3 ms·

While the context is wildly different, this type of incremental band-aid fixes of <insert thing> always reminds me of the 2004 movie The Butterfly Effect. The c

While the context is wildly different, this type of incremental band-aid fixes of <insert thing> always reminds me of the 2004 movie The Butterfly Effect. The cycle of trying to fix something, making it worse (or other unintended/bad side effects appearing), try to fix the fix, repeat ad nauseum until everything breaks. I know there's a million (probably better) depictions of this pattern, but something about the bathtub scene in that movie will forever haunt me.

njarboe 4y ago
This is how life was evolved. How you exist. 4 billion years of band-aid fixes, dead ends, cycle after cycle of living, trying, reproducing and dying. Beautiful, amazing, tragic, and full of terror. It's how the world works. Humans are just part of it.
majormajor 4y ago
Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Years later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Years later later has even more complications, dies. Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? Nothing lasts forever. Maintenance is needed. [edit to add timeline, per response comment]
- ziddoap 4y ago
  I wasn't trying to state a moral. Just reminded of an older movie with a similar theme as parent comment, and thought I'd make a comment about it. That alright?
- pixl97 4y ago
  Someone finds a marginal place to live, very few people live there. Improves the land somewhat. Later had complications and needs more treatment to ensure it's safe to live there. Dam breaks, a million people die. Moral of the story, "Oops, this particular set of choices was a terrible idea, maybe we don't do that again".
  - majormajor 4y ago
    "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. It comes with risk, but avoids a more immediate "oh shit there's no water here" risk. But more generally, this sort of "just don't be stupid" mindset assumes a static world. How many places would we be able to pick if we wanted to avoid any possibility of hundred year disasters? Five-hundred-year disasters? Thousand-year disasters? And when it comes to decisions made hundreds of years ago, how would you unwind those so simply? Just up and move millions of people from a major city? Is that better than trying to mitigate risk?
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. Exactly; living by the water has always been the best choice. The water doesn't even need to be drinkable. GP's style of argument misses the important point that avoiding injuries is not a goal. The tribe that settles by the river and grows to a population of five million, but experiences flood-related losses of a million people once a decade or so, is better off than the tribe that stays in the desert and grows to a population of fifty. Over time, as the bottom of the channel gradually rose, the river overflowed its banks. Dikes were built ever higher to prevent flooding, and in some places the river started to flow above the surrounding countryside. Today, in a stretch of about 1,100 miles, the Yellow River moves along 11 yards above the plain. But dikes do not control silting, and floods continue to occur on an ever larger scale. On more than 1,500 occasions during the [roughly 2100-year] history of imperial China the Yellow River burst its dikes, destroying farmland, killing villagers, and earning its description as "China's sorrow". (The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ ) Saying you shouldn't live near the river because it occasionally drowns everyone nearby is saying you shouldn't own stocks because sometimes they go down. It's an argument that is completely insane.
      - pasttense01 4y ago
        The alternative to not living near the river is to live on higher ground (and use the land near the river for agriculture, parks etc.). Given that there is vastly more land on the higher ground than near the river, I don't see the problem with doing so.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Later later has even more complications, dies. > Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? That is the moral most doctors tend to take from it, yes. You want to consider what you're gaining from the first surgery. If you're 20 years old, steps two and three are unlikely to occur (not in any way related to the initial surgery), and you're gaining a lot. If you're 80 years old and in poor health, you just described a way of making your own life worse while pissing away most of your savings.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    I intended to imply there were years in between those incidents, apologies, I realize it wasn't clear.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    There's a lot of middle ground, though. If you're 45 years old, and that surgery extends and improves your quality of life until you're 60 or 65, and then you need more surgery to keep things going for another 15-20 years, that's probably worth it, no? Sure, there are plenty of cases where post-surgery life may not be worth it (but then that's entirely in the eyes of the beholder to decide), but that's not all there is.
buscoquadnary 4y ago
You just described half the software development jobs I've had.

njarboe 4y ago

This is how life was evolved. How you exist. 4 billion years of band-aid fixes, dead ends, cycle after cycle of living, trying, reproducing and dying. Beautiful, amazing, tragic, and full of terror. It's how the world works. Humans are just part of it.

majormajor 4y ago

Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Years later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Years later later has even more complications, dies. Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? Nothing lasts forever. Maintenance is needed. [edit to add timeline, per response comment]

ziddoap 4y ago
I wasn't trying to state a moral. Just reminded of an older movie with a similar theme as parent comment, and thought I'd make a comment about it. That alright?
pixl97 4y ago
Someone finds a marginal place to live, very few people live there. Improves the land somewhat. Later had complications and needs more treatment to ensure it's safe to live there. Dam breaks, a million people die. Moral of the story, "Oops, this particular set of choices was a terrible idea, maybe we don't do that again".
- majormajor 4y ago
  "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. It comes with risk, but avoids a more immediate "oh shit there's no water here" risk. But more generally, this sort of "just don't be stupid" mindset assumes a static world. How many places would we be able to pick if we wanted to avoid any possibility of hundred year disasters? Five-hundred-year disasters? Thousand-year disasters? And when it comes to decisions made hundreds of years ago, how would you unwind those so simply? Just up and move millions of people from a major city? Is that better than trying to mitigate risk?
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > "By a waterway" isn't a marginal place to live, historically. Exactly; living by the water has always been the best choice. The water doesn't even need to be drinkable. GP's style of argument misses the important point that avoiding injuries is not a goal. The tribe that settles by the river and grows to a population of five million, but experiences flood-related losses of a million people once a decade or so, is better off than the tribe that stays in the desert and grows to a population of fifty. Over time, as the bottom of the channel gradually rose, the river overflowed its banks. Dikes were built ever higher to prevent flooding, and in some places the river started to flow above the surrounding countryside. Today, in a stretch of about 1,100 miles, the Yellow River moves along 11 yards above the plain. But dikes do not control silting, and floods continue to occur on an ever larger scale. On more than 1,500 occasions during the [roughly 2100-year] history of imperial China the Yellow River burst its dikes, destroying farmland, killing villagers, and earning its description as "China's sorrow". (The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057341/ ) Saying you shouldn't live near the river because it occasionally drowns everyone nearby is saying you shouldn't own stocks because sometimes they go down. It's an argument that is completely insane.
    - pasttense01 4y ago
      The alternative to not living near the river is to live on higher ground (and use the land near the river for agriculture, parks etc.). Given that there is vastly more land on the higher ground than near the river, I don't see the problem with doing so.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Someone gets seriously injured. Has surgery, lives! Later has complications. Needs more extensive treatment. Lives! Later later has even more complications, dies. > Is the moral of that story "never interfere" to you? That is the moral most doctors tend to take from it, yes. You want to consider what you're gaining from the first surgery. If you're 20 years old, steps two and three are unlikely to occur (not in any way related to the initial surgery), and you're gaining a lot. If you're 80 years old and in poor health, you just described a way of making your own life worse while pissing away most of your savings.
- majormajor 4y ago
  I intended to imply there were years in between those incidents, apologies, I realize it wasn't clear.
- kelnos 4y ago
  There's a lot of middle ground, though. If you're 45 years old, and that surgery extends and improves your quality of life until you're 60 or 65, and then you need more surgery to keep things going for another 15-20 years, that's probably worth it, no? Sure, there are plenty of cases where post-surgery life may not be worth it (but then that's entirely in the eyes of the beholder to decide), but that's not all there is.

buscoquadnary 4y ago

You just described half the software development jobs I've had.