3 ms·

This seems a bit defeatist. Some hope for and striving for improvement is good for a society.

captaincrisp 3y ago
I feel the point is a bit subtler. We should strive for improvement. We should also understand that that takes more than the normal amount of resources to do something different and better & either commit to spending what's required or, if we can't afford to, use something already proven instead. The half-done or broken improvements still get called "innovations" and give innovation overall a worse reputation.
- kergonath 3y ago
  > I feel the point is a bit subtler. We should strive for improvement. We should also understand that that takes more than the normal amount of resources to do something different and better & either commit to spending what's required or, if we can't afford to, use something already proven instead. Indeed. I wish this point were articulated that way more often. > The half-done or broken improvements still get called "innovations" and give innovation overall a worse reputation. We fetishise innovation as an abstract concept, for good reasons because you cannot have progress without innovation. What we tend to miss is that while innovation is good, some specific innovations are terrible. This is particularly infuriating when they are re-surfacing old, solved problems. Looking at wall tiling for example (or the cladding that can be found in much of the Underground): this was a good solution to a common problem. Bare concrete walls have obvious downsides, which is why we don’t tend to use them in building anymore. Doing away with tiling or cladding sounds like an architect being innovative, but if the replacement does not solve the problem, it’s a regression. It will look modern and clean as long as it will be properly maintained, which is to say for about a year, and then it will decay the way concrete does. It will eventually be clad, or reviled as a post-modern monstrosity the way some bad brutalist buildings are today. Innovation for innovation’s sake is cargo culting progress. This is giving innovation a bad name.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    What innovation is left? Concrete has been around for centuries in modern forms - we can tweak the formula a lot, but still the same basic idea as when it was invented 100 years ago. Most of what passes for innovation has been tried before. Other things were not tried because anyone who understood the problem knows they are cannot be cost effective. Unfortunately the people who fund this cannot be experts in the field, and thus can easily be persuaded to fund things by scammers that anyone who really was an expert could tell you in a few hours of study are a bad idea. The problem isn't that the politicians are not experts in construction - there is far too many things politicians fund for them to become experts in even a fraction of them all (they also have to fund medical studies, military spending...). The problems is politicians don't respect trained experts, thus don't keep people around to become deep experts, and in turn there is nobody around with deep technical knowledge to say what is a good idea. Or if there are such people around they are not in a position where they can be listened too, instead any scammer is allowed to present their pitch for "innovations".
bluGill 3y ago
There is improve and there is trying something new. Rails have been around for nearly two centuries - they are a solve problem. We don't need to innovate on many parts as there is nothing wrong with the old technology with some minor updated. We already know what works well for a standard train system. Innovation generally tries things that look good to politicians who don't understand trains, but in reality people who understood trains 100 years ago had the idea and rejected it as a bad idea - and the reasons they are bad ideas didn't change! there is a lot of room to improve trains. However it all starts with standard gauge steel track, with standard sizes tunnels, standard switches, standard control algorithms (with computers this had recently had a revolution, while there is room to improve this is again in the mostly solve area), standard "rolling stock" and so on. Let me bring out here two standards that are a bit new: platform doors - now that someone invested them and proved they work everyone should retrofit to them; and elevators - it is criminal that many stations around the world still haven't been retrofitted (criminal as in I think someone should be in prison anywhere you find they have not been retrofitted) Once you have all the standard stuff laid out you can make a few tweaks to see what works, but only a few as we know the standard stuff works. Make sure when you look at standards above you look at what others have done. If you have an idea odds are someone else has already tried it: find them and figure out how it works - sometimes you can tweak to be better sometimes you realize it is a bad idea.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Rails in particular have improved quite a bit. Modern newest generation slab designs requiring very, very little maintenance and are fast to install. > Innovation generally tries things that look good to politicians who don't understand trains, but in reality people who understood trains 100 years ago had the idea and rejected it as a bad idea - and the reasons they are bad ideas didn't change! I'm all for respecting old ideas but this idea that modern engineers are idiots and can't think of anything people 100 years didn't think of is also wrong. > Make sure when you look at standards above you look at what others have done. If you have an idea odds are someone else has already tried it: find them and figure out how it works - sometimes you can tweak to be better sometimes you realize it is a bad idea. I don't disagree. In the context of Crossrail, this seems to be what they have done for the most part. So I don't understand the criticism.

