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Yup Except that it is only local or small risk minimization; the catastrophic existential risks end up maximized to the point of becoming inevitable. With com

by toss1 4y ago

Yup Except that it is only local or small risk minimization; the catastrophic existential risks end up maximized to the point of becoming inevitable. With companies, the MBAs happily optimize away anything that isn't immediate revenue. So manufacturing gets offshored, along with all the deep knowledge of how to make things. R&D gets shrunk and minimized because it is a quarterly expense with returns not immediately specified. They kill or sell off all the "dogs" of products and try to milk the "cash cows". This makes the numbers look great until things change and the "cash cows" need updating for a new market environment. But the company now has no idea how to do it because they have no seasoned and up to date product development, no R&D technology development, and no manufacturing know-how. So, it goes into a death spiral if it hasn't already been disrupted. On the societal level, MBAs justified the western world outsourcing all the manufacturing because it was "fungible" and cheaper to do it offshore, made more profits this quarter. Meanwhile, all that know-how was stolen by China, who isn't interested in quarterly profits, but in global hegemony, and now has both economic and strategic chokeholds on the western democracies (everything from corners on lithium and solar panel markets, to spies in western corporations, to backdoors in key commercial and likely military microchips). The entire strategic advantage of the west was sold out for a few dozen quarters of increased profits. This will go down as a colossal strategic blunder of historic proportions. All thanks to trying to standardize management.

