7 ms·

I encourage you to stop thinking about the world in binary terms. how much engineering matters for financial success is a continuous function of several parame

I encourage you to stop thinking about the world in binary terms. how much engineering matters for financial success is a continuous function of several parameters. It's never about either not mattering at all or mattering 100%

gumby 10y ago
I agree, and to carry it a little further: the essence of engineering is good tradeoffs (can I build an adequate bridge for the needed cost? If I can carry more cargo in this plane, can I make the fuel requirement grow linearly or better? zip we cut the range 10% we can cut the op ex 20% -- will that still work? Do I really need to spec precision resistors or can I compensate somewhere else? The trade off skills apply outside the engineering domain as well.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Except with engineering you're often dealing with non-monetary tradeoffs. The plane serves a valuable purpose outside of making someone some money. The quality work/better marketing tradeoff is all about making someone money by providing negative real-world value to others.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    > The quality work/better marketing tradeoff is all about making someone money by providing negative real-world value to others I don't think a blanket put-down of all marketing as negative value is really true. Of course there are instances where marketing is dishonest or harmful, but by and large, how do you expect people to discover goods and services if there isn't someone who's willing to pay for the cost of dissemination of information, whether it's a marketer, or Google's search algorithm, or the consumer?
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      I think bringing up marketing-as-information-dissemination is a red herring, because it's only a small fraction of the whole thing. The cost of telling people about a product/service should obviously be paid by the product/service provider - but we've solved that thing with a printing press, in the form of yellow pages and newspaper classifieds. Google's costs per company indexed are probably even cheaper. Marketing is by and large about gaming the way people select goods and services, so that you can sell more regardless of the quality of your offerings, or of whether the client actually needs it.
      - smallnamespace 10y ago
        > Marketing is by and large about gaming the way people select goods and services, so that you can sell more regardless of the quality of your offerings, or of whether the client actually needs it. That may be the objective function of the marketer or salesperson, but it doesn't follow that marketing itself is a simple net transfer of wealth from consumers to producers. > I think bringing up marketing-as-information-dissemination is a red herring, because it's only a small fraction of the whole thing. The marketer is not paying to move bits to a consumer, the marketer is paying for the consumer's attention, which is much more limited than our ability to move bits around. Do you have an alternative fair and equitable way of allocating that scarce resource? For example, if we went with your suggestion and restricted marketing to only classifieds and other forms of print advertising, then we would expect the cost of placing ads there to skyrocket as everyone competes for scarce space. Also, the same risks of manipulation and dishonesty apply just as well there: https://www.google.com/search?q=snake+oil+ad&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=776&tbm=isch&imgil=cs5GzwK1uMiPfM%253A%253B65Wvj1AGRDBRLM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fjoshuaspodek.com%25252Fcognitive-behavioral-therapy-problems-2%25252Fsnake-oil-ad&source=iu&pf=m&fir=cs5GzwK1uMiPfM%253A%252C65Wvj1AGRDBRLM%252C_&usg=__xO5TOMKIJt1tQpw_QQu0nkNEVS8%3D&ved=0ahUKEwiTt_q69v3OAhUBR2MKHTUoDFAQyjcIKQ&ei=vWHQV9PkAYGOjQO10LCABQ#imgrc=cs5GzwK1uMiPfM%3A https://www.google.com/search?q=snake+oil+ad&espv=2&biw=1440...
