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> This is why a competent and well staffed bureaucracy is so important. Try: "This is why a competent and well staffed science institute is so important." Bur
by krunck 1y ago
> This is why a competent and well staffed bureaucracy is so important.
Try: "This is why a competent and well staffed science institute is so important."
Bureaucracy not required.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoWho exactly do you think staffs this part of a science institute? Bureaucracy is just another word for the kind of well-staffed administrative system that can handle these tasks.
- 8note 1y agothe administrative parts - managers and approvers, aren't doing the science or the application thereof. a couple university students in a van going around releasing flies every 10 miles is not a bureaucracy, nor a stand in for a bureaucracy
- ryandamm 1y agoYou think that would be sufficient? Did you read the article? I did, and I have previously read an article in (iirc) The Atlantic about the screwfly program when it was working. It was a monumental effort to push screwflies back to the Darien Gap, involving widespread coordination of cattle ranchers and government workers, constant flyovers of planes dropping huge numbers of sterile flies, and a massive breeding program. Two university students in a van can get about as much done as it sounds like. Some problems require coordination, government involvement, and yes, the organization — i.e., bureaucracy — that implies. (Edit: it was The Atlantic, not The New Yorker. Comment further down has the link, but here it is: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-eating-worms-disease-containment-america-panama/611026/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea...)
- fallingknife 1y agoI think a lot of the objections here aren't really bureaucracy in terms of government employees doing things. A lot of what people mean when they complain about "government bureaucracy" is really that it often seems to be 20 people taking 6 months to do something that should take 5 people 6 weeks. So discussions on this tend to get confusing.
- jen20 1y ago> it often seems to be 20 people taking 6 months to do something that should take 5 people 6 weeks Sounds just like "enterprise" IT to me, tbh.
- aerostable_slug 1y agoLeadership can reform enterprise IT, sometimes including staffing cuts while also improving productivity. I have personally seen this happen. It can actually get better. This is why some people are optimistic about recent efforts at doing the same in government bureaucracy. It's possible to trend upwards.
- jen20 1y agoI’ve seen that happen in government too: GDS. As a rule it does not though.
- gopher_space 1y agoLeadership needs to be seen as both competent and trustworthy by employees to pull this off. Otherwise it’s the death spiral.
- wredcoll 1y agoSure, it's possible, but unlikely. And nobody ever notices or appreciates the efficient and effective goverment agencies. Honestly the main problem is the fed gov has terrible pr.
- analog31 1y agoRegular people (including me) think the same thing about why software projects take so long. In fact I consider engineering to be a form of bureaucracy. And I've had long conversations about it with friends who are developers, but it's still hard for an outsider to fully grasp why it's so hard. In turn, they can't understand why my job can't be replaced by AI.
- 1y ago
- danso 1y agoHow is a bureaucracy not required when the solution involves coordinated multinational logistics to produce and distribute hundreds of millions of flies?
- johnisgood 1y agoYeah because bureaucracy (in its original term) is efficient at that. /s Wait a couple of years, and then maybe.
- kergonath 1y agoThis is surreal. The evil bureaucracy has successfully been doing it since the 1960s. It worked. And yes, it was efficient. Now, the problem is that if you alienate your neighbours they stop wanting to play nice. Also, bureaucracies do not work when you fire civil servants indiscriminately. It’s not the bureaucracy doing this, it’s the guy who told you that the country would work better without it.
- johnisgood 1y agoThe Government is inherently ineffective, and bureaucracy, as a term, pretty much says so. Plenty of evidence has been piling up with regarding to it. Feel free to down-vote, does not make your Nanny State any more efficient. :D You should read more about economics. I can give you resources.
- Eisenstein 1y agoHow did you come to your conclusions?
- johnisgood 1y agohttps://mises.org/library/book/lessons-young-economist https://mises.org/library/book/lessons-young-economist https://mises.org/mises-daily/myth-efficient-government-service https://mises.org/mises-daily/myth-efficient-government-serv... https://mises.org/journal-libertarian-studies/austrian-theory-efficiency-and-role-government-0 https://mises.org/journal-libertarian-studies/austrian-theor... https://mises.org/library/book/bureaucracy https://mises.org/library/book/bureaucracy
- kergonath 1y agoThe science is done. We know how to deal with this insect, the American government successfully eradicated it from North America ~25 years ago. Now it’s only logistics and diplomacy.