5 ms·

Collison's theories page nudges the reader to look at "red tape" as an explanation for why things go slower these days, but I think there are hidden variables b

by reso 5y ago

Collison's theories page nudges the reader to look at "red tape" as an explanation for why things go slower these days, but I think there are hidden variables behind a lot of these which are simpler explanations. First is the price of labour. Most countries have gotten wealthier over the 20th century, America is not full of desperate people willing to work 16 hour days in dangerous construction jobs any more. The Empire State Building, as an example, required 14 human sacrifices to build in 400 days (and likely many more injuries). I hazard to guess the average 80 story building today is built with much fewer deaths. Second is state or military intervention. Apollo, the Pentagon, and the Berlin Airlift are all projects of the US military at the height of their influence. Shenzen's fast growth is certainly some Chinese planning department's work. It isn't surprisng to me that motivated non-democratic institutions can make big things happen quickly.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
KerrAvon 5y ago
Pedantry of the day: Apollo was the US government, but NASA never was and still is not military. Otherwise, spot on.
- stretchwithme 5y ago
  No, but Apollo was part of a competition with a nuclear enemy that got to space first.
  - KerrAvon 5y ago
    Do read carefully, sir.
pc 5y ago
I genuinely don't know why there are fewer instances today, and the question at the bottom is literal rather than rhetorical. (I don't even know whether there are fewer instances today -- maybe they're just happening in less legible domains, or something.) That said, I'm somewhat skeptical of the safety argument, which I often hear. For example, 60 workers were apparently killed during the construction of the World Trade Center[0] -- 4x more deaths than occurred during the construction of the Empire State Building. Nor is it a priori clear to me that safety and speed would necessarily be in opposition -- maybe better planning causes both more safety and more speed, for example. I'd certainly be interested in a more comprehensive investigation of this question. I'm also somewhat doubtful of cost-of-labour explanations. Wouldn't it be rational for some organizations to pay a lot more to get people to work longer hours if that's all that's going on? (It would almost certainly be cheaper to do that than to have the project take twice as long in total.) And why did many of the instances enumerated on the page happen in relatively high cost (for the time) locations, like New York, DC, and San Francisco, rather than in cheaper places? I do believe that state/military intervention clearly plays some role in a few, but there are certainly plenty of examples of remarkably slow military projects, and many of the projects on the page have nothing to do with the military. (Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Boeing 747, NYC Subway.) So, I haven't found a satisfying explanation, and I'd be curious to read other analyses or diagnoses. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_the_World_Trade_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_the_World_Trad...
- majormajor 5y ago
  > I'm also somewhat doubtful of cost-of-labour explanations. Wouldn't it be rational for some organizations to pay a lot more to get people to work longer hours if that's all that's going on? (It would almost certainly be cheaper to do that than to have the project take twice as long in total.) And why did many of the instances enumerated on the page happen in relatively high cost (for the time) locations, like New York, DC, and San Francisco, rather than in cheaper places? As far as I can tell, for a lot of transit projects in the US, at least, the capital isn't there up-front to just pay more to parallelize things. The money is being raised by a long-duration tax so it comes in incrementally. And then there's a second closely related factor: do we have the production capacity to switch from a five-year-project-horizon to a one-year one even if we wanted to spend the money faster? It seems like it feeds itself, when it comes to cities and infrastructure: - huge early growth spurs a big demand, construction industry spins up around it (this, I think, answers the "why did stuff happen in high-cost areas" question - high demand is what causes high cost, so in an area where nobody is demanding infrastructure, there's gonna be a lot less reason to build it) - a lot of stuff, once built, will last decades or longer, and would be extra-hard and expensive to replace. so once demand starts to be met, and growth starts to slow, the construction industry gets less and less business, so it shrinks - this is a limiting factor on new projects, but they're also seen as less urgent than the initial stuff (road widening is less critical than creating a road where there was none, say), so the slower pace is accepted. - red tape also starts to develop, since in a new-frontier situation there are fewer entrenched powers to create regulations to protect things (whether or not those regulations are net-beneficial!) That's my current pet theory, anyway: It's not that we've deteriorated, it's more that priorities, effort, and industry have shifted. There are a LOT of other things that happen far faster now than they did 30 years ago in 1992, after all; and unbelievably faster than they did when the Empire State Building was constructed. Sometimes it's harder to repair a body than to make a new human in the first place, if you will ;)
- quadcore 5y ago
  Something that has changed is there were factories and farms that employed a lot of people. Wasnt easy to get out.
- ArchitectAnon 5y ago
mberning 5y ago
Beginner gains. It doesn’t say much about the physical achievements, buildings and such, but many of the technological feats can be attributed to beginner gains. The investment to build iteration one of something is a lot lower than iteration 100. And you are getting less return on that investment. This is why VC is so fixated on being “first”.
- reso 5y ago
  Yeah this is another one I was thinking of, that early projects in a tech adoption cycle are completed faster than later ones, because they are simpler and the benefit more obvious. I wonder if anyone has studied this.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
spacemanmatt 5y ago
> America is not full of desperate people willing to work 16 hour days in dangerous construction jobs Americans still live like this in states you're clearly not looking at.

