6 ms·

Sounds like Europe....

by franze 4mo ago

cs02rm0 4mo ago
https://www.plexal.com/our-partners/ https://www.plexal.com/our-partners/
cubefox 4mo ago
Yes, I remember someone explaining that a similar thing happens with all kinds of research grants in the EU. Some companies specialize in writing very complex grant proposals in just such a way that they are likely accepted, and then produce some useless bullshit reports. Actual specialized companies with expertise in the matters the grant is about don't have the knowledge of how to fill out grant proposals in a way that gets them accepted by bureaucrats because they don't know how the decision process works. Depressing.
- timkam 4mo ago
  Indeed. Also, companies with a genuine and socially at least somewhat useful business model prefer focusing on customers buying their actual products as the main revenue source. The state- and EU-driven funding ecosystem is so convoluted that one either mostly ignores it in favor of value-creating work, or specializes in exploiting it, unfortunately.
pbhjpbhj 4mo ago
People want more government control, but when governments take more control the press tells the people that it's bad and the people acquiesce. In local forums, so often you see (paraphrasing a pattern) "why are the government interfering with landlords, they should stop so many barbers opening instead". That is, why are the gov interfering in property markets, instead they should interfere in property markets AND plan the economy (where economy here means 'financial system'). The people promoting planned economy without realising it are always 'right wing' 'all Communists should be shot'-types. It's fascinating.
- Xirdus 4mo ago
  I know a lot of left win Europeans who promote planned economy without realising it. So there's that. I think a better way to look at it is people demanding the government to intervene whenever intervention is beneficial to them personally, while demanding the government leave things alone whenever intervention is detrimental to them personally. Which is just a long winded way to describe the basics of democracy - people voting in their own interest.
  - Nevermark 4mo ago
    > people voting in their own interest. There are some people who care about policy, care about a generally healthy environment. Which has a strong self-interest aspect, as it should, but not narrow. Few people manage to vote for their own narrow interests in a reliable coherent way. Even the rich and powerful reliably foot gun themselves. I believe the vast majority, the vast majority of the time, reliably and enthusiastically vote for their group's shibboleths. Regardless of what they might say or believe their own motivations are. Even seemingly sophisticated and principled thinkers. It shows via the reliable, trivial to resolve, but reflection impervious group-coded "misunderstandings" that even "serious" people defend and nurture. The group reinforced, often meme-reflex deflected, unthinkables. Across the political spectrum. People vote for brands.
    - Jensson 4mo ago
      > People vote for brands. Right, so the government should be based on brands rather than people. USA trying to make a people centric system still ended up into a brand centric republican vs democrat, just that now those brands changes dramatically every 4 years just people still vote for the brand even after it changes. Its much more stable when you have stable political party brands like in multi party system, then a person voting for the same brand for 40 years will vote for roughly the same politics instead of it changing all the time.
      - Xirdus 4mo ago
        In practice, multi-party systems rotate their brands in and out with much higher frequency than two-party systems.
elzbardico 4mo ago
Sounds like Brazil...
tverbeure 4mo ago
Yeah, I used to work for a large-ish company that participated in projects like this. The company has a project manager with a large spreadsheet to keep track of everything so that no employee would accidentally be officially double booked because that could be detected as fraud. Some real work was done, but the meetings with other partners were a farce. You had these tiny companies whose only existence was to feed off the European money. One day our manager asked if the architecture document of a 100kbps modem that I had worked on could be repurposed for a 1 Mbps modem project that was European funded…
jijijijij 4mo ago
German here, can confirm. Although, I don't think it's honest incompetence, but intentional corruption. Eg. public calls for bids tend to be a little too specific and politicians tend to get jobs where they funneled public money. However, things are changing... As of this current government, nobody is scheming anymore. The corruption and wealth extraction happens openly. They are really testing the waters in what they can get away with. It's almost US level audacity, tho not yet as undignified. The sad part is, although people here are universally frustrated about it, they flock to the one party evidently more corrupt and incompetent than the CDU: The AfD. Honestly, despite political disagreement, all my life I considered myself lucky to live here, but for the first time it makes me sick thinking about Germany's future, working here and paying taxes. And the base motives showing as reactionary malice by my fellow citizens disgust me. It's shameful to admit, but this country is truly ill and deeply corrupt.

