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Microsoft Excel. Someone spends hours torturing numbers in a spreadsheet until they give up and yield the desired answer. Pivot tables are created and used to

by bregma 3y ago

Microsoft Excel. Someone spends hours torturing numbers in a spreadsheet until they give up and yield the desired answer. Pivot tables are created and used to make a slide deck using Microsoft Power Point. A decision is made, another round of golf played, and someone checks on the value of their non-salary compensation. That the spreadsheet does not reflect your experienced reality is of little consequence because at that level, the spreadsheet is the reality. If your number doesn't reflect what's in Excel, you can be easily replaced with another number.

icemelt8 3y ago
This is such a great comment.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> the spreadsheet is the reality. This nails an entire culture, from healthcare, to education, to policing... But we cannot blame software itself, right? Something went deeply, horribly wrong in our own societal script. Something way beyond Max Weber or Franz Kafka's takes on bureaucracy. SOmething that made us bow down before computers as new gods. I'm becoming a techo-athiest.
- dial9-1 3y ago
  scale of complexity
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    That's a tempting answer. I see why you proffer it. But I have to say no. Complexity is neither an immanent feature nor inevitability. Behind unruly complexity is our failure to manage it. And indeed, a love of complexity, a fetish for it that seduces us into ever more. To defeat complexity we have to embrace, and engage with it. We have to see what parts of technology that got us to where we are, must now be justifiably rejected. All I see right now, especially with regards to "AI" and the new wave of techno-populism, is a retreat from complexity and more embrace of "magic".
- vundercind 3y ago
  My dad worked for a major railroad from the late 70s through the tail end of the 90s. He worked his way up middling-high in the management structure. High school diploma only. The company got bought at some point. He says nearly all the management up to the C-suite had done actual work at the company, at some point. They promoted from within. After the acquisition, a bunch of MBAs who’d never done actual railroad work took over. Says everything became endless, pointless meetings, a lot involving travel. Impossible to get any actual work done. The old-timers had to keep stopping them from doing dumb shit that couldn’t work. The old timers got “encouraged” to take early retirement. And that was the end of that. The take-over by professional managers and finance bros, rather than having professional (at the thing you actually do) managers running things, is behind it. The easy quips about MBAs ruining everything are more or less correct.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    They would say your father was the victim of "progress and modernisation". Yesterday there was this post [0] on Ivy League's wanting to separate ideology from teaching. As if that were possible. We can read plenty regarding the decline of academia under leftist ideology. The long march of postmodernism is supposed to have corroded everything, decolonising curricula, celebrating diversity etc, etc. Sure. That may well be true. But equally true, through ferociously ignored is the parallel march of the ideological right in universities. Just as there are some liberal arts degrees that teach Marxist feminism, Foucault and Derrida we have MBA's, which are equally ideological. They're steeped in the values of the Thatcher-Reagan era and right-wing economic theories. Their totems - Hayek, Strauss, Schmitt, Mises, Friedman are less well known than those on the left. Nonetheless these often discredited ideologies are presented with the rigour of Maxwell's equations. Off they confidently stride into the world, to run amok doing harm every bit as egregious as their left-leaning counterparts. I've taught some of these kids in a business school, and honestly by year 3 they are utterly lost - all the hallmarks of cult-like brainwashing are fully in effect. Where the sceptics win over the strident zealots, is at least with the lefties there remains chink of openness to new ideas. An MBA is an MBA for life. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=39444092 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=39444092
- digitalsushi 3y ago
  why is every mirror ugly
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Except the black mirror maybe. That only shows us what we want to see.
- maayank 3y ago
  Sounds like you'd enjoy All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: "Curtis argues that computers have failed to liberate humanity, and instead have 'distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...
- phone8675309 3y ago
  > But we cannot blame software itself, right? If we can blame easy access to guns for the rise in mass shootings then we absolutely can and should blame easy access to Excel for the rise in MBA's completely fucking up companies.
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    Ban Assault Spreadsheets
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      If you ban spreadsheets then only managers will use spreadsheets. Spreadsheet bans actually increase rouge accountancy if you disarm law-abiding spreadsheet users. The only thing that stops an MBA with a spreadsheet is a nerd with a spreadsheet.
    - phone8675309 3y ago
      We need to limit the row and column capacity of the spreadsheets we let people own, and also mandate that they must press a key for every cell that needs to be (re-)calculated. It's just common sense.
      - happymellon 3y ago
        Although that's how we ended up with austerity.
    - bregma 3y ago
      Wouldn't that violate your $A$2 rights?
bqmjjx0kac 3y ago
One day, the company that owned my apartment sent me a bill out of the blue for a strange amount of money, something like $63.12. After much head scratching, I realized that it was roughly equal to my monthly rent divided by 30. Someone must have made a new spreadsheet because they insisted I owed them for one extra day of rent. I pulled out my copy of the contract, which required one check per month of exactly the same amount. They said my contract was "wrong" and I entered full WTF mode. Offered them an advance of one day's rent that I'd deduct from the final rent check. Eventually they tired of me and "credited" me the amount in question instead of fixing their spreadsheet.

