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>The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. So? It

>The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. So? It clearly works. People want everything to be high quality master craftsman type work but almost nothing is and it almost never matters. People like to think that the auditors are going over the papers with a magnifying glass and that their landscaper is applying exactly the right fertilizer for the soil conditions. In reality the auditors are skimming the papers and the landscaper is just using whatever brand has worked decently in the past. Most work done most of the time is little more than the minimum and that's all the world needs. You can either look at that as sloppy and low effort or efficient allocation of resources.

mannykannot 7y ago
It works right up until it doesn't: see 737 Max, mortgage crisis... Perhaps the best thing that can be said for pro-forma processes is that they usually put people on notice that they may be held accountable for their actions -- though, of course, that is not always the case.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  And look at all the planes that don't fall out of the sky and all the financial products that don't cause crisis. The "even rare failures are unacceptable" line of reasoning is simply too conservative to permit our modern society to exist. The resources we would have to dedicate to preventing these kinds of things (don't forget the 90/10 rule) in every case would be astronomical. Imagine if every bit of software had to be written the way NASA rights their software for human carrying vehicles and if every financial transaction had to be strictly scrutinized. Software would be so expensive that it would be used far less than it is today and all the good that brings would not exist. Credit would be far, far less accessible to just about everyone you could fill a library with books that have been written about why that is bad. And those are just two industries(!!!!). It's really east to say "But the MAX" or "but the mortgage crisis" but occasional failures like that are simply the price of a reality where normal everyday people can travel thousands of miles in a day and have access to credit.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    Presenting the issue as "even rare failures are unacceptable" is a straw-manning / false-dichotomizing of the matter.
  - mitchdoogle 7y ago
    If a failure happens because someone ignores their clear responsibilities, then that is unacceptable
    - kqr 7y ago
      People don't just "ignore their responsibilities" out of malice. Generally people "ignore their responsibilities" either because they are pressured into it, or because they are lead to believe it is the right thing to do in that situation. Either is unacceptable, of course, but the boots on the ground are rarely to blame.
tpxl 7y ago
> It clearly works. Clearly it doesn't and when it does, it's despite this, not because of it. The economic crisis of 2008/9 could have easily been prevented. Misinformation about WMDs led to useless wars. The war on drugs is a huge waste of resources because why? Ticking checkboxes is a big cause of our problems.
- ufmace 7y ago
  Kind of ironically, pulling out 3 anecdotal examples of well-known system failures doesn't make a very high-quality argument that most things being done sloppily most of the time doesn't usually work out fine. The real argument is, that while those 3 things were happening - and the War on Drugs goes back ~100 years - roughly 3 billion other things were also sloppily done, and most of them worked out well enough. If it didn't work, we would all be starving and dodging lions in a jungle somewhere, instead of writing posts on an internet forum about how a few well-known things were sloppily done, yet didn't really cause that much damage in the great scheme of things.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    tpxl and you are using different definitions of "work out fine". Incarceration and systemic discrimination against an entire class of people does not count as "well enough", in my opinion. And it's specious reasoning to conclude that if a society made up of untrustworthy actors committing fraud isn't starving and dodging lions, then it's worked out fined. One can go live in a country with low societal trust to see what that's like (Brazil, India, Pakistan, Somalia, etc). I posit that it's the proportion of trustworthy actors in the system, along with a healthy dose of conveniently timed technological advances as well as luck providing resources at the right time that leads to a prosperous society. There are countless examples in history of a society doing well enough, and every time there is a tipping point where sufficient trust is lost and it starts degrading, or in some cases, collapses.
    - geggam 7y ago
      Power corrupts. Corruption erodes trust. How do you put people in power without corruption ? You give them a tight set of rules to follow and limit their power.... with something like a constitution. You see how it took a mere 200 years for that to get corrupted ?

mannykannot 7y ago

It works right up until it doesn't: see 737 Max, mortgage crisis... Perhaps the best thing that can be said for pro-forma processes is that they usually put people on notice that they may be held accountable for their actions -- though, of course, that is not always the case.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
And look at all the planes that don't fall out of the sky and all the financial products that don't cause crisis. The "even rare failures are unacceptable" line of reasoning is simply too conservative to permit our modern society to exist. The resources we would have to dedicate to preventing these kinds of things (don't forget the 90/10 rule) in every case would be astronomical. Imagine if every bit of software had to be written the way NASA rights their software for human carrying vehicles and if every financial transaction had to be strictly scrutinized. Software would be so expensive that it would be used far less than it is today and all the good that brings would not exist. Credit would be far, far less accessible to just about everyone you could fill a library with books that have been written about why that is bad. And those are just two industries(!!!!). It's really east to say "But the MAX" or "but the mortgage crisis" but occasional failures like that are simply the price of a reality where normal everyday people can travel thousands of miles in a day and have access to credit.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  Presenting the issue as "even rare failures are unacceptable" is a straw-manning / false-dichotomizing of the matter.
- mitchdoogle 7y ago
  If a failure happens because someone ignores their clear responsibilities, then that is unacceptable
  - kqr 7y ago
    People don't just "ignore their responsibilities" out of malice. Generally people "ignore their responsibilities" either because they are pressured into it, or because they are lead to believe it is the right thing to do in that situation. Either is unacceptable, of course, but the boots on the ground are rarely to blame.

tpxl 7y ago

> It clearly works. Clearly it doesn't and when it does, it's despite this, not because of it. The economic crisis of 2008/9 could have easily been prevented. Misinformation about WMDs led to useless wars. The war on drugs is a huge waste of resources because why? Ticking checkboxes is a big cause of our problems.

ufmace 7y ago
Kind of ironically, pulling out 3 anecdotal examples of well-known system failures doesn't make a very high-quality argument that most things being done sloppily most of the time doesn't usually work out fine. The real argument is, that while those 3 things were happening - and the War on Drugs goes back ~100 years - roughly 3 billion other things were also sloppily done, and most of them worked out well enough. If it didn't work, we would all be starving and dodging lions in a jungle somewhere, instead of writing posts on an internet forum about how a few well-known things were sloppily done, yet didn't really cause that much damage in the great scheme of things.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  tpxl and you are using different definitions of "work out fine". Incarceration and systemic discrimination against an entire class of people does not count as "well enough", in my opinion. And it's specious reasoning to conclude that if a society made up of untrustworthy actors committing fraud isn't starving and dodging lions, then it's worked out fined. One can go live in a country with low societal trust to see what that's like (Brazil, India, Pakistan, Somalia, etc). I posit that it's the proportion of trustworthy actors in the system, along with a healthy dose of conveniently timed technological advances as well as luck providing resources at the right time that leads to a prosperous society. There are countless examples in history of a society doing well enough, and every time there is a tipping point where sufficient trust is lost and it starts degrading, or in some cases, collapses.
  - geggam 7y ago
    Power corrupts. Corruption erodes trust. How do you put people in power without corruption ? You give them a tight set of rules to follow and limit their power.... with something like a constitution. You see how it took a mere 200 years for that to get corrupted ?