6 ms·

Do you actually want to live in this world in which every interaction that's not amongst close friends or family is necessarily bureaucractic with zero discreti

Do you actually want to live in this world in which every interaction that's not amongst close friends or family is necessarily bureaucractic with zero discretion? Is it actually _better_, or does it just maximise specific metrics that you're able to easily quantify? More to the point - do you want to _be_ that person? I'm glad that my professors were human beings and not automatons - I probably wouldn't have done well otherwise (bureaucrats are not my idea of good role models).

Zenst 7y ago
> Do you actually want to live in this world in which every interaction that's not amongst close friends or family is necessarily bureaucractic with zero discretion? You mean a tech companies support as many anecdote has attested over the years upon Ycombinator with cries of trying to just speak with a human and that sad trend that if you want tech-support with a human it can boil down to knowing somebody who knows somebody who works there who can humanise the issue. With that in mind, think we are already there alas. The aspect that you get emails from companies that are donotreply and to actually reply entails reading thru numerous fineprint to find an email that will automatically process you response. Yes the days of drive-by support are well are truly here.
threatofrain 7y ago
We could speak the same way about police to make it obvious why some people don’t like the double edge of discretion. Isn’t it such a burden that police have to wear cameras? It’s probably much harder to exercise any executive discretion that way, let alone have any natural conversation, especially when people may demand lawsuits and firings over such footage. Must police be very equally kind to both white and black kids, like in some politically correct universe? Why then do some people demand cameras? Don’t they like the good old neighborhood discretion? Why is it so hard to feel for those who receive the shitty edge of discretion? Is it because the other side is so sweet? Another side of discretion is that some judges are harsher in sentencing before vs after lunch. But such a human interface...
- esotericn 7y ago
  My interactions with British professors are not in any way comparable to what I know about the US police! It's a really weird comparison to me. Perhaps US profs are way more uptight in general? I'm not really sure how to respond to that, to be honest.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Discretion works great for the privileged portion of the population.
    - esotericn 7y ago
      You'll have to explain again how bad behaviour by US police generalises to professors. As far as I can tell this is simply a strawman. And even if it's not - the solution is to replace dickhead staff with reasonable human beings, not chain them with process so that everyone suffers.
      - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
        Professors, like cops, have significant power within their sphere. And tenured profs can even go to the point of calling women, gay, and black people less than human. (Indiana University Prof Rasmussen) The key here is, surveillance shouldn't be used against the students who are of low power, but instead against those who decide if the students succeed or not - the professors. Trusting power is how one gets to significant asymmetry and gross abuses. Surveillance against those types is how you start to counterbalance "discretion". https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eric-rasmusen-says-iu-cant-fire-him-hes-right-heres-why/4272679002/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eri...
        esotericn 7y ago
        I don't think surveillance should be used here at all. Like I said, attendance at my University was not mandatory. We weren't treated like children. For many lectures I felt reading the book would be a better use of my time and so did others.
novok 7y ago
What it really means you have to have a policy that sounds more humanistic, but in the end is the same as a hard deadline: For example, if you are arriving for a family dinner, if you are 10 minutes late, it's NBD, but if you are 3-4 hours late you have just pissed everyone off. If you constantly ask for slack from your friends, to the point where it becomes common, your friend's internal & informal credit rating of you would go down, and they start reducing the amount of slack they gave you. So a policy that reproduces the above would be: Deadline is 4pm, plus a 30 minute 'slack time' for extenuating circumstances (which everyone will put as 4:30). If a problem has come up, then come to me and we will talk about an extension. I won't give you many extensions although if you show a pattern of relying on them.
- esotericn 7y ago
  It's not the same, because you're ignoring the human factor and focusing on one narrow part of the result. Imagine a real family that applies these deadlines. You walk in the door and your mother starts talking about applying for an 'extension' for your lateness. Perhaps at the end of all of this you have the same outcome, that every family member feels the same way about you. But you don't feel the same way about them in both cases, because in one, they act like robots, and in the other, they act like the imperfect people we all are. In one, they're strange threats, in another, they're lovable human beings. I can't express strongly enough how nefarious this trend towards engineering all aspect of the human experience into 'process' is. Theoretically, me having this conversation with you on HN is the same as real life. Practically, it's completely different and the latter would be far preferable if we could do it in the same amount of time, because we're not computers, we have real emotional and physical needs that are unsatisfied if everything is reduced to the most "optimal/efficient" interaction. It feels like you treat others as threats. Your employer, your professor, the police etc, all threats. The better model is to create a society in which they are your equals - many countries have achieved that - not fence them off as some sort of 'different class of human' and then mitigate the damages.