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        > Do you have an alternative fair and equitable way of allocating that scarce resource? Yes. Not allocating it. What you call trying to "allocate" consumer's attention is, from the point of view of a consumer, people purposefully attempting to distract you from living your life in order to extract money from you. In all other contexts of life we would call such people "assholes". Classifieds have the benefit of consumers paying attention only when they want to pay attention. Time is the most precious thing we have in life. Attempts to take it away from other people should be treated more seriously, IMO. It's never just one marketer - they're competing for attention just as they would compete for classified space.
  - gumby 10y ago
    You're making a false dichotomy. Engineering tradeoffs are very much about costs. I could (well once upon a time I could :-) design a bridge that's stable up to a (not very) nearby atomic blast; more stable than the bedrock it's built on. But that would require an unnecessary level of resources (unless atomic resistance is in fact a design requirement). I could design the most super-awesome web site that scales to 40 billion unique visitors...but it's unlikely to be needed (though if some of the uniques are robotic, perhaps it is). Simply choosing an alloy that's simpler to work with the tools on hand is a rescue tradeoff, and those resources are time and money. Likewise, the plane (I assume you mean airplane) has only one valuable purpose (transport people or goods that someone wants transported) and that is denominated in money. Make it cheaper and more people can fly, or pay less for their gadgets or fresh shellfish. It's incredibly naive to to say that marketing is some zero-sum game. If you have an amazing bandage that is cheap and saves lives you still have to get the word out.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      > If you have an amazing bandage that is cheap and saves lives you still have to get the word out. The core topic in this subthread is focusing work on marketing the bandage instead of making it cheaper/save more lives, because marketing has much better ROI than actually providing value to people. And the word can get out fine by itself, actually. The word of mouth is a pretty effective thing - and a lot of marketing is trying to game it, getting increased profits by destroying its usefulness.
      - aidenn0 10y ago
        Here's an example with the metaphor where marketing is not zero-sum: 1) Person A makes a crappy bandage (Y units of quality) with X units of budget and markets with 9X units of budget 2) Person B makes a decent bandage (5Y units of quality) with 5X units of budget. If person B were to also market the bandage with 5X units of budget, they will take a larger fraction of person A's market share than if they don't, thus providing more value to people. Yes you can argue that if person A didn't exist, then they wouldn't need to spend this money and the bandage could be cheaper, but this is clearly an example where adding marginal marketing can be a net benefit to society.
okwhatthe2 10y ago
> never about In some situations, it is about 1 or 0, because the output of that continuous function at a certain time t is put through a thresholding function: either buy or don't. I'm simply pointing out that it's more accurate to look at the world in terms of degrees. "never" and "always" have, I believe, a high degree of built-in denial.