by bregma 3y ago

icemelt8 3y ago

This is such a great comment.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> the spreadsheet is the reality. This nails an entire culture, from healthcare, to education, to policing... But we cannot blame software itself, right? Something went deeply, horribly wrong in our own societal script. Something way beyond Max Weber or Franz Kafka's takes on bureaucracy. SOmething that made us bow down before computers as new gods. I'm becoming a techo-athiest.

dial9-1 3y ago
scale of complexity
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  That's a tempting answer. I see why you proffer it. But I have to say no. Complexity is neither an immanent feature nor inevitability. Behind unruly complexity is our failure to manage it. And indeed, a love of complexity, a fetish for it that seduces us into ever more. To defeat complexity we have to embrace, and engage with it. We have to see what parts of technology that got us to where we are, must now be justifiably rejected. All I see right now, especially with regards to "AI" and the new wave of techno-populism, is a retreat from complexity and more embrace of "magic".
vundercind 3y ago
My dad worked for a major railroad from the late 70s through the tail end of the 90s. He worked his way up middling-high in the management structure. High school diploma only. The company got bought at some point. He says nearly all the management up to the C-suite had done actual work at the company, at some point. They promoted from within. After the acquisition, a bunch of MBAs who’d never done actual railroad work took over. Says everything became endless, pointless meetings, a lot involving travel. Impossible to get any actual work done. The old-timers had to keep stopping them from doing dumb shit that couldn’t work. The old timers got “encouraged” to take early retirement. And that was the end of that. The take-over by professional managers and finance bros, rather than having professional (at the thing you actually do) managers running things, is behind it. The easy quips about MBAs ruining everything are more or less correct.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  They would say your father was the victim of "progress and modernisation". Yesterday there was this post [0] on Ivy League's wanting to separate ideology from teaching. As if that were possible. We can read plenty regarding the decline of academia under leftist ideology. The long march of postmodernism is supposed to have corroded everything, decolonising curricula, celebrating diversity etc, etc. Sure. That may well be true. But equally true, through ferociously ignored is the parallel march of the ideological right in universities. Just as there are some liberal arts degrees that teach Marxist feminism, Foucault and Derrida we have MBA's, which are equally ideological. They're steeped in the values of the Thatcher-Reagan era and right-wing economic theories. Their totems - Hayek, Strauss, Schmitt, Mises, Friedman are less well known than those on the left. Nonetheless these often discredited ideologies are presented with the rigour of Maxwell's equations. Off they confidently stride into the world, to run amok doing harm every bit as egregious as their left-leaning counterparts. I've taught some of these kids in a business school, and honestly by year 3 they are utterly lost - all the hallmarks of cult-like brainwashing are fully in effect. Where the sceptics win over the strident zealots, is at least with the lefties there remains chink of openness to new ideas. An MBA is an MBA for life. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=39444092 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=39444092
digitalsushi 3y ago
why is every mirror ugly
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Except the black mirror maybe. That only shows us what we want to see.
maayank 3y ago
Sounds like you'd enjoy All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: "Curtis argues that computers have failed to liberate humanity, and instead have 'distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...
phone8675309 3y ago
> But we cannot blame software itself, right? If we can blame easy access to guns for the rise in mass shootings then we absolutely can and should blame easy access to Excel for the rise in MBA's completely fucking up companies.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  Ban Assault Spreadsheets
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    If you ban spreadsheets then only managers will use spreadsheets. Spreadsheet bans actually increase rouge accountancy if you disarm law-abiding spreadsheet users. The only thing that stops an MBA with a spreadsheet is a nerd with a spreadsheet.
  - phone8675309 3y ago
    We need to limit the row and column capacity of the spreadsheets we let people own, and also mandate that they must press a key for every cell that needs to be (re-)calculated. It's just common sense.
    - happymellon 3y ago
      Although that's how we ended up with austerity.
  - bregma 3y ago
    Wouldn't that violate your $A$2 rights?

bqmjjx0kac 3y ago

One day, the company that owned my apartment sent me a bill out of the blue for a strange amount of money, something like $63.12. After much head scratching, I realized that it was roughly equal to my monthly rent divided by 30. Someone must have made a new spreadsheet because they insisted I owed them for one extra day of rent. I pulled out my copy of the contract, which required one check per month of exactly the same amount. They said my contract was "wrong" and I entered full WTF mode. Offered them an advance of one day's rent that I'd deduct from the final rent check. Eventually they tired of me and "credited" me the amount in question instead of fixing their spreadsheet.