I feel the point is a bit subtler. We should strive for improvement. We should also understand that that takes more than the normal amount of resources to do something different and better & either commit to spending what's required or, if we can't afford to, use something already proven instead. The half-done or broken improvements still get called "innovations" and give innovation overall a worse reputation.

kergonath 3y ago
> I feel the point is a bit subtler. We should strive for improvement. We should also understand that that takes more than the normal amount of resources to do something different and better & either commit to spending what's required or, if we can't afford to, use something already proven instead. Indeed. I wish this point were articulated that way more often. > The half-done or broken improvements still get called "innovations" and give innovation overall a worse reputation. We fetishise innovation as an abstract concept, for good reasons because you cannot have progress without innovation. What we tend to miss is that while innovation is good, some specific innovations are terrible. This is particularly infuriating when they are re-surfacing old, solved problems. Looking at wall tiling for example (or the cladding that can be found in much of the Underground): this was a good solution to a common problem. Bare concrete walls have obvious downsides, which is why we don’t tend to use them in building anymore. Doing away with tiling or cladding sounds like an architect being innovative, but if the replacement does not solve the problem, it’s a regression. It will look modern and clean as long as it will be properly maintained, which is to say for about a year, and then it will decay the way concrete does. It will eventually be clad, or reviled as a post-modern monstrosity the way some bad brutalist buildings are today. Innovation for innovation’s sake is cargo culting progress. This is giving innovation a bad name.
- bluGill 3y ago
  What innovation is left? Concrete has been around for centuries in modern forms - we can tweak the formula a lot, but still the same basic idea as when it was invented 100 years ago. Most of what passes for innovation has been tried before. Other things were not tried because anyone who understood the problem knows they are cannot be cost effective. Unfortunately the people who fund this cannot be experts in the field, and thus can easily be persuaded to fund things by scammers that anyone who really was an expert could tell you in a few hours of study are a bad idea. The problem isn't that the politicians are not experts in construction - there is far too many things politicians fund for them to become experts in even a fraction of them all (they also have to fund medical studies, military spending...). The problems is politicians don't respect trained experts, thus don't keep people around to become deep experts, and in turn there is nobody around with deep technical knowledge to say what is a good idea. Or if there are such people around they are not in a position where they can be listened too, instead any scammer is allowed to present their pitch for "innovations".

bluGill 3y ago

There is improve and there is trying something new. Rails have been around for nearly two centuries - they are a solve problem. We don't need to innovate on many parts as there is nothing wrong with the old technology with some minor updated. We already know what works well for a standard train system. Innovation generally tries things that look good to politicians who don't understand trains, but in reality people who understood trains 100 years ago had the idea and rejected it as a bad idea - and the reasons they are bad ideas didn't change! there is a lot of room to improve trains. However it all starts with standard gauge steel track, with standard sizes tunnels, standard switches, standard control algorithms (with computers this had recently had a revolution, while there is room to improve this is again in the mostly solve area), standard "rolling stock" and so on. Let me bring out here two standards that are a bit new: platform doors - now that someone invested them and proved they work everyone should retrofit to them; and elevators - it is criminal that many stations around the world still haven't been retrofitted (criminal as in I think someone should be in prison anywhere you find they have not been retrofitted) Once you have all the standard stuff laid out you can make a few tweaks to see what works, but only a few as we know the standard stuff works. Make sure when you look at standards above you look at what others have done. If you have an idea odds are someone else has already tried it: find them and figure out how it works - sometimes you can tweak to be better sometimes you realize it is a bad idea.

panick21_ 3y ago
Rails in particular have improved quite a bit. Modern newest generation slab designs requiring very, very little maintenance and are fast to install. > Innovation generally tries things that look good to politicians who don't understand trains, but in reality people who understood trains 100 years ago had the idea and rejected it as a bad idea - and the reasons they are bad ideas didn't change! I'm all for respecting old ideas but this idea that modern engineers are idiots and can't think of anything people 100 years didn't think of is also wrong. > Make sure when you look at standards above you look at what others have done. If you have an idea odds are someone else has already tried it: find them and figure out how it works - sometimes you can tweak to be better sometimes you realize it is a bad idea. I don't disagree. In the context of Crossrail, this seems to be what they have done for the most part. So I don't understand the criticism.