Zenst 7y ago

> Do you actually want to live in this world in which every interaction that's not amongst close friends or family is necessarily bureaucractic with zero discretion? You mean a tech companies support as many anecdote has attested over the years upon Ycombinator with cries of trying to just speak with a human and that sad trend that if you want tech-support with a human it can boil down to knowing somebody who knows somebody who works there who can humanise the issue. With that in mind, think we are already there alas. The aspect that you get emails from companies that are donotreply and to actually reply entails reading thru numerous fineprint to find an email that will automatically process you response. Yes the days of drive-by support are well are truly here.

threatofrain 7y ago

We could speak the same way about police to make it obvious why some people don’t like the double edge of discretion. Isn’t it such a burden that police have to wear cameras? It’s probably much harder to exercise any executive discretion that way, let alone have any natural conversation, especially when people may demand lawsuits and firings over such footage. Must police be very equally kind to both white and black kids, like in some politically correct universe? Why then do some people demand cameras? Don’t they like the good old neighborhood discretion? Why is it so hard to feel for those who receive the shitty edge of discretion? Is it because the other side is so sweet? Another side of discretion is that some judges are harsher in sentencing before vs after lunch. But such a human interface...

esotericn 7y ago
My interactions with British professors are not in any way comparable to what I know about the US police! It's a really weird comparison to me. Perhaps US profs are way more uptight in general? I'm not really sure how to respond to that, to be honest.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Discretion works great for the privileged portion of the population.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    You'll have to explain again how bad behaviour by US police generalises to professors. As far as I can tell this is simply a strawman. And even if it's not - the solution is to replace dickhead staff with reasonable human beings, not chain them with process so that everyone suffers.
    - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      Professors, like cops, have significant power within their sphere. And tenured profs can even go to the point of calling women, gay, and black people less than human. (Indiana University Prof Rasmussen) The key here is, surveillance shouldn't be used against the students who are of low power, but instead against those who decide if the students succeed or not - the professors. Trusting power is how one gets to significant asymmetry and gross abuses. Surveillance against those types is how you start to counterbalance "discretion". https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eric-rasmusen-says-iu-cant-fire-him-hes-right-heres-why/4272679002/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eri...
      - esotericn 7y ago
        I don't think surveillance should be used here at all. Like I said, attendance at my University was not mandatory. We weren't treated like children. For many lectures I felt reading the book would be a better use of my time and so did others.

novok 7y ago

What it really means you have to have a policy that sounds more humanistic, but in the end is the same as a hard deadline: For example, if you are arriving for a family dinner, if you are 10 minutes late, it's NBD, but if you are 3-4 hours late you have just pissed everyone off. If you constantly ask for slack from your friends, to the point where it becomes common, your friend's internal & informal credit rating of you would go down, and they start reducing the amount of slack they gave you. So a policy that reproduces the above would be: Deadline is 4pm, plus a 30 minute 'slack time' for extenuating circumstances (which everyone will put as 4:30). If a problem has come up, then come to me and we will talk about an extension. I won't give you many extensions although if you show a pattern of relying on them.

esotericn 7y ago
It's not the same, because you're ignoring the human factor and focusing on one narrow part of the result. Imagine a real family that applies these deadlines. You walk in the door and your mother starts talking about applying for an 'extension' for your lateness. Perhaps at the end of all of this you have the same outcome, that every family member feels the same way about you. But you don't feel the same way about them in both cases, because in one, they act like robots, and in the other, they act like the imperfect people we all are. In one, they're strange threats, in another, they're lovable human beings. I can't express strongly enough how nefarious this trend towards engineering all aspect of the human experience into 'process' is. Theoretically, me having this conversation with you on HN is the same as real life. Practically, it's completely different and the latter would be far preferable if we could do it in the same amount of time, because we're not computers, we have real emotional and physical needs that are unsatisfied if everything is reduced to the most "optimal/efficient" interaction. It feels like you treat others as threats. Your employer, your professor, the police etc, all threats. The better model is to create a society in which they are your equals - many countries have achieved that - not fence them off as some sort of 'different class of human' and then mitigate the damages.