but we also don't spray any poisons on the land and if the soil health was being negatively impacted we would know it pretty darn fast. Rain water from the corn patch runs down into the pond our cows drink from, another reason we wouldn't use poisons on the land. All of these are considerations one will likely make at a smaller scale that just won't happen with a centralized system driven by one or two primary goals (currently that's just money).

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#92

Post by jasfi »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #53
james-bcn wrote: post #42

I think this post on the same blog is much more interesting: ‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean Resort https://stevenscrawls.com/bucket-bump/

An interesting thought experiment

Probably, without any sources or anything related online it seems to be fiction.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#93

Post by theamk »

lucideer wrote: post #73
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but centralization is in many ways the thing that is needed to scale all sorts of other things.

No. Centralization isn't needed to scale, it's just needed to exploit scale. Exploitation has become so commonplace it's replaced everything as the primary "desirable metric". I'm writing this comment on a platform founded on the idea of exploitation being a desirable metric.

Try giving everyone housing without centralized production of things like nails, screws, siding electrical wire...

Decentralizization is fine sometimes, but a single huge nail factory is going to beat thousands backyard forges in (average/95th percentile) quality and especially in prices.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#94

Post by davidclark »

taylorius wrote: post #16

I think in the future, descendants of today's LLM models and some future version of Tesla's Optimus could create a paradigm shift in how care is given. I'm hopeful that when I get old, and inevitably come to need some help with living, that such a solution will be available.

This hypothetical bot can provide supportive actions - feeding, cleaning - but it can’t provide "care" in the way that people truly need.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#95

Post by FirmwareBurner »

beachy wrote: post #89
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Or importing even more foreign workers. Except you can't force foreign workers to do shit jobs the locals don't want. They're not slaves.

I don't think anyone's talking about forcing, or slavery. Foreign workers are improving their lot (and that of their families back home). In a world where they don't have the same economic opportunities in their home countries, and the locals don't want to do those "shit jobs", it's a win win. Even talking about shit jobs is pejorative. Foreign workers don't just pick fruit, they're also essential talent in healthcar…

>Even talking about shit jobs is pejorative.

Why is that? Do you think shit jobs don't exist? You think wiping other old people's asses is NOT a shit job? Are you lining up for these kinds of jobs yourself or did you work and study hard to not have to do them because you knew those jobs are shit and are usually given to the lowest underclass class of people who don't have better options due to various factors?

> Foreign workers don't just pick fruit

I never said such thing. The thread I replied was about importing workers for elderly care.

You're trying to project some things I didn't say onto me.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#96

Post by kubb »

username332211 wrote: post #83
kubb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totalitarian regimes often uphold traditional values like family as a means of control, promoting unity and loyalty to the state-yet they’ll redefine these values whenever it suits their ideology.

That's not really true. Marxism-Leninism famously sought to abolish the family and the Soviet union performed quite a few experiments in communal rearing of children in it's early years. The reason why totalitarian regimes end up promoting traditional values relations is that to them the only imperative superior to ideology is survival. There is a reason the Soviet Union backed off from it's repression of religion in…

Early Soviet Union did try to reshape family, but it went back on it eventually, seeing the value of the conservative family model in building social cohesion and loyalty.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#97

Post by james-bcn »

creesch wrote: post #57
james-bcn wrote: post #42

I think this post on the same blog is much more interesting: ‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean Resort https://stevenscrawls.com/bucket-bump/

Interesting maybe, but also one that lacks sources. It is entirely possible that this passed by me and I just didn't catch the thing mentioned in the blog post. But, I also can't find much in the way of any reference to it online. Not even a hint using various search terms and combinations as mentioned in the blog post. It very much gives the impression of it being a story made up as a vehicle for the main point they…

Yes I think it's made up. But it's not obvious that it is. Which makes me doubt the blog as a whole.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#98

Post by hprotagonist »

avhception wrote: post #61
Tade0 wrote: post #46

> But I wonder if part of that smaller focus comes from a deep realization that care doesn’t scale. My experience (and I believe it to be common) is that I'm really, really, really out of spare energy to care about anyone or anything else. Mind you, I'm in my best shape in years and I've explored my limits to find out they're actually way further than I originally thought, but still.

There was a story on HN a while ago that I can't seem to remember the title of. It was something along the lines of "The optimal amount of slack in an organization is not zero", or something like that. The argument was that, since it's impossible to plan for every eventuality, you need a certain amount of slack capacity in order to retain some flexibility. And that by always using 100% capacity, we end up dysfunction…

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#99

Post by FirmwareBurner »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #85
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Or importing even more foreign workers. Except you can't force foreign workers to do shit jobs the locals don't want. They're not slaves.

They don't need to be forced. They come here willing to do those jobs. After all, they're not slaves.

Exactly. They come willingly but you can't force them to wipe your old age ass once they're here.

Re: Care Doesn't Scale

#100

Post by intended »

hardlianotion wrote: post #55

Care does scale and the human race is evidence of that. It is centralisation that doesn't scale well.

This comes across as a comment on the headline and not the article.

The article had a very specific circumstance it built upon - how much human time time it takes to help kids.

This doesn’t scale, in the context of the article.

Your statement would translate into a point on economics and organization, than individual care.

This still obscures the fact that many critical functions don’t scale.

I would add that these tend to be under resourced in favor of things that do scale.

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