gumby 10y ago

I agree, and to carry it a little further: the essence of engineering is good tradeoffs (can I build an adequate bridge for the needed cost? If I can carry more cargo in this plane, can I make the fuel requirement grow linearly or better? zip we cut the range 10% we can cut the op ex 20% -- will that still work? Do I really need to spec precision resistors or can I compensate somewhere else? The trade off skills apply outside the engineering domain as well.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Except with engineering you're often dealing with non-monetary tradeoffs. The plane serves a valuable purpose outside of making someone some money. The quality work/better marketing tradeoff is all about making someone money by providing negative real-world value to others.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  > The quality work/better marketing tradeoff is all about making someone money by providing negative real-world value to others I don't think a blanket put-down of all marketing as negative value is really true. Of course there are instances where marketing is dishonest or harmful, but by and large, how do you expect people to discover goods and services if there isn't someone who's willing to pay for the cost of dissemination of information, whether it's a marketer, or Google's search algorithm, or the consumer?
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I think bringing up marketing-as-information-dissemination is a red herring, because it's only a small fraction of the whole thing. The cost of telling people about a product/service should obviously be paid by the product/service provider - but we've solved that thing with a printing press, in the form of yellow pages and newspaper classifieds. Google's costs per company indexed are probably even cheaper. Marketing is by and large about gaming the way people select goods and services, so that you can sell more regardless of the quality of your offerings, or of whether the client actually needs it.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      > Marketing is by and large about gaming the way people select goods and services, so that you can sell more regardless of the quality of your offerings, or of whether the client actually needs it. That may be the objective function of the marketer or salesperson, but it doesn't follow that marketing itself is a simple net transfer of wealth from consumers to producers. > I think bringing up marketing-as-information-dissemination is a red herring, because it's only a small fraction of the whole thing. The marketer is not paying to move bits to a consumer, the marketer is paying for the consumer's attention, which is much more limited than our ability to move bits around. Do you have an alternative fair and equitable way of allocating that scarce resource? For example, if we went with your suggestion and restricted marketing to only classifieds and other forms of print advertising, then we would expect the cost of placing ads there to skyrocket as everyone competes for scarce space. Also, the same risks of manipulation and dishonesty apply just as well there: https://www.google.com/search?q=snake+oil+ad&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=776&tbm=isch&imgil=cs5GzwK1uMiPfM%253A%253B65Wvj1AGRDBRLM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fjoshuaspodek.com%25252Fcognitive-behavioral-therapy-problems-2%25252Fsnake-oil-ad&source=iu&pf=m&fir=cs5GzwK1uMiPfM%253A%252C65Wvj1AGRDBRLM%252C_&usg=__xO5TOMKIJt1tQpw_QQu0nkNEVS8%3D&ved=0ahUKEwiTt_q69v3OAhUBR2MKHTUoDFAQyjcIKQ&ei=vWHQV9PkAYGOjQO10LCABQ#imgrc=cs5GzwK1uMiPfM%3A https://www.google.com/search?q=snake+oil+ad&espv=2&biw=1440...
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        > Do you have an alternative fair and equitable way of allocating that scarce resource? Yes. Not allocating it. What you call trying to "allocate" consumer's attention is, from the point of view of a consumer, people purposefully attempting to distract you from living your life in order to extract money from you. In all other contexts of life we would call such people "assholes". Classifieds have the benefit of consumers paying attention only when they want to pay attention. Time is the most precious thing we have in life. Attempts to take it away from other people should be treated more seriously, IMO. It's never just one marketer - they're competing for attention just as they would compete for classified space.
- gumby 10y ago
  You're making a false dichotomy. Engineering tradeoffs are very much about costs. I could (well once upon a time I could :-) design a bridge that's stable up to a (not very) nearby atomic blast; more stable than the bedrock it's built on. But that would require an unnecessary level of resources (unless atomic resistance is in fact a design requirement). I could design the most super-awesome web site that scales to 40 billion unique visitors...but it's unlikely to be needed (though if some of the uniques are robotic, perhaps it is). Simply choosing an alloy that's simpler to work with the tools on hand is a rescue tradeoff, and those resources are time and money. Likewise, the plane (I assume you mean airplane) has only one valuable purpose (transport people or goods that someone wants transported) and that is denominated in money. Make it cheaper and more people can fly, or pay less for their gadgets or fresh shellfish. It's incredibly naive to to say that marketing is some zero-sum game. If you have an amazing bandage that is cheap and saves lives you still have to get the word out.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    > If you have an amazing bandage that is cheap and saves lives you still have to get the word out. The core topic in this subthread is focusing work on marketing the bandage instead of making it cheaper/save more lives, because marketing has much better ROI than actually providing value to people. And the word can get out fine by itself, actually. The word of mouth is a pretty effective thing - and a lot of marketing is trying to game it, getting increased profits by destroying its usefulness.
    - aidenn0 10y ago
      Here's an example with the metaphor where marketing is not zero-sum: 1) Person A makes a crappy bandage (Y units of quality) with X units of budget and markets with 9X units of budget 2) Person B makes a decent bandage (5Y units of quality) with 5X units of budget. If person B were to also market the bandage with 5X units of budget, they will take a larger fraction of person A's market share than if they don't, thus providing more value to people. Yes you can argue that if person A didn't exist, then they wouldn't need to spend this money and the bandage could be cheaper, but this is clearly an example where adding marginal marketing can be a net benefit to society.

okwhatthe2 10y ago

> never about In some situations, it is about 1 or 0, because the output of that continuous function at a certain time t is put through a thresholding function: either buy or don't. I'm simply pointing out that it's more accurate to look at the world in terms of degrees. "never" and "always" have, I believe, a high degree of built-in denial.