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Thanks to liability laws and approval processes, many industrial products suffer from the "perfect or nothing" fallacy. The product either has to be perfect or

Thanks to liability laws and approval processes, many industrial products suffer from the "perfect or nothing" fallacy. The product either has to be perfect or its just better not to produce it at all(1). Being able to do things for themselves allows people to get around this barrier. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. (1)Government in general often suffers mightily from this: A homeless shelter in my parents home town had to close because they couldn't afford the elevator and ramps to become handicap accessible to maintain their occupancy permits. Now the people just sleep on the street outside.

rayiner 13y ago
Your footnote misses the point. This sort of thing does happen, but not because people would want "perfect or nothing." It happens because people want to close down the homeless shelter.
- dmix 13y ago
  > people want to close down the homeless shelter. You need to study some Kafka "The Trial" to understand how extreme bureaucracy functions. There's no subversive logic to the irrationality of most of these institutions. It's mostly just apathetic failure.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    You don't need to read books to get the gist of local politics. Peoples' motivations are simple and plain on the surface. Nobody is sitting around going "my god, we have no choice but to close this homeless shelter. Cursed ADA regulations!"
  - Loughla 13y ago
    You need to study some real life, and not fiction, to understand that for the irrationality of any bureaucracy is only set into motion by players in the real world, with motives of some fashion, good, bad or indifferent. Bureaucracy and its many, many processes are the symptom, not the disease.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- noonespecial 13y ago
  In this case, there was no movement or campaign against it, it was pure apathy. A vote to grant them a variance has been on the agenda for nearly 3 years now waiting for them to get around to it. Most people agree that this should happen as soon as they find the time ("staff", ie the council's lawyer needs to study the insurance implications etc). Meanwhile another winter is coming. They'll open it back up as soon as they're sure they can do it "right".
  - r00fus 13y ago
    So the council basically killed it by negligence. Perfect move by ideological politicians - no way they can be blamed, they have to do nothing. Meanwhile people suffer while profits soar.

rayiner 13y ago

Your footnote misses the point. This sort of thing does happen, but not because people would want "perfect or nothing." It happens because people want to close down the homeless shelter.

dmix 13y ago
> people want to close down the homeless shelter. You need to study some Kafka "The Trial" to understand how extreme bureaucracy functions. There's no subversive logic to the irrationality of most of these institutions. It's mostly just apathetic failure.
- rayiner 13y ago
  You don't need to read books to get the gist of local politics. Peoples' motivations are simple and plain on the surface. Nobody is sitting around going "my god, we have no choice but to close this homeless shelter. Cursed ADA regulations!"
- Loughla 13y ago
  You need to study some real life, and not fiction, to understand that for the irrationality of any bureaucracy is only set into motion by players in the real world, with motives of some fashion, good, bad or indifferent. Bureaucracy and its many, many processes are the symptom, not the disease.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
noonespecial 13y ago
In this case, there was no movement or campaign against it, it was pure apathy. A vote to grant them a variance has been on the agenda for nearly 3 years now waiting for them to get around to it. Most people agree that this should happen as soon as they find the time ("staff", ie the council's lawyer needs to study the insurance implications etc). Meanwhile another winter is coming. They'll open it back up as soon as they're sure they can do it "right".
- r00fus 13y ago
  So the council basically killed it by negligence. Perfect move by ideological politicians - no way they can be blamed, they have to do nothing. Meanwhile people suffer while profits soar.