6 ms·

I remember when this idea came around Hacker News the last time. I mentioned this over lunch, and one of my (highly respected and deservedly considered intellig

I remember when this idea came around Hacker News the last time. I mentioned this over lunch, and one of my (highly respected and deservedly considered intelligent) younger coworkers called BS on it. His object was: "Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could fit the operator?" He just couldn't imagine it. Between 2020 and WWII, there is a huge difference in available technology and scale. There were a lot more planes and a lot more pilots back then. It's practically a WWII trope: Arguably "inferior" weapons systems win out because they can be produced in larger numbers with better maintainability and support logistics. (1) Depending on how you evaluate it, the amount of firepower and capability embodied in one WWII fighter is greatly dwarfed by that in one gen 4 or gen 5 fighter jet. (1) (Though, in WWII, Allied planes often had a tremendous advantage in performance, largely because they had access to far better fuel. This allowed for much higher compression ratios and higher pressure superchargers, so they could produce more power, more efficiently, for less weight. "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles" on YouTube covers this.)

Aloha 6y ago
Our technology also continued to evolve throughout the war, updated fighters, better engines, even whole new designs. The Germans as far as mass produced designs went were effectively frozen in 1939. A lot of this was the complete inefficiency of the Reich Air Ministry at project management, as well as the political supremacy of the Heer over the Luftwaffe. In addition to the political whims of a dictatorship (Technological choices were often driven by ideology, and perception, much more than in the other dictatorship at the time (the Soviet Union, where for the most part, the technocrat reigned supreme)) All this said, from purely a material point of view the war in europe was won by the allies in 1941 when the US joined the conflict, but the Axis could have dragged the conflict out much longer had they had an effective strategic bombing program, and more modern fighters.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  Our technology also continued to evolve throughout the war, updated fighters, better engines, even whole new designs. The Germans as far as mass produced designs went were effectively frozen in 1939. Well, not completely. "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles" has a nice video on, "Why was the BF109K faster than the P51D? MW 50!" So to try and compensate for only having lower octane fuel, German engineers in WWII went to water/methanol injection for emergency power. Things did go back and forth quite a bit. Granted, the BF109 was one of the most advanced late 1930's designs going up against 1940's allied wartime designs. But there were times when updates on older designs would outclass the other sides slightly older versions, and this happened repeatedly on both sides. Technological choices were often driven by ideology, and perception, much more than in the other dictatorship at the time "Yes, but can it dive bomb?" probably did about as much to compromise designs of Nazi fighter/interceptors and slow the release of new airplanes as espionage and sabotage by the allies!
- willyt 6y ago
  Regardless of Spitfires, Alan Turing, anti-sub technology, RADAR etc, WW2 was won and lost on the Eastern front. The Normandy invasion would have been impossible without the Russians sacrificing between 8-11 million soldiers. This compares to about 400k each for the UK and US. I'm just saying, don't get carried away with the technological superiority argument, there was plenty of innovation on both sides. After all, the engineer that designed the Apollo rocket was a Nazi weapons scientist.
  - Aloha 6y ago
    No real disagreement there - the war was won on the back of Russian Bodies, American Trucks, and British Grit. The germans did indeed have wonderful technology in labs, and had it made it into mass production, it would have made the war stretch out much much longer.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    And the Eastern Front was largely won and lost on the Atlantic Ocean.
