4 ms·

The idea of trading individual control of companies for a cabal in a James Bond villain esque room sipping whisky and smoking cigars sounds idiotic. I suppose

by fixxer 10y ago

The idea of trading individual control of companies for a cabal in a James Bond villain esque room sipping whisky and smoking cigars sounds idiotic. I suppose todays equivalent would ditch the cabal for a computer. Would you trust a computer to map out every dependency in the economy, down to the factory floor? Would you want to live in that world?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
captainmuon 10y ago
> Would you want to live in that world? Depends... if that amounts to a central agency micromanaging every aspect of economy, then certainly not. We all know how that ends. But if it means there is a central intelligence (democraticly controlled, like by a parliament and not a dictatorship!) that can override individual business decisions in important corporations, then sure. It is well known in economics that decisions that make sense for individuals (corporations, persons) can be detrimental to society as a whole. A pareto-optimum by no means has to be the "best" or "most desirable" optimum. It would be nice if someone could say, after appropriate research and debate, "Hello Amazon, it is great that you are running so well and expanding so much. But we as a society have decided that we can live without further delivery speed improvements in this year. OTOH, we think your workers deserve a bit more money. Please reallocate $N to their salaries." Or, "Dear energy companies, after reviewing all the facts, we have decided that technology X (nuclear, fracking, ...) is not worth the risk to us. We'd rather accept a loss of 3% or stagnation for N years in wealth. Please reallocate resources to build more Y (solar, wind power, ...)"
- queirozfcom 10y ago
  Would you invest in a country that could overrule your decisions based on its political priorities? I wouldn't.
- blahi 10y ago
  >But if it means there is a central intelligence (democraticly controlled, like by a parliament and not a dictatorship!) that can override individual business decisions in important corporations, then sure We have that. It's just corrupt. Like everything humans do is doomed to be. So please, enough centralization already.
wu-ikkyu 10y ago
>Would you trust a computer to map out every dependency in the economy, down to the factory floor? Would you want to live in that world? Computers already do that, for the most part. Computers also don't lie, humans do. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150209-the-network-that-runs-the-world http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150209-the-network-that-ru...
- fixxer 10y ago
  Definitely an awesome link (thanks), but last I checked, Maersk was around 15% of global shipping. I would not conflate a company's logistics software (with a narrow focus on shipping) with pulling the strings on the broad-based economy.
  - alvarosm 10y ago
    The BBC will distort anything to prove their point: that socialism is great.
    - detaro 10y ago
      How do you get any of that from the linked article? It's a factual description how a large company operates internally, nothing more. Is an article about how an automaker uses robots on their factory lines also promoting socialism? What do think is distorted in the article?
      - alvarosm 10y ago
        Right. I guessed and I guessed wrong. I've seen them do it so many times that I jumped the gun.
  - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
    Doesn't vertical integration increase efficiency, when properly executed? Integrating legacy computer systems almost invariably leads to greater efficiency.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
> The idea of trading individual control of companies for a cabal in a James Bond villain esque room sipping whisky and smoking cigars sounds idiotic. Sorry, what do you mean by "individual control"? Most companies I know are already controlled by a cabal of James Bond villains sitting in a room sipping stuff. It's called the board of directors, although usually they're drinking something lighter than whiskey. >I suppose todays equivalent would ditch the cabal for a computer. Would you trust a computer to map out every dependency in the economy, down to the factory floor? Would you want to live in that world? I mean, you trust combinatorially chaotic and unpredictable things called "markets" as if they were anything other than a combinatorially large, massively distributed stochastic optimization method, so I don't see why we can't solve large stochastic optimization problems with computers.
- aminok 10y ago
  >Sorry, what do you mean by "individual control"? Most companies I know are already controlled by a cabal of James Bond villains sitting in a room sipping stuff. It's called the board of directors, although usually they're drinking something lighter than whiskey. He means each company has independent control of its assets. They may be run hierarchically, but they only get as large as their competency allows. As soon as an individual company stops operating effectively, it stops growing its market share. >I mean, you trust combinatorially chaotic and unpredictable things called "markets" as if they were anything other than a combinatorially large, massively distributed stochastic optimization method, so I don't see why we can't solve large stochastic optimization problems with computers. I trust the mutual consent underlying every relationship in a market, which drives everything in markets to greater sum efficiency and value. I don't trust monopolies where managerial control over economic resources is not strictly required, by the incentives that emerge from its underlying rules, to be a product of creating Pareto improvements. With top down systems, you need an artificial system of incentives to maintain production growth. In a system based on contractual relationships and independent control over the property one generates/acquires-in-trade, incentives are spontaneously and naturally generated.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago

