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> On the micro-scale, in law we've been faced with a tremendous crisis - that of Access to Justice. The response of most legal institutions has been to decry th

> On the micro-scale, in law we've been faced with a tremendous crisis - that of Access to Justice. The response of most legal institutions has been to decry the issue, then do nothing substantive to solve it. This is a personal frustration of mine, and it happens in nearly every field. "Loudly talk about how terrible problem X is" and then go back to work everyday making X worse. Software Developers decry the immense complexity of software, and then walk into work and load up five package managers on top of one another and npm install left-pad or whatever. Urbanists / Urban Planners decry the cost of housing and lack of transit, then go to work everyday and rapidly increase the cost of housing and eliminate transportation access. Education that used to cost $4k/yr now costs $40k/yr. Healthcare costs are rising exponentially and life expectancy is dropping. People complain about corrupt politicians doing bad things, and then go and vote for the corrupt person with the party affiliation of their choice. "Things may be getting better" in the most general sense or at the most base levels. I don't dispute that. But 100% solved (or mostly solved) problems are becoming rapidly unsolved at a scary rate, and it's affecting a lot of regular people in bad ways.

TulliusCicero 9y ago
> Urbanists / Urban Planners decry the cost of housing and lack of transit, then go to work everyday and rapidly increase the cost of housing and eliminate transportation access. I'm not following here. Lack of urbanism in American cities seems largely the result of various government decisions, especially at the local level. I'm guessing those urbanists and urban planners are voting for politicians friendly to transit and walking and housing supply (or at least more friendly than the opposition), so what exactly are you blaming them for?
- maxsilver 9y ago
  I'm referring to the hyper-libertarian "gentrification is the solution to gentrification", "trickle down economics is the only affordable housing", "governments should be for-profit corporations" type philosophy that folks working in that space typically have (at least, in the US). A lot of these people will say things like "what a shame that poor neighborhoods always lose their affordable housing and economically diverse populations". And then they go to work everyday for architects or property developers or city hall or construction companies, and explicitly target 'undervalued' poor neighborhoods for 'investment' to intentionally drive the property values up, despite knowing that those actions will directly displace many/most of the existing residents due to price. It's one modern day version of saying "such a shame that smoking kills" while working for Phillip Morris. Or saying "digital advertising is so intrusive, annoying, and invasive" while working for Google. ----- And while this is just one of many different examples of that problem -- the contraction itself is what really bugs me. People who claim "X is such a bad problem, we should fix X" while going to work every day to make X worse.
btrettel 9y ago
I share your frustration. Sometimes I feel like one of the few people who tries to act consistently. Most people are defecting in a massive prisoner's dilemma despite complaining about how defecting is bad! The suggestion that these apparently strongly held beliefs are actually about signaling doesn't seem to entirely square with my experience. Talk is cheap. One doesn't gain much credibility with me by just claiming to believe something I think is good. I need to see evidence that they've implemented it in practice. I don't know if I'm unusual.
- lukeholder 9y ago
  > Sometimes I feel like one of the few people who tries to act consistently most people think they do.
  - btrettel 9y ago
    I'm not confident enough to say that most think they do. Consider global warming as an example. Almost no one I know who believes global warming to be a dire threat changes anything about their lifestyle in response. When I ask them about this they might say something about how it's really hard, people like Elon Musk will solve it, etc. Basically, it's not their responsibility. They often seem to want to get off this line of conversation as quickly as possible. And it's not that hard to do something. Eating less meat is easy. I commute by bike for other reasons already and I don't think doing this regularly would be a major problem for a large fraction of people in the US. To continue on the global warming example, you will have people who will drive a hybrid or electric car today "for the environment", though these options are not carbon neutral at the moment (perhaps electric will be in the future). No major change to their lifestyle has been made. I can see how this is mostly about signaling, as many people do believe such things will make a difference right now, though I'm skeptical.
mar77i 9y ago
Oh come on. npm isn't here to stay. There will be real programming languages to work productively with, if programmer wills it.

TulliusCicero 9y ago

> Urbanists / Urban Planners decry the cost of housing and lack of transit, then go to work everyday and rapidly increase the cost of housing and eliminate transportation access. I'm not following here. Lack of urbanism in American cities seems largely the result of various government decisions, especially at the local level. I'm guessing those urbanists and urban planners are voting for politicians friendly to transit and walking and housing supply (or at least more friendly than the opposition), so what exactly are you blaming them for?

maxsilver 9y ago
I'm referring to the hyper-libertarian "gentrification is the solution to gentrification", "trickle down economics is the only affordable housing", "governments should be for-profit corporations" type philosophy that folks working in that space typically have (at least, in the US). A lot of these people will say things like "what a shame that poor neighborhoods always lose their affordable housing and economically diverse populations". And then they go to work everyday for architects or property developers or city hall or construction companies, and explicitly target 'undervalued' poor neighborhoods for 'investment' to intentionally drive the property values up, despite knowing that those actions will directly displace many/most of the existing residents due to price. It's one modern day version of saying "such a shame that smoking kills" while working for Phillip Morris. Or saying "digital advertising is so intrusive, annoying, and invasive" while working for Google. ----- And while this is just one of many different examples of that problem -- the contraction itself is what really bugs me. People who claim "X is such a bad problem, we should fix X" while going to work every day to make X worse.

btrettel 9y ago

I share your frustration. Sometimes I feel like one of the few people who tries to act consistently. Most people are defecting in a massive prisoner's dilemma despite complaining about how defecting is bad! The suggestion that these apparently strongly held beliefs are actually about signaling doesn't seem to entirely square with my experience. Talk is cheap. One doesn't gain much credibility with me by just claiming to believe something I think is good. I need to see evidence that they've implemented it in practice. I don't know if I'm unusual.

lukeholder 9y ago
> Sometimes I feel like one of the few people who tries to act consistently most people think they do.
- btrettel 9y ago
  I'm not confident enough to say that most think they do. Consider global warming as an example. Almost no one I know who believes global warming to be a dire threat changes anything about their lifestyle in response. When I ask them about this they might say something about how it's really hard, people like Elon Musk will solve it, etc. Basically, it's not their responsibility. They often seem to want to get off this line of conversation as quickly as possible. And it's not that hard to do something. Eating less meat is easy. I commute by bike for other reasons already and I don't think doing this regularly would be a major problem for a large fraction of people in the US. To continue on the global warming example, you will have people who will drive a hybrid or electric car today "for the environment", though these options are not carbon neutral at the moment (perhaps electric will be in the future). No major change to their lifestyle has been made. I can see how this is mostly about signaling, as many people do believe such things will make a difference right now, though I'm skeptical.

mar77i 9y ago

Oh come on. npm isn't here to stay. There will be real programming languages to work productively with, if programmer wills it.