    - antod 6y ago
      And the Arctic Ocean etc etc The Soviets won out eventually, but without the west they could very well have lost before they really got ready.
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  The end of the war began when Germany invaded Russia. Europe/Russia had already killed 30+ million German soldiers and destroyed most of the German war machine when the US joined the conflict. The real contribution of the US was stopping Russia from invading Europe after the war (see Berlin Airlift) by threatening to drop nuclear bombs on Russia (Russia at that point wasn't a nuclear power).
TomMckenny 6y ago
>Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could X Maybe short design periods in some cases too. Either way it was not too uncommon. There were bombers with escape hatches big enough for the crew, provided they didn't wear parachutes[1]. Fighter bomb releases that required ducking down to reach them[2] and fighter planes who's fuel feed stopped when pulling negative Gs [3] [1] Lancaster bombers [2] P-26 or F2A I think [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Not to mention desperation moves like the british STEN sub-machine gun which was basically what you get if you say "I need 800,000 of these and they just have to meet these criteria, eject everything else". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-PmLxkOmaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-PmLxkOmaM
  - philwelch 6y ago
    The Sten was a beautiful accomplishment. Being cheap, simple, optimized for quick mass production, and just good enough to get the job done is a perfectly legitimate set of requirements. It’s like the IKEA LACK.
    - noir_lord 6y ago
      I never said it wasn't, My comment was on the requirements leading to the most stripped down possible design that still functioned.
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  Those bombers were designed and built by private companies. Paid for by the government.
travisjungroth 6y ago
> "Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could fit the operator?" Sometimes people just do things wrong. I imagine there’s some name for the fallacy of assuming all humans are perfectly intelligent, rational actors. Why wouldn’t they do it? Because the people in charge of the decision didn’t think it was that important. That’s all it takes. And to their credit, making airplanes adjustable is harder than it sounds. A fixed seat is much lighter and cheaper than an adjustable one. But, it turns out the trade offs are worth it. This is sort of like “never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence”, but “incompetence” is too strong of a word. They just didn’t know.
BeetleB 6y ago
> Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could fit the operator? Why would they send a $250M probe to Mars, and not ensure a consistent set of units is used? I mean, putting the above two examples aside, one could list plenty of much bigger screwups by the government. Why is this person assuming a competent government? I wish I knew the name for this fallacy, but it is essentially a restatement of "I can't think why X would behave this way, so it must be because Y." Or as I tend to call it: "Out of ignorance, comes certainty". I mean, you just admitted you didn't know! How are you drawing conclusions? I blame Arthur Conan Doyle: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7471034-once-you-eliminate-the-impossible-whatever-remains-no-matter-how https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7471034-once-you-eliminate-...
- GarvielLoken 6y ago
  Hanlon's razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  I am sure you can also produce a long list of screwups by private companies. Assuming you made an honest effort of course. Private companies fail and go bankrupt every single day. 90% of private companies fail within a year. The real problem is not government/private. The real problem is making a large number of people work well together while making sure millions of decisions are all 100% correct. That is a very hard problem. What is surprising to me is that large organizations (governmental/private) sometimes succeed. That is the real miracle.