didericis 4y ago
The main thing that gives me hope is that the type of knowledge generation environment in the western world still hasn’t been acquired by dictatorial powers like China. Given the exponentially increasing technological change we’re experiencing, the knowledge transferred via the method you described will likely be surpassed and rendered obsolete relatively quickly (hopefully) and make that transferred knowledge less likely to undo the progress made towards global order and uplift. Because China is experiencing all kinds of internal demographic and political turmoil, and they’re still much further behind than people realize, what I worry about more in the long run is decay of western education than anything externally driven. We are our own worst enemy, and we risk hollowing out what has historically been the engine of innovation for the majority of the world (I am talking primarily about the pipeline feeding people into US University systems since World War II and high level technical/tinkering environments, as I think European education seems to have lost a decent amount of innovative capability a while ago, though I know much less about it). That problem is deeper than the problem of products of that system being sold off as you describe, but related. That poses a far bigger long term risk to domestic and global prosperity than China, imo, although China is still a massive risk for at least the next decade if Xi continues his current trajectory, and the education problem is of course related to our ability to confront that. I see two extremely important problems that need to be solved: 1. The most intelligent and competent members of the public need to be pulled from all backgrounds, colors and creeds and be rigorously evaluated purely for ability and merit regardless of all other criteria. Historically there has been bias in favor of the host nation population. Now there is bias in favor of restorative education and nepotism. While truly restorative education has merit, it cannot interfere with attempts to identify and nurture the best of the best, which is of upmost national security importance, and is important for the maintenance and improvement of the machinery which has given us so much material prosperity. 2. We need to accept that not everyone is able to handle the complexity of the world we have created and educate those who are not in that first highly selective pool of people how to be good citizens, participate in complex systems in a way that’s beneficial for all parties despite the complexity, achieve high status, and create a compact that actually rewards them for being good citizens regardless of intellectual ability. There is a very toxic aspect in the upper echelons of modern society where those not able to handle the insane complexity and competitiveness of technocracy are essentially lied to by most of our educational system to continue schooling and training indefinitely, or they are ousted from the training environment and treated like livestock. Many people then end up clinging on to large bureaucratic systems for meaning and survival, which becomes further and further out of sync with real societal needs. This is a much harder problem to solve than the first given modern organizational complexity, but people will not accept the solution to the first problem (which is inevitably unbalanced and discriminatory against those less able) unless the system as a whole is explicitly rewarding and accepting everyone for participation and giving them achievable pathways to high status. I see that second problem as THE problem of the 21st century. If that problem is not solved, or if it is forcibly “solved” arrogantly and stupidly, I worry the world will be plunged into a level of dysfunction that makes the past 3 years look like nirvana. If that problem is solved we could find ourselves enjoying the highest levels of prosperity, meaning, belonging, and global uplift in the history of mankind in the decades to come.
- neilv 4y ago
  This sounds to me like an imagined meritocracy fantasy, which in practice would end up a dystopia rife with corruption, injustice, and arrogance.
  - didericis 4y ago
    Aiming towards a legitimate meritocracy is the least dystopian aim possible. Aiming at anything else will simply be a less effective, more corrupt, more unjust, more arrogantly constructed system. True meritocracy requires aiming away from corruption, towards justice, and towards humility. That will never be perfectly achieved, but the lack of willingness to even aim at the target in large sectors of society at the moment is something I find both incredibly depressing and incredibly counterproductive strategically. There are tools and procedures that can be systematically employed to measure merit that, while imperfect, are better than nothing, and seem to be increasingly rejected because people don’t like the results. Those results are not something that should be considered static nor perfectly calibrated to merit nor reflective of worth as a high status member of society. But the incredible amount of sensitivity around any attempt at identifying and nurturing people with signs of high potential regardless of background is a giant achilles heel affecting all of society. Failing to properly address and assuage those sensitivities so we can pursue meritocracy to the extent possible harms everyone in the long run.
  - toss1 4y ago
    You are completely correct if the meritocracy fails to provide a fair allocation of resources. The way it is going, the "merit" scale equates merit with ability to gain control of money. Honesty doesn't even matter; there are many more Madoffs and SBFs of the world that haven't yet gotten caught, and everyone hails them (at least until they fall). Madoff died in jail, but only after he lived decades at the top; some would see that as a good life bargain career plan. If we build a real meritocracy AND provide for equitable distribution of resources to even the least among us, we can do very well. There is a lot of movement in that direction, but until the abusers at the top get the point that there will be no society even worth living above without equity, we could be headed for real darkness.
- 4y ago
szastamasta 4y ago
This is a great comment. Thank you! I’ve got nothing to add. It’s very sad, but that’s just how it is.
dTal 4y ago
>...all that know-how was stolen by China, who isn't interested in quarterly profits, but in global hegemony... This seems a little simplistic? "China" isn't a monolith, and I'm pretty sure Chinese companies are just as interested in quarterly profits as Western ones. It's not like they're all state enterprises. And they didn't "steal" know-how - they earned it, by doing stuff (aside from the odd case of corporate espionage, which certainly cuts both ways). Nor is the United States any less interested in global hegemony than China. I suggest that the reason for manufacturing moving to China is simply because labor is cheaper there (large population and weak labor laws). The Chinese government has played its hand well, but it doesn't represent some grand asymmetry in strategic planning - it's just the hand of the market as always.
- lmm 4y ago
  > It's not like they're all state enterprises. Isn't it? If the companies all take orders from the state, and have state representatives on their boards, that seems pretty close. > And they didn't "steal" know-how - they earned it, by doing stuff (aside from the odd case of corporate espionage, which certainly cuts both ways). Espionage is asymmetric, and there are also cases of China seizing whole companies outright from foreign investors. Capital controls and controls on the ability of foreign companies to do business are very much asymmetric.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  > Nor is the United States any less interested in global hegemony than China. In as far as United States is a democracy, it is not interested in global "hegemony". It is interested in Democracy spreading all over the world. Democracy is not hegemony but freedom for one person to have one vote and nobody being above the law. Of course that could change. A Nazi party could gain the power in US. Then you could say that US is interested in global hegemony for sure.
  - brabel 4y ago
    The USA maintains military bases in all corners of the world. From Australia to Guam, Eastern Europe to Brazil. If they're not interested in hegemony and all they want is to spread democracy (sounds eerily similar to the jesuits in the 1500's trying to christen the savages) why would they do that?
safety1st 4y ago
The entire strategic advantage of the west was sold out thanks to trying to standardize management? Come on, there's certainly an element of truth with relation to the downsides of globalization, but that's some pretty heavy hyperbole. In terms of what is wrong with this apocalyptic view of the future, I would start with the idea that China has some unassailable chokehold on the West. A lot of influence over our supply chain (which is at the moment divesting), sure. Someone like Peter Zeihan can articulate it better than I can here (ex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzT38jCUpgU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzT38jCUpgU), but China is really on its knees at the moment owing in large part to the instability of authoritarian regimes. We might see them get back on their feet in the next few years but we might just as easily see a catastrophic collapse of their government and economy. Time will tell.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  US needs China and China needs US. The Wealth of Nations. The only problem as you say is the authoritarian regime in China which opposes progress for its people, because the authoritarians have taken over so of course they look after their own interests not the interests of the majority. Therefore progress is coming very slowly to the masses. China used to be ruled by a "junta" but now it seems it is ruled by a dictator, a single person. He might be a good person, or evil, and so will his follower. At some point there will be a very evil dictator just like in ancient Rome.
  - safety1st 4y ago
    > US needs China and China needs US It's more accurate to say: "China needs the cooperation of the US and EU in order to sustain its growth. But with enough effort, the US and EU can find a replacement for China." You can relocate supply but you can't relocate demand. The West can find new partners to buy stuff from, like India and Vietnam, and is doing so now. If it really wants to it can pump money into those countries to speed up the process. World leaders are now acutely aware of China's political instability - I think no matter what happens, the era of China being the whole world's indispensable supplier is over, no one is really comfortable with it anymore. Between Covid and Jinping, China has only itself to blame.

