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Our lives are made up of and guided by narratives that sound good and just on paper, but are empirically proven wrong time and time again. Yet they persist. So

Our lives are made up of and guided by narratives that sound good and just on paper, but are empirically proven wrong time and time again. Yet they persist. Some come from the zeitgeist, others are eternal, biblical, and worse, unfalsifiable: "everything happens for a reason," "if you're meant to be together, you will be together," "just do a good job and you'll get what you deserve". The latter was voiced by my postdoc advisor, who did not take the time to look at the percentage of researchers who did good work but did not get a tenure-track position. But perhaps those who did not find jobs did not do good enough work, and the charade continues.

nomel 2y ago
Almost all of his examples are/were failures, by all metrics. Cause and effect requires observation, which means there will be a time delay between when a company does something shady and when the customers realize the rug was pulled out from under them. You can't know a pinto is going to blow up before it blows up. Once people realized, it almost destroyed the company [1]. The time delay between a correction in a company is even longer, because it requires another layer of observation. None of these are proof that the error correction mechanism is broken, or that the quote is somehow untrue/fragile. Most of the egregious examples of broken feedback are those companies that make the red and blue politicians multi millionaires by the time they retire, usually with no-consequences government contracts. edit: and, this fails miserably if you don't pay any attention to the end goal, which I've seen several times. [1] https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2099001/ford-100-defective-pinto-almost-took-fords-reputation-it/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2099001/ford-100-defective-pi...
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  nit: you can indeed know a pinto would blow up before it blows up. But you go to your city square and get laughed at because they trust Ford over some car mechanic who looked deeply into the car. Of course, I'm describing a literal forum here (physical forums! good times). I wonder how many whistleblowers out there highlighted some dark pattern in the past 20 years and were cast off as a conspiracy nut. Both publicly and in internal company channels. nit2: it's so strange how times have changed. 40-50 years ago his Pinto recall was company ending. Nowadays the Cybertruck has had what? 5 recalls now? And it still has this bizarre cult behind it. What happened to people? what happened to wanting a driveable car (nevermind those truck minded audiences the cybertruck targets who claims to do more than just drive)?
  - nomel 2y ago
    nit2, here are the four Cybertruck recalls [1]. 1. Windshield wiper motor failure. 2. Loose trim from the bed. 3. Accelerator pedal can stick. 4. Wrong sized font used for the warning lights. Wiper was fixed with OTA update. Accelerator pedal was fixed on all trucks within the first week after it was discovered. > And it still has this bizarre cult behind it. That doesn't mean sales haven't been hurt, but anyone actually interested will see that the above list isn't an issue. Toyota had a similar recall some years ago, and it hurt their sales too [3]. It's a good idea to skip first model years of any car. [1] https://www.cars.com/research/tesla-cybertruck/recalls/ https://www.cars.com/research/tesla-cybertruck/recalls/ [3] https://www.npr.org/2010/02/02/123283959/gas-pedal-woes-put-brakes-on-toyota-sales https://www.npr.org/2010/02/02/123283959/gas-pedal-woes-put-...
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      You're right about 4 and maybe 2. But #3 is pretty much by biggest one of my top 3 fears in a car. Stuck accelerator or non-working breaks. I was already cast off before hand but I'd never buy a new [car brand] car knowing that kind of issue existed before. #1 is a big issue but not for my area.
      - nomel 2y ago
        > I'd never buy a new [car brand] car knowing that kind of issue existed before. There's some severe information bias here. If you actually believe this, then you're basically restricted from buying most vehicles. Toyota is out [1] along with, BMW [2], Ford [3], Chevy [4], Honda [5], Volvo [6], Mercedes [7] and more. The cars affected in those are similar to orders of magnitude more. These were all first results, one vehicle, but I'm sure there are many more examples for each. The odd tribalism is what I find most interesting about the Cybertruck. And no, I'm not interested in buying a Cybertruck. [1] https://www.cars.com/articles/toyota-recalls-2-3-million-vehicles-over-sticking-accelerator-pedal-1420663220496/ https://www.cars.com/articles/toyota-recalls-2-3-million-veh... [2] https://repairpal.com/recall/04V409000 https://repairpal.com/recall/04V409000 [3] https://repairpal.com/recall/99V265000 https://repairpal.com/recall/99V265000 [4] https://www.asburyauto.com/gmc-accelerator-pedal-recall https://www.asburyauto.com/gmc-accelerator-pedal-recall [5] https://www.asburyauto.com/honda-accelerator-pedal-recall https://www.asburyauto.com/honda-accelerator-pedal-recall [6] https://www.motorsafety.org/volvo-recalls-xc40-bev-suvs-that-may-accelerate-on-their-own/#:~:text=Ridgeville%2C%20SC%20–%20May%207%2C,of%20injury%20or%20property%20damage https://www.motorsafety.org/volvo-recalls-xc40-bev-suvs-that.... [7] https://www.panish.law/2012/08/stuck-gas-pedal-risk-prompts-mercedes-to-recall-m-class-suvs/ https://www.panish.law/2012/08/stuck-gas-pedal-risk-prompts-...