Aloha 6y ago

Our technology also continued to evolve throughout the war, updated fighters, better engines, even whole new designs. The Germans as far as mass produced designs went were effectively frozen in 1939. A lot of this was the complete inefficiency of the Reich Air Ministry at project management, as well as the political supremacy of the Heer over the Luftwaffe. In addition to the political whims of a dictatorship (Technological choices were often driven by ideology, and perception, much more than in the other dictatorship at the time (the Soviet Union, where for the most part, the technocrat reigned supreme)) All this said, from purely a material point of view the war in europe was won by the allies in 1941 when the US joined the conflict, but the Axis could have dragged the conflict out much longer had they had an effective strategic bombing program, and more modern fighters.

stcredzero 6y ago
Our technology also continued to evolve throughout the war, updated fighters, better engines, even whole new designs. The Germans as far as mass produced designs went were effectively frozen in 1939. Well, not completely. "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles" has a nice video on, "Why was the BF109K faster than the P51D? MW 50!" So to try and compensate for only having lower octane fuel, German engineers in WWII went to water/methanol injection for emergency power. Things did go back and forth quite a bit. Granted, the BF109 was one of the most advanced late 1930's designs going up against 1940's allied wartime designs. But there were times when updates on older designs would outclass the other sides slightly older versions, and this happened repeatedly on both sides. Technological choices were often driven by ideology, and perception, much more than in the other dictatorship at the time "Yes, but can it dive bomb?" probably did about as much to compromise designs of Nazi fighter/interceptors and slow the release of new airplanes as espionage and sabotage by the allies!
willyt 6y ago
Regardless of Spitfires, Alan Turing, anti-sub technology, RADAR etc, WW2 was won and lost on the Eastern front. The Normandy invasion would have been impossible without the Russians sacrificing between 8-11 million soldiers. This compares to about 400k each for the UK and US. I'm just saying, don't get carried away with the technological superiority argument, there was plenty of innovation on both sides. After all, the engineer that designed the Apollo rocket was a Nazi weapons scientist.
- Aloha 6y ago
  No real disagreement there - the war was won on the back of Russian Bodies, American Trucks, and British Grit. The germans did indeed have wonderful technology in labs, and had it made it into mass production, it would have made the war stretch out much much longer.
- philwelch 6y ago
  And the Eastern Front was largely won and lost on the Atlantic Ocean.
  - antod 6y ago
    And the Arctic Ocean etc etc The Soviets won out eventually, but without the west they could very well have lost before they really got ready.
mbrodersen 6y ago
The end of the war began when Germany invaded Russia. Europe/Russia had already killed 30+ million German soldiers and destroyed most of the German war machine when the US joined the conflict. The real contribution of the US was stopping Russia from invading Europe after the war (see Berlin Airlift) by threatening to drop nuclear bombs on Russia (Russia at that point wasn't a nuclear power).

TomMckenny 6y ago

>Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could X Maybe short design periods in some cases too. Either way it was not too uncommon. There were bombers with escape hatches big enough for the crew, provided they didn't wear parachutes[1]. Fighter bomb releases that required ducking down to reach them[2] and fighter planes who's fuel feed stopped when pulling negative Gs [3] [1] Lancaster bombers [2] P-26 or F2A I think [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling%27s_orifice

noir_lord 6y ago
Not to mention desperation moves like the british STEN sub-machine gun which was basically what you get if you say "I need 800,000 of these and they just have to meet these criteria, eject everything else". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-PmLxkOmaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-PmLxkOmaM
- philwelch 6y ago
  The Sten was a beautiful accomplishment. Being cheap, simple, optimized for quick mass production, and just good enough to get the job done is a perfectly legitimate set of requirements. It’s like the IKEA LACK.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    I never said it wasn't, My comment was on the requirements leading to the most stripped down possible design that still functioned.
mbrodersen 6y ago
Those bombers were designed and built by private companies. Paid for by the government.

travisjungroth 6y ago

> "Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could fit the operator?" Sometimes people just do things wrong. I imagine there’s some name for the fallacy of assuming all humans are perfectly intelligent, rational actors. Why wouldn’t they do it? Because the people in charge of the decision didn’t think it was that important. That’s all it takes. And to their credit, making airplanes adjustable is harder than it sounds. A fixed seat is much lighter and cheaper than an adjustable one. But, it turns out the trade offs are worth it. This is sort of like “never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence”, but “incompetence” is too strong of a word. They just didn’t know.

BeetleB 6y ago

> Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could fit the operator? Why would they send a $250M probe to Mars, and not ensure a consistent set of units is used? I mean, putting the above two examples aside, one could list plenty of much bigger screwups by the government. Why is this person assuming a competent government? I wish I knew the name for this fallacy, but it is essentially a restatement of "I can't think why X would behave this way, so it must be because Y." Or as I tend to call it: "Out of ignorance, comes certainty". I mean, you just admitted you didn't know! How are you drawing conclusions? I blame Arthur Conan Doyle: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7471034-once-you-eliminate-the-impossible-whatever-remains-no-matter-how https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7471034-once-you-eliminate-...

GarvielLoken 6y ago
Hanlon's razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
mbrodersen 6y ago
I am sure you can also produce a long list of screwups by private companies. Assuming you made an honest effort of course. Private companies fail and go bankrupt every single day. 90% of private companies fail within a year. The real problem is not government/private. The real problem is making a large number of people work well together while making sure millions of decisions are all 100% correct. That is a very hard problem. What is surprising to me is that large organizations (governmental/private) sometimes succeed. That is the real miracle.