Sounds like Europe....

by franze 4mo ago

Sounds like Europe....

cs02rm0 4mo ago

https://www.plexal.com/our-partners/ https://www.plexal.com/our-partners/

cubefox 4mo ago

Yes, I remember someone explaining that a similar thing happens with all kinds of research grants in the EU. Some companies specialize in writing very complex grant proposals in just such a way that they are likely accepted, and then produce some useless bullshit reports. Actual specialized companies with expertise in the matters the grant is about don't have the knowledge of how to fill out grant proposals in a way that gets them accepted by bureaucrats because they don't know how the decision process works. Depressing.

timkam 4mo ago
Indeed. Also, companies with a genuine and socially at least somewhat useful business model prefer focusing on customers buying their actual products as the main revenue source. The state- and EU-driven funding ecosystem is so convoluted that one either mostly ignores it in favor of value-creating work, or specializes in exploiting it, unfortunately.

pbhjpbhj 4mo ago

People want more government control, but when governments take more control the press tells the people that it's bad and the people acquiesce. In local forums, so often you see (paraphrasing a pattern) "why are the government interfering with landlords, they should stop so many barbers opening instead". That is, why are the gov interfering in property markets, instead they should interfere in property markets AND plan the economy (where economy here means 'financial system'). The people promoting planned economy without realising it are always 'right wing' 'all Communists should be shot'-types. It's fascinating.

Xirdus 4mo ago
I know a lot of left win Europeans who promote planned economy without realising it. So there's that. I think a better way to look at it is people demanding the government to intervene whenever intervention is beneficial to them personally, while demanding the government leave things alone whenever intervention is detrimental to them personally. Which is just a long winded way to describe the basics of democracy - people voting in their own interest.
- Nevermark 4mo ago
  > people voting in their own interest. There are some people who care about policy, care about a generally healthy environment. Which has a strong self-interest aspect, as it should, but not narrow. Few people manage to vote for their own narrow interests in a reliable coherent way. Even the rich and powerful reliably foot gun themselves. I believe the vast majority, the vast majority of the time, reliably and enthusiastically vote for their group's shibboleths. Regardless of what they might say or believe their own motivations are. Even seemingly sophisticated and principled thinkers. It shows via the reliable, trivial to resolve, but reflection impervious group-coded "misunderstandings" that even "serious" people defend and nurture. The group reinforced, often meme-reflex deflected, unthinkables. Across the political spectrum. People vote for brands.
  - Jensson 4mo ago
    > People vote for brands. Right, so the government should be based on brands rather than people. USA trying to make a people centric system still ended up into a brand centric republican vs democrat, just that now those brands changes dramatically every 4 years just people still vote for the brand even after it changes. Its much more stable when you have stable political party brands like in multi party system, then a person voting for the same brand for 40 years will vote for roughly the same politics instead of it changing all the time.
    - Xirdus 4mo ago
      In practice, multi-party systems rotate their brands in and out with much higher frequency than two-party systems.

elzbardico 4mo ago

Sounds like Brazil...

tverbeure 4mo ago

Yeah, I used to work for a large-ish company that participated in projects like this. The company has a project manager with a large spreadsheet to keep track of everything so that no employee would accidentally be officially double booked because that could be detected as fraud. Some real work was done, but the meetings with other partners were a farce. You had these tiny companies whose only existence was to feed off the European money. One day our manager asked if the architecture document of a 100kbps modem that I had worked on could be repurposed for a 1 Mbps modem project that was European funded…

jijijijij 4mo ago

German here, can confirm. Although, I don't think it's honest incompetence, but intentional corruption. Eg. public calls for bids tend to be a little too specific and politicians tend to get jobs where they funneled public money. However, things are changing... As of this current government, nobody is scheming anymore. The corruption and wealth extraction happens openly. They are really testing the waters in what they can get away with. It's almost US level audacity, tho not yet as undignified. The sad part is, although people here are universally frustrated about it, they flock to the one party evidently more corrupt and incompetent than the CDU: The AfD. Honestly, despite political disagreement, all my life I considered myself lucky to live here, but for the first time it makes me sick thinking about Germany's future, working here and paying taxes. And the base motives showing as reactionary malice by my fellow citizens disgust me. It's shameful to admit, but this country is truly ill and deeply corrupt.