by toss1 4y ago

didericis 4y ago

The main thing that gives me hope is that the type of knowledge generation environment in the western world still hasn’t been acquired by dictatorial powers like China. Given the exponentially increasing technological change we’re experiencing, the knowledge transferred via the method you described will likely be surpassed and rendered obsolete relatively quickly (hopefully) and make that transferred knowledge less likely to undo the progress made towards global order and uplift. Because China is experiencing all kinds of internal demographic and political turmoil, and they’re still much further behind than people realize, what I worry about more in the long run is decay of western education than anything externally driven. We are our own worst enemy, and we risk hollowing out what has historically been the engine of innovation for the majority of the world (I am talking primarily about the pipeline feeding people into US University systems since World War II and high level technical/tinkering environments, as I think European education seems to have lost a decent amount of innovative capability a while ago, though I know much less about it). That problem is deeper than the problem of products of that system being sold off as you describe, but related. That poses a far bigger long term risk to domestic and global prosperity than China, imo, although China is still a massive risk for at least the next decade if Xi continues his current trajectory, and the education problem is of course related to our ability to confront that. I see two extremely important problems that need to be solved: 1. The most intelligent and competent members of the public need to be pulled from all backgrounds, colors and creeds and be rigorously evaluated purely for ability and merit regardless of all other criteria. Historically there has been bias in favor of the host nation population. Now there is bias in favor of restorative education and nepotism. While truly restorative education has merit, it cannot interfere with attempts to identify and nurture the best of the best, which is of upmost national security importance, and is important for the maintenance and improvement of the machinery which has given us so much material prosperity. 2. We need to accept that not everyone is able to handle the complexity of the world we have created and educate those who are not in that first highly selective pool of people how to be good citizens, participate in complex systems in a way that’s beneficial for all parties despite the complexity, achieve high status, and create a compact that actually rewards them for being good citizens regardless of intellectual ability. There is a very toxic aspect in the upper echelons of modern society where those not able to handle the insane complexity and competitiveness of technocracy are essentially lied to by most of our educational system to continue schooling and training indefinitely, or they are ousted from the training environment and treated like livestock. Many people then end up clinging on to large bureaucratic systems for meaning and survival, which becomes further and further out of sync with real societal needs. This is a much harder problem to solve than the first given modern organizational complexity, but people will not accept the solution to the first problem (which is inevitably unbalanced and discriminatory against those less able) unless the system as a whole is explicitly rewarding and accepting everyone for participation and giving them achievable pathways to high status. I see that second problem as THE problem of the 21st century. If that problem is not solved, or if it is forcibly “solved” arrogantly and stupidly, I worry the world will be plunged into a level of dysfunction that makes the past 3 years look like nirvana. If that problem is solved we could find ourselves enjoying the highest levels of prosperity, meaning, belonging, and global uplift in the history of mankind in the decades to come.

neilv 4y ago
This sounds to me like an imagined meritocracy fantasy, which in practice would end up a dystopia rife with corruption, injustice, and arrogance.
- didericis 4y ago
  Aiming towards a legitimate meritocracy is the least dystopian aim possible. Aiming at anything else will simply be a less effective, more corrupt, more unjust, more arrogantly constructed system. True meritocracy requires aiming away from corruption, towards justice, and towards humility. That will never be perfectly achieved, but the lack of willingness to even aim at the target in large sectors of society at the moment is something I find both incredibly depressing and incredibly counterproductive strategically. There are tools and procedures that can be systematically employed to measure merit that, while imperfect, are better than nothing, and seem to be increasingly rejected because people don’t like the results. Those results are not something that should be considered static nor perfectly calibrated to merit nor reflective of worth as a high status member of society. But the incredible amount of sensitivity around any attempt at identifying and nurturing people with signs of high potential regardless of background is a giant achilles heel affecting all of society. Failing to properly address and assuage those sensitivities so we can pursue meritocracy to the extent possible harms everyone in the long run.
- toss1 4y ago
  You are completely correct if the meritocracy fails to provide a fair allocation of resources. The way it is going, the "merit" scale equates merit with ability to gain control of money. Honesty doesn't even matter; there are many more Madoffs and SBFs of the world that haven't yet gotten caught, and everyone hails them (at least until they fall). Madoff died in jail, but only after he lived decades at the top; some would see that as a good life bargain career plan. If we build a real meritocracy AND provide for equitable distribution of resources to even the least among us, we can do very well. There is a lot of movement in that direction, but until the abusers at the top get the point that there will be no society even worth living above without equity, we could be headed for real darkness.
4y ago

