Care Doesn't Scale
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Care Doesn't Scale
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Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#2This is one reason why we have a state, which collect taxes and can provide those services.
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#3> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person.
What does this imply, that two parents cannot care for three children? I disagree.
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#4> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person. What does this imply, that two parents cannot care for three children? I disagree.
I don't think it's implying that at all. Whether or not you agree with the statement, it's referring to a specific moment. Most parents will have many moments with their children.
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#5> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person. What does this imply, that two parents cannot care for three children? I disagree.
No, they go on to say
> With four kids, the kids can feel like kids; if there were forty kids, they’d probably feel like they were cattle.
The point of the article is that you’ll never achieve economies of scale (10, 100, 1000x) for situations that require individualized attention, no matter how much engineering effort you put into it.
At least with today’s technology…
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#6> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person. What does this imply, that two parents cannot care for three children? I disagree.
No, because normal healthy children do not require 24/7 care, even as newborns.
Children in care do, partly because of the circumstances that led to them being in care, but mostly because the State in general is not willing to accept the same risk profile as individual parents.
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#7I think this is also interesting to keep in mind when thinking about the changes to the job market that are possible due to technology (e.g. AI).
Most of care will not be automated any time soon. And it is a huge part of the economy.
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#8This is ultimately a dichotomy between having the family unit or "the state" as the central point of governance. Many totalitarian regimes looked at newborns as "belonging to the state". The result is a unified mass person who dresses, thinks and acts in predictable ways.
The more power, personal connection and influence parents have over their children, the more diverse society will become.
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#9> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person. What does this imply, that two parents cannot care for three children? I disagree.
No, it's saying that _in any moment_ you can only focus deeply on, and thus care for, one other person. And if you have to care for multiple people, then you have to shift your focus moment to moment.
As a parent, can confirm. To give an example, it's really hard to hold and comfort two crying kids at the same time. When the toddlers are melting, they really want your whole attention and don't want to share it. If they're melting because they got in a fight with each other, it really takes an adult per toddler to help calm them.
That doesn't mean I can't love and care deeply for both kids, it just means you can only implement that caring with one at a time.
I think he's generalizing the point a bit and not all situations are like that. But it's close enough to accurate to be valid. Care doesn't scale.
Re: Care Doesn't Scale
#10This is a pretty big realization and one that resonates strongly with me. As an engineer, parenting can be frustrating, of course for the usual reasons, but also because you realize there’s really no way to “hack” it.
I feel like we as a society need to acknowledge that this probably applies to childcare, teaching, health and elder care to a large extent. That no matter how much private sector ingenuity you apply to some field, there is a hard upper bound to how much efficiency you can achieve. Cost savings basically just require making hard choices about who gets what.