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> Eventually, the waste management union goes on strike and the trash starts piling up on the street again anyways. Isn't that just free association? Unless t

> Eventually, the waste management union goes on strike and the trash starts piling up on the street again anyways. Isn't that just free association? Unless they signed a binding agreement that prohibited striking whatsoever, I can't see why they shouldn't be able to.

brookst 3y ago
I didn’t see a moral judgment against striking, just an observation that the elaborate systems set up to collect trash sometimes end up intentionally not collecting trash.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  The union and its member's intentions sure, not the intention of the overall 'elaborate system'. Because the union and its member are only components of the larger system. i.e. A system that doesn't take into account the free association of its components is incoherent.
  - brookst 3y ago
    I think you’re missing the original point. It was nothing about unions or free association. In fact, the point was that ALL systems become incoherent as they scale. The existence of unions and free association is built-in to the argument that systems designed to pick up trash sometimes intentionally do not pick up trash. It’s not a moral judgment that these systems are broken and therefore workers should be slaves. It is an acknowledgment that complex systems end up having to meet conflicting priorities and therefore become, as you say, incoherent.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      Failure to collect trash during a strike is not "becoming incoherent as [it] scale[s]". Failure to collect trash under certain conditions is not a failure of a trash collecting system. Inability to regularly collect trash is the failure mode we're concerned about.
      - vdaea 3y ago
        >Failure to collect trash under certain conditions is not a failure of a trash collecting system. Of course it is. If your phone fails to make calls under certain conditions, that is a failure of the system, and we try to fix it (for example by deploying more antennas, or by fixing software bugs in it). If workers refuse to pick up trash, we can also fix that (ask Ronald Reagan).
        PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        There's no expectation of continuous (24/7) trash pickup, unlike your phone where (these days) you expect it to work all the time. If the regular collection schedule is every 7 days, and it turns into 14 or even 21, for the most part your trash is still being collected within the bounds of "yeah, my trash gets collected".

brookst 3y ago

I didn’t see a moral judgment against striking, just an observation that the elaborate systems set up to collect trash sometimes end up intentionally not collecting trash.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
The union and its member's intentions sure, not the intention of the overall 'elaborate system'. Because the union and its member are only components of the larger system. i.e. A system that doesn't take into account the free association of its components is incoherent.
- brookst 3y ago
  I think you’re missing the original point. It was nothing about unions or free association. In fact, the point was that ALL systems become incoherent as they scale. The existence of unions and free association is built-in to the argument that systems designed to pick up trash sometimes intentionally do not pick up trash. It’s not a moral judgment that these systems are broken and therefore workers should be slaves. It is an acknowledgment that complex systems end up having to meet conflicting priorities and therefore become, as you say, incoherent.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Failure to collect trash during a strike is not "becoming incoherent as [it] scale[s]". Failure to collect trash under certain conditions is not a failure of a trash collecting system. Inability to regularly collect trash is the failure mode we're concerned about.
    - vdaea 3y ago
      >Failure to collect trash under certain conditions is not a failure of a trash collecting system. Of course it is. If your phone fails to make calls under certain conditions, that is a failure of the system, and we try to fix it (for example by deploying more antennas, or by fixing software bugs in it). If workers refuse to pick up trash, we can also fix that (ask Ronald Reagan).
      - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        There's no expectation of continuous (24/7) trash pickup, unlike your phone where (these days) you expect it to work all the time. If the regular collection schedule is every 7 days, and it turns into 14 or even 21, for the most part your trash is still being collected within the bounds of "yeah, my trash gets collected".