szastamasta 4y ago

This is a great comment. Thank you! I’ve got nothing to add. It’s very sad, but that’s just how it is.

dTal 4y ago

>...all that know-how was stolen by China, who isn't interested in quarterly profits, but in global hegemony... This seems a little simplistic? "China" isn't a monolith, and I'm pretty sure Chinese companies are just as interested in quarterly profits as Western ones. It's not like they're all state enterprises. And they didn't "steal" know-how - they earned it, by doing stuff (aside from the odd case of corporate espionage, which certainly cuts both ways). Nor is the United States any less interested in global hegemony than China. I suggest that the reason for manufacturing moving to China is simply because labor is cheaper there (large population and weak labor laws). The Chinese government has played its hand well, but it doesn't represent some grand asymmetry in strategic planning - it's just the hand of the market as always.

lmm 4y ago
> It's not like they're all state enterprises. Isn't it? If the companies all take orders from the state, and have state representatives on their boards, that seems pretty close. > And they didn't "steal" know-how - they earned it, by doing stuff (aside from the odd case of corporate espionage, which certainly cuts both ways). Espionage is asymmetric, and there are also cases of China seizing whole companies outright from foreign investors. Capital controls and controls on the ability of foreign companies to do business are very much asymmetric.
galaxyLogic 4y ago
> Nor is the United States any less interested in global hegemony than China. In as far as United States is a democracy, it is not interested in global "hegemony". It is interested in Democracy spreading all over the world. Democracy is not hegemony but freedom for one person to have one vote and nobody being above the law. Of course that could change. A Nazi party could gain the power in US. Then you could say that US is interested in global hegemony for sure.
- brabel 4y ago
  The USA maintains military bases in all corners of the world. From Australia to Guam, Eastern Europe to Brazil. If they're not interested in hegemony and all they want is to spread democracy (sounds eerily similar to the jesuits in the 1500's trying to christen the savages) why would they do that?

safety1st 4y ago

The entire strategic advantage of the west was sold out thanks to trying to standardize management? Come on, there's certainly an element of truth with relation to the downsides of globalization, but that's some pretty heavy hyperbole. In terms of what is wrong with this apocalyptic view of the future, I would start with the idea that China has some unassailable chokehold on the West. A lot of influence over our supply chain (which is at the moment divesting), sure. Someone like Peter Zeihan can articulate it better than I can here (ex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzT38jCUpgU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzT38jCUpgU), but China is really on its knees at the moment owing in large part to the instability of authoritarian regimes. We might see them get back on their feet in the next few years but we might just as easily see a catastrophic collapse of their government and economy. Time will tell.

galaxyLogic 4y ago
US needs China and China needs US. The Wealth of Nations. The only problem as you say is the authoritarian regime in China which opposes progress for its people, because the authoritarians have taken over so of course they look after their own interests not the interests of the majority. Therefore progress is coming very slowly to the masses. China used to be ruled by a "junta" but now it seems it is ruled by a dictator, a single person. He might be a good person, or evil, and so will his follower. At some point there will be a very evil dictator just like in ancient Rome.
- safety1st 4y ago
  > US needs China and China needs US It's more accurate to say: "China needs the cooperation of the US and EU in order to sustain its growth. But with enough effort, the US and EU can find a replacement for China." You can relocate supply but you can't relocate demand. The West can find new partners to buy stuff from, like India and Vietnam, and is doing so now. If it really wants to it can pump money into those countries to speed up the process. World leaders are now acutely aware of China's political instability - I think no matter what happens, the era of China being the whole world's indispensable supplier is over, no one is really comfortable with it anymore. Between Covid and Jinping, China has only itself to blame.