nomel 2y ago

Almost all of his examples are/were failures, by all metrics. Cause and effect requires observation, which means there will be a time delay between when a company does something shady and when the customers realize the rug was pulled out from under them. You can't know a pinto is going to blow up before it blows up. Once people realized, it almost destroyed the company [1]. The time delay between a correction in a company is even longer, because it requires another layer of observation. None of these are proof that the error correction mechanism is broken, or that the quote is somehow untrue/fragile. Most of the egregious examples of broken feedback are those companies that make the red and blue politicians multi millionaires by the time they retire, usually with no-consequences government contracts. edit: and, this fails miserably if you don't pay any attention to the end goal, which I've seen several times. [1] https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2099001/ford-100-defective-pinto-almost-took-fords-reputation-it/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2099001/ford-100-defective-pi...

johnnyanmac 2y ago
nit: you can indeed know a pinto would blow up before it blows up. But you go to your city square and get laughed at because they trust Ford over some car mechanic who looked deeply into the car. Of course, I'm describing a literal forum here (physical forums! good times). I wonder how many whistleblowers out there highlighted some dark pattern in the past 20 years and were cast off as a conspiracy nut. Both publicly and in internal company channels. nit2: it's so strange how times have changed. 40-50 years ago his Pinto recall was company ending. Nowadays the Cybertruck has had what? 5 recalls now? And it still has this bizarre cult behind it. What happened to people? what happened to wanting a driveable car (nevermind those truck minded audiences the cybertruck targets who claims to do more than just drive)?
- nomel 2y ago
  nit2, here are the four Cybertruck recalls [1]. 1. Windshield wiper motor failure. 2. Loose trim from the bed. 3. Accelerator pedal can stick. 4. Wrong sized font used for the warning lights. Wiper was fixed with OTA update. Accelerator pedal was fixed on all trucks within the first week after it was discovered. > And it still has this bizarre cult behind it. That doesn't mean sales haven't been hurt, but anyone actually interested will see that the above list isn't an issue. Toyota had a similar recall some years ago, and it hurt their sales too [3]. It's a good idea to skip first model years of any car. [1] https://www.cars.com/research/tesla-cybertruck/recalls/ https://www.cars.com/research/tesla-cybertruck/recalls/ [3] https://www.npr.org/2010/02/02/123283959/gas-pedal-woes-put-brakes-on-toyota-sales https://www.npr.org/2010/02/02/123283959/gas-pedal-woes-put-...
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    You're right about 4 and maybe 2. But #3 is pretty much by biggest one of my top 3 fears in a car. Stuck accelerator or non-working breaks. I was already cast off before hand but I'd never buy a new [car brand] car knowing that kind of issue existed before. #1 is a big issue but not for my area.
    - nomel 2y ago
      > I'd never buy a new [car brand] car knowing that kind of issue existed before. There's some severe information bias here. If you actually believe this, then you're basically restricted from buying most vehicles. Toyota is out [1] along with, BMW [2], Ford [3], Chevy [4], Honda [5], Volvo [6], Mercedes [7] and more. The cars affected in those are similar to orders of magnitude more. These were all first results, one vehicle, but I'm sure there are many more examples for each. The odd tribalism is what I find most interesting about the Cybertruck. And no, I'm not interested in buying a Cybertruck. [1] https://www.cars.com/articles/toyota-recalls-2-3-million-vehicles-over-sticking-accelerator-pedal-1420663220496/ https://www.cars.com/articles/toyota-recalls-2-3-million-veh... [2] https://repairpal.com/recall/04V409000 https://repairpal.com/recall/04V409000 [3] https://repairpal.com/recall/99V265000 https://repairpal.com/recall/99V265000 [4] https://www.asburyauto.com/gmc-accelerator-pedal-recall https://www.asburyauto.com/gmc-accelerator-pedal-recall [5] https://www.asburyauto.com/honda-accelerator-pedal-recall https://www.asburyauto.com/honda-accelerator-pedal-recall [6] https://www.motorsafety.org/volvo-recalls-xc40-bev-suvs-that-may-accelerate-on-their-own/#:~:text=Ridgeville%2C%20SC%20–%20May%207%2C,of%20injury%20or%20property%20damage https://www.motorsafety.org/volvo-recalls-xc40-bev-suvs-that.... [7] https://www.panish.law/2012/08/stuck-gas-pedal-risk-prompts-mercedes-to-recall-m-class-suvs/ https://www.panish.law/2012/08/stuck-gas-pedal-risk-prompts-...