by reso 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

KerrAvon 5y ago

Pedantry of the day: Apollo was the US government, but NASA never was and still is not military. Otherwise, spot on.

stretchwithme 5y ago
No, but Apollo was part of a competition with a nuclear enemy that got to space first.
- KerrAvon 5y ago
  Do read carefully, sir.

pc 5y ago

I genuinely don't know why there are fewer instances today, and the question at the bottom is literal rather than rhetorical. (I don't even know whether there are fewer instances today -- maybe they're just happening in less legible domains, or something.) That said, I'm somewhat skeptical of the safety argument, which I often hear. For example, 60 workers were apparently killed during the construction of the World Trade Center[0] -- 4x more deaths than occurred during the construction of the Empire State Building. Nor is it a priori clear to me that safety and speed would necessarily be in opposition -- maybe better planning causes both more safety and more speed, for example. I'd certainly be interested in a more comprehensive investigation of this question. I'm also somewhat doubtful of cost-of-labour explanations. Wouldn't it be rational for some organizations to pay a lot more to get people to work longer hours if that's all that's going on? (It would almost certainly be cheaper to do that than to have the project take twice as long in total.) And why did many of the instances enumerated on the page happen in relatively high cost (for the time) locations, like New York, DC, and San Francisco, rather than in cheaper places? I do believe that state/military intervention clearly plays some role in a few, but there are certainly plenty of examples of remarkably slow military projects, and many of the projects on the page have nothing to do with the military. (Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Boeing 747, NYC Subway.) So, I haven't found a satisfying explanation, and I'd be curious to read other analyses or diagnoses. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_the_World_Trade_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_the_World_Trad...

majormajor 5y ago
> I'm also somewhat doubtful of cost-of-labour explanations. Wouldn't it be rational for some organizations to pay a lot more to get people to work longer hours if that's all that's going on? (It would almost certainly be cheaper to do that than to have the project take twice as long in total.) And why did many of the instances enumerated on the page happen in relatively high cost (for the time) locations, like New York, DC, and San Francisco, rather than in cheaper places? As far as I can tell, for a lot of transit projects in the US, at least, the capital isn't there up-front to just pay more to parallelize things. The money is being raised by a long-duration tax so it comes in incrementally. And then there's a second closely related factor: do we have the production capacity to switch from a five-year-project-horizon to a one-year one even if we wanted to spend the money faster? It seems like it feeds itself, when it comes to cities and infrastructure: - huge early growth spurs a big demand, construction industry spins up around it (this, I think, answers the "why did stuff happen in high-cost areas" question - high demand is what causes high cost, so in an area where nobody is demanding infrastructure, there's gonna be a lot less reason to build it) - a lot of stuff, once built, will last decades or longer, and would be extra-hard and expensive to replace. so once demand starts to be met, and growth starts to slow, the construction industry gets less and less business, so it shrinks - this is a limiting factor on new projects, but they're also seen as less urgent than the initial stuff (road widening is less critical than creating a road where there was none, say), so the slower pace is accepted. - red tape also starts to develop, since in a new-frontier situation there are fewer entrenched powers to create regulations to protect things (whether or not those regulations are net-beneficial!) That's my current pet theory, anyway: It's not that we've deteriorated, it's more that priorities, effort, and industry have shifted. There are a LOT of other things that happen far faster now than they did 30 years ago in 1992, after all; and unbelievably faster than they did when the Empire State Building was constructed. Sometimes it's harder to repair a body than to make a new human in the first place, if you will ;)
quadcore 5y ago
Something that has changed is there were factories and farms that employed a lot of people. Wasnt easy to get out.
ArchitectAnon 5y ago

mberning 5y ago

Beginner gains. It doesn’t say much about the physical achievements, buildings and such, but many of the technological feats can be attributed to beginner gains. The investment to build iteration one of something is a lot lower than iteration 100. And you are getting less return on that investment. This is why VC is so fixated on being “first”.

reso 5y ago
Yeah this is another one I was thinking of, that early projects in a tech adoption cycle are completed faster than later ones, because they are simpler and the benefit more obvious. I wonder if anyone has studied this.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

spacemanmatt 5y ago

> America is not full of desperate people willing to work 16 hour days in dangerous construction jobs Americans still live like this in states you're clearly not looking at.