3 ms·

This is a beautiful fantasy and it sounds like what most college freshmen think the world should be like. When that was practiced IRL in the Soviet Union, the i

by xp84 2mo ago

This is a beautiful fantasy and it sounds like what most college freshmen think the world should be like. When that was practiced IRL in the Soviet Union, the issue is that if you are owed a job, people figure out really quickly that they can just phone it in, so those trees don’t really get planted, etc. The managers of the tree planters also don’t do their job of making sure the work gets done - they just report to their managers that the tree planting project is going great. Everyone gets paid. But the jobs that actually need doing also don’t get done either, so you have shortages of everything constantly. What you’ve created is an economy that barely subsists at best, since everyone does the absolute minimum and just lines up for their paycheck.

jay_kyburz 2mo ago
Why would you assume you can't be fired for phoning it in. If you want to daydream about utopia you have to assume we can solve trivial problems. I mean, you could just pay per tree for example? There is no rule that says you can't have performance bonuses as a government employee, nor are there any rules to say you can't have competition within government departments. I'm no expert, but I think the problem with the Soviets were that you were not rewarded for effort, and I think we all understand why that's important. I've read in the US there are teachers that can't be fired because of public school tenure laws and union contracts. So yeah, first thing you have to do is have a sane and functioning government. Then you can start dreaming about a better society.
- 9x39 2mo ago
  Would you staff the sane and functioning government from people outside or inside the society you're trying to fix? Bad societies are a reflection of their people.
  - jay_kyburz 2mo ago
    I guess one good thing the Trump administration demonstrates is that you _can_ just ignore past norms and laws and do what you want. You can bring a wrecking ball, swing it around, and force change if you need to.
- xp84 2mo ago
  > Why would you assume you can't be fired for phoning it in. If you want to daydream about utopia you have to assume we can solve trivial problems. I mean, you could just pay per tree for example? If you fire them, they're still entitled to a job, right? So some other agency has to hire them. The flunkies will progress from the most demanding jobs, on down to the ones where the assignment is like, "Just please collect at least one piece of trash per day, okay?" The net effect, I'd argue, is that jobs that are necessary but high-effort, like assembling important machines, constructing buildings, food production, IT support, are starved of workers because you can get paid decently for 1000% less stress to be on litter patrol, or the mailbox graffiti removal squad, or whatever. If you pay piecework, the least motivated will just do terrible work (in many jobs a poorly-done thing can be a big problem), and if you don't pay the ones who don't manage to plant a single tree, then that's technically not a job (though it is daycare, and since you've still got to actually pay the overseers you're generating negative value on the whole operation). > problem with the Soviets were that you were not rewarded for effort We actually agree on the important points then, it seems. In my view of people, the ones who are motivated to be truly excellent even with the visible goal of the bonus are rare, and the ones who are motivated to cheat "the system" (which is really just cheating the rest of us who do our share) at every turn are, while not the majority, more than numerous enough to tank any system I've seen that tries to achieve aims like universal employment or true zero poverty. (And worse, they also seem to climb to positions of power of those systems in shocking frequency!) And finally, once people see the freeloaders defrauding society from both the top and the bottom, the truly excellent contributors to society are the first to flee to somewhere their efforts will be rewarded, and the reasonable middle of hard workers also do. This concentrates the low productivity further.

by xp84 2mo ago

jay_kyburz 2mo ago

Why would you assume you can't be fired for phoning it in. If you want to daydream about utopia you have to assume we can solve trivial problems. I mean, you could just pay per tree for example? There is no rule that says you can't have performance bonuses as a government employee, nor are there any rules to say you can't have competition within government departments. I'm no expert, but I think the problem with the Soviets were that you were not rewarded for effort, and I think we all understand why that's important. I've read in the US there are teachers that can't be fired because of public school tenure laws and union contracts. So yeah, first thing you have to do is have a sane and functioning government. Then you can start dreaming about a better society.

9x39 2mo ago
Would you staff the sane and functioning government from people outside or inside the society you're trying to fix? Bad societies are a reflection of their people.
- jay_kyburz 2mo ago
  I guess one good thing the Trump administration demonstrates is that you _can_ just ignore past norms and laws and do what you want. You can bring a wrecking ball, swing it around, and force change if you need to.
xp84 2mo ago
> Why would you assume you can't be fired for phoning it in. If you want to daydream about utopia you have to assume we can solve trivial problems. I mean, you could just pay per tree for example? If you fire them, they're still entitled to a job, right? So some other agency has to hire them. The flunkies will progress from the most demanding jobs, on down to the ones where the assignment is like, "Just please collect at least one piece of trash per day, okay?" The net effect, I'd argue, is that jobs that are necessary but high-effort, like assembling important machines, constructing buildings, food production, IT support, are starved of workers because you can get paid decently for 1000% less stress to be on litter patrol, or the mailbox graffiti removal squad, or whatever. If you pay piecework, the least motivated will just do terrible work (in many jobs a poorly-done thing can be a big problem), and if you don't pay the ones who don't manage to plant a single tree, then that's technically not a job (though it is daycare, and since you've still got to actually pay the overseers you're generating negative value on the whole operation). > problem with the Soviets were that you were not rewarded for effort We actually agree on the important points then, it seems. In my view of people, the ones who are motivated to be truly excellent even with the visible goal of the bonus are rare, and the ones who are motivated to cheat "the system" (which is really just cheating the rest of us who do our share) at every turn are, while not the majority, more than numerous enough to tank any system I've seen that tries to achieve aims like universal employment or true zero poverty. (And worse, they also seem to climb to positions of power of those systems in shocking frequency!) And finally, once people see the freeloaders defrauding society from both the top and the bottom, the truly excellent contributors to society are the first to flee to somewhere their efforts will be rewarded, and the reasonable middle of hard workers also do. This concentrates the low productivity further.