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>worried about projects which are trying to help won't actually make anything better and often will have real negative consequences the worry is misplaced beca

>worried about projects which are trying to help won't actually make anything better and often will have real negative consequences the worry is misplaced because stupid projects are compensated by good ones. This obsession with efficiency, which seems to be an artifact of modern economic logic is one of the culprits of why nothing gets build. Effectiveness matters, not efficiency. This is just the same logic that VC investors use. nine out of ten startups are crap, some are scams, but it doesn't matter. Better to waste some resources than to build nothing at all. China understands this. People will laugh at empty ghost cities or wasteful vanity projects but they're compensated for by what works and tacit knowledge generated in the process. America's gilded age or new deal era or cold war military projects were no different. Better to go big and get something done than do nothing at all. And that's usually the two choices.

bluGill 4y ago
Efficiency matters because if you are efficient you can do more. There is only so much money you can get to build, build well and you get reelected and get more. Build bad and the project is cancled, or maybe it completes but it is too small (all you could afford) to be useful.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Efficiency matters but it cannot be the paramount driver to growth. If it is, then there needs to be minimum metrics agreed upon for efficiency or you're just asking for a project with no end goal aka every construction project in an American city.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Nobody said anything about that though. Your examples are all wrong though, projects with no end goal are not efficient almost by definition. That said, the nature of most projects is they will only last for a short time without maintenance. How much of what you are accusing of being projects with no end goal with projects with constant ongoing maintenance?

bluGill 4y ago

Efficiency matters because if you are efficient you can do more. There is only so much money you can get to build, build well and you get reelected and get more. Build bad and the project is cancled, or maybe it completes but it is too small (all you could afford) to be useful.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago
Efficiency matters but it cannot be the paramount driver to growth. If it is, then there needs to be minimum metrics agreed upon for efficiency or you're just asking for a project with no end goal aka every construction project in an American city.
- bluGill 4y ago
  Nobody said anything about that though. Your examples are all wrong though, projects with no end goal are not efficient almost by definition. That said, the nature of most projects is they will only last for a short time without maintenance. How much of what you are accusing of being projects with no end goal with projects with constant ongoing maintenance?