by fixxer 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

captainmuon 10y ago

> Would you want to live in that world? Depends... if that amounts to a central agency micromanaging every aspect of economy, then certainly not. We all know how that ends. But if it means there is a central intelligence (democraticly controlled, like by a parliament and not a dictatorship!) that can override individual business decisions in important corporations, then sure. It is well known in economics that decisions that make sense for individuals (corporations, persons) can be detrimental to society as a whole. A pareto-optimum by no means has to be the "best" or "most desirable" optimum. It would be nice if someone could say, after appropriate research and debate, "Hello Amazon, it is great that you are running so well and expanding so much. But we as a society have decided that we can live without further delivery speed improvements in this year. OTOH, we think your workers deserve a bit more money. Please reallocate $N to their salaries." Or, "Dear energy companies, after reviewing all the facts, we have decided that technology X (nuclear, fracking, ...) is not worth the risk to us. We'd rather accept a loss of 3% or stagnation for N years in wealth. Please reallocate resources to build more Y (solar, wind power, ...)"

queirozfcom 10y ago
Would you invest in a country that could overrule your decisions based on its political priorities? I wouldn't.
blahi 10y ago
>But if it means there is a central intelligence (democraticly controlled, like by a parliament and not a dictatorship!) that can override individual business decisions in important corporations, then sure We have that. It's just corrupt. Like everything humans do is doomed to be. So please, enough centralization already.

wu-ikkyu 10y ago

>Would you trust a computer to map out every dependency in the economy, down to the factory floor? Would you want to live in that world? Computers already do that, for the most part. Computers also don't lie, humans do. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150209-the-network-that-runs-the-world http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150209-the-network-that-ru...

fixxer 10y ago
Definitely an awesome link (thanks), but last I checked, Maersk was around 15% of global shipping. I would not conflate a company's logistics software (with a narrow focus on shipping) with pulling the strings on the broad-based economy.
- alvarosm 10y ago
  The BBC will distort anything to prove their point: that socialism is great.
  - detaro 10y ago
    How do you get any of that from the linked article? It's a factual description how a large company operates internally, nothing more. Is an article about how an automaker uses robots on their factory lines also promoting socialism? What do think is distorted in the article?
    - alvarosm 10y ago
      Right. I guessed and I guessed wrong. I've seen them do it so many times that I jumped the gun.
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  Doesn't vertical integration increase efficiency, when properly executed? Integrating legacy computer systems almost invariably leads to greater efficiency.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

> The idea of trading individual control of companies for a cabal in a James Bond villain esque room sipping whisky and smoking cigars sounds idiotic. Sorry, what do you mean by "individual control"? Most companies I know are already controlled by a cabal of James Bond villains sitting in a room sipping stuff. It's called the board of directors, although usually they're drinking something lighter than whiskey. >I suppose todays equivalent would ditch the cabal for a computer. Would you trust a computer to map out every dependency in the economy, down to the factory floor? Would you want to live in that world? I mean, you trust combinatorially chaotic and unpredictable things called "markets" as if they were anything other than a combinatorially large, massively distributed stochastic optimization method, so I don't see why we can't solve large stochastic optimization problems with computers.

aminok 10y ago
>Sorry, what do you mean by "individual control"? Most companies I know are already controlled by a cabal of James Bond villains sitting in a room sipping stuff. It's called the board of directors, although usually they're drinking something lighter than whiskey. He means each company has independent control of its assets. They may be run hierarchically, but they only get as large as their competency allows. As soon as an individual company stops operating effectively, it stops growing its market share. >I mean, you trust combinatorially chaotic and unpredictable things called "markets" as if they were anything other than a combinatorially large, massively distributed stochastic optimization method, so I don't see why we can't solve large stochastic optimization problems with computers. I trust the mutual consent underlying every relationship in a market, which drives everything in markets to greater sum efficiency and value. I don't trust monopolies where managerial control over economic resources is not strictly required, by the incentives that emerge from its underlying rules, to be a product of creating Pareto improvements. With top down systems, you need an artificial system of incentives to maintain production growth. In a system based on contractual relationships and independent control over the property one generates/acquires-in-trade, incentives are spontaneously and naturally generated.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago