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There are two perspectives when looking at any job: project objectives and social utility. The first sees a job as an effort focused on some project goals, e.g

by avz 12y ago

There are two perspectives when looking at any job: project objectives and social utility. The first sees a job as an effort focused on some project goals, e.g. designing a car, building a house, curing a disease, finding Higgs, running a restaurant, landing on Mars. The second sees a job as something simply done for money: those who do it need the proceeds. Politicians have a tendency to put the social utility above project objectives. This explains situations where some jobs are equivalent to digging a whole in the ground only to bury it back again. It's sad to see NASA come to this, too.

crististm 12y ago
There is no social utility in digging a hole to bury it back. Targeting social utility would mean to run a business at break-even or even at a loss to provide value as a side-effect to the community. The cost of restarting tower building from a hibernate state would be enormous. I think they did the right thing in continuing building even if the immediate utility was lost. It's not like they will never need such a tower. They can't use it _now_ and that's a different thing. In perspective, the $300M do not compare to the $8B mentioned in the article. Hey, they don't compare even to the budget of a box-office Hollywood movie today. That should mean something.
- avz 12y ago
  There is social utility in digging a hole to bury it back. The utility lies in providing value as a side-effect to the community. The value is provided by strengthening earnings of the diggers and reducing the unemployment in the community. What's missing is the project utility: nobody else needs the product. It's a fair point that the test stand may be needed in future.
  - crististm 12y ago
    I've learnt a new word yesterday: sophism. You can argue as well that breaking windows employs the glass makers and destroying cars employs the car makers. Yes, starting wars as well because it employs everyone. You forget that, as a whole, the community is left without a window and the money to replace it could have been used for something else. No, there is no utility in breaking windows and in digging holes just to bury them back.
    - avz 12y ago
      Your examples include destruction of property which negates their social benefits of improved earnings and reduced unemployment. Digging a whole is a metaphor for unproductive, but also not destructive work where the social benefits are not negated by other factors.
      - crististm 12y ago
        Imagine then the following (stretchy) scenario: an isolated village on an island. Now the villagers start digging the hole in the ground. Mind you, digging holes is tough business: they have to eat and someone must pay for the food. If all of them work on the hole, who makes the food? But they are smart and the project manager arranges for some of them to cook the food while the rest of the village digs. After a week the hole is done and after another few days the hole is filled back. Now they sit at the campfire and think by themselves what great two weeks those were: they were employed.
        avz 12y ago
        Now compute the Gini coefficient for that island and compare it against the one for a neighbor where all the villagers skilled at cooking have jobs while all those skilled at digging remain idle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
        crististm 12y ago
        While diggers dig they do not generate income (because a filled hole is not 'income' by itself). And the cooks don't generate income either because their work is not for their utility but for the diggers. What does that say about the net result? Think thermodynamics: What is the utility of burning fuel? If you end up where you started, you're just wasting energy and increase universe entropy.
        TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
        >After a week the hole is done and after another few days the hole is filled back. >Now they sit at the campfire and think by themselves what great two weeks those were: they were employed. And how is this - or how is the original NASA makework - different to a startup that burns through tens or hundreds of millions and then dies? I suppose you could argue that the startup might have succeeded, and at least some people believed it would. Some people believed the tower would be useful. Others knew it wouldn't be, but still thought the cash infusion would be useful - either for them personally, or for their community. What is the difference? Because if we're going to be asking questions about the utility of makework and the social value of Keynesian welfare, we should perhaps be asking about the actual social and economic utility of most start-ups, and whether the fact that they're private sector boondoggles really does make them any more economically efficient.

by avz 12y ago

crististm 12y ago

There is no social utility in digging a hole to bury it back. Targeting social utility would mean to run a business at break-even or even at a loss to provide value as a side-effect to the community. The cost of restarting tower building from a hibernate state would be enormous. I think they did the right thing in continuing building even if the immediate utility was lost. It's not like they will never need such a tower. They can't use it _now_ and that's a different thing. In perspective, the $300M do not compare to the $8B mentioned in the article. Hey, they don't compare even to the budget of a box-office Hollywood movie today. That should mean something.

avz 12y ago
There is social utility in digging a hole to bury it back. The utility lies in providing value as a side-effect to the community. The value is provided by strengthening earnings of the diggers and reducing the unemployment in the community. What's missing is the project utility: nobody else needs the product. It's a fair point that the test stand may be needed in future.
- crististm 12y ago
  I've learnt a new word yesterday: sophism. You can argue as well that breaking windows employs the glass makers and destroying cars employs the car makers. Yes, starting wars as well because it employs everyone. You forget that, as a whole, the community is left without a window and the money to replace it could have been used for something else. No, there is no utility in breaking windows and in digging holes just to bury them back.
  - avz 12y ago
    Your examples include destruction of property which negates their social benefits of improved earnings and reduced unemployment. Digging a whole is a metaphor for unproductive, but also not destructive work where the social benefits are not negated by other factors.
    - crististm 12y ago
      Imagine then the following (stretchy) scenario: an isolated village on an island. Now the villagers start digging the hole in the ground. Mind you, digging holes is tough business: they have to eat and someone must pay for the food. If all of them work on the hole, who makes the food? But they are smart and the project manager arranges for some of them to cook the food while the rest of the village digs. After a week the hole is done and after another few days the hole is filled back. Now they sit at the campfire and think by themselves what great two weeks those were: they were employed.
      - avz 12y ago
        Now compute the Gini coefficient for that island and compare it against the one for a neighbor where all the villagers skilled at cooking have jobs while all those skilled at digging remain idle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
        crististm 12y ago
        While diggers dig they do not generate income (because a filled hole is not 'income' by itself). And the cooks don't generate income either because their work is not for their utility but for the diggers. What does that say about the net result? Think thermodynamics: What is the utility of burning fuel? If you end up where you started, you're just wasting energy and increase universe entropy.
      - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
        >After a week the hole is done and after another few days the hole is filled back. >Now they sit at the campfire and think by themselves what great two weeks those were: they were employed. And how is this - or how is the original NASA makework - different to a startup that burns through tens or hundreds of millions and then dies? I suppose you could argue that the startup might have succeeded, and at least some people believed it would. Some people believed the tower would be useful. Others knew it wouldn't be, but still thought the cash infusion would be useful - either for them personally, or for their community. What is the difference? Because if we're going to be asking questions about the utility of makework and the social value of Keynesian welfare, we should perhaps be asking about the actual social and economic utility of most start-ups, and whether the fact that they're private sector boondoggles really does make them any more economically efficient.