Efficiency in government is a lie told by people who want government to serve the smallest number of (rich) people possible and no one else.
-
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
"Specify outcomes and reward effectiveness" is precisely what I mean when I say efficiency as an additional benefit of good process is a good thing.
Cost efficiency and outcome (what I call service) efficiency are an example of designing for efficiency rather than for outcome or effectiveness.
TBH, it reminds me of when I used to consult with startups and I would ask "why this product?" and the founders would say "because we want to be billionaires".
@johnzajac "because we want to be billionaires" is exactly the problem, yeah. Which can only really be addressed by making being a billionaire impossible.
The problem with keeping "efficiency is good sometimes" around is that it's precisely the wedge that got used (from the formal process of enclosure forward, and which I could wish more people were aware of, because what is being called enshitification is digital enclosure) to get us here.
-
So, efficiency itself - as an outcome of good process - is not a bad thing. Obviously! Waste, especially in a warming world, is to be avoided.
It's efficiency as a primary *goal* - a particularly deranged symptom of capitalist, neoliberal ideology - that leads to the kind of collapsed services, enshittified businesses and hollowed out society we see today.
@johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
"efficiency" is a euphemism for unemploying workers. there is no way for an "efficient" government to be pro-labour.
-
Which is why, of course, most Western hospitals ran out of ICU beds and ventilators in April 2020 and Jan 2022: cost and service efficiency fallacies that were pursued contra mission requirements.
@johnzajac
And of course capitalism pushes inefficiency when there is big bucks to be made.
Look at the typical car, one of the biggest purchase/rentals anyone can make. Sits doing nothing all night, travels a distance most weekdays sits for 8 hours and then performs the return journey. Add in a few shopping trips here and there but it is idle most of the time.
However it is sold as an convenience and an efficiency because alternatives may not exist due to deliberate industry propaganda. -
Efficiency in government is a lie told by people who want government to serve the smallest number of (rich) people possible and no one else.
You cannot have efficient government because eventually service efficiency always boils down to a triage process: who have you decided is hopeless/undeserving and therefore not worth serving?
But any government that does that is fascist and illegitimate. Government serves *all* the people, or it is radioactive poisonous garbage.
@johnzajac @cstross Related to this, the phrase “good enough for government work” really ᴏᴜɢʜᴛ to mean “completed to a very high standard of quality” and the fact that it doesn’t mean that is an indicator of how successful the toxic propaganda has been.
-
@johnzajac "because we want to be billionaires" is exactly the problem, yeah. Which can only really be addressed by making being a billionaire impossible.
The problem with keeping "efficiency is good sometimes" around is that it's precisely the wedge that got used (from the formal process of enclosure forward, and which I could wish more people were aware of, because what is being called enshitification is digital enclosure) to get us here.
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
I'm not saying "efficiency is good sometimes", I'm saying "efficiency as an outgrowth of good process and appropriate use of resources is desireable", which seems like a small distinction but is a huge difference, practically.
In a service provider example, resultant efficiency gains can lead to better service to more people (in the instance of resource crunches) and help critical infra *avoid* triage situations.
-
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
I'm not saying "efficiency is good sometimes", I'm saying "efficiency as an outgrowth of good process and appropriate use of resources is desireable", which seems like a small distinction but is a huge difference, practically.
In a service provider example, resultant efficiency gains can lead to better service to more people (in the instance of resource crunches) and help critical infra *avoid* triage situations.
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
But, the only way to "design" for this kind of efficiency is to design processes that have adequate resources (both material and human) applied to them and that have parts that can operate orthogonally.
So, really the *opposite* of "designing for efficiency", which is why systems designed for efficiency don't have resource buffers and often fail catastrophically when stressed, leading to extraordinary costs and obliterated efficiency "gains".
️ -
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
But, the only way to "design" for this kind of efficiency is to design processes that have adequate resources (both material and human) applied to them and that have parts that can operate orthogonally.
So, really the *opposite* of "designing for efficiency", which is why systems designed for efficiency don't have resource buffers and often fail catastrophically when stressed, leading to extraordinary costs and obliterated efficiency "gains".
️@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
But all the rich people get richer, so there you have it.
-
@johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
"efficiency" is a euphemism for unemploying workers. there is no way for an "efficient" government to be pro-labour.
@burnitdown @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
I'd go so far as to say "pro-person".
-
@burnitdown @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
I'd go so far as to say "pro-person".
@johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft sure, but they aren't cutting jobs of politicians, who are also people.
-
Efficiency in government is a lie told by people who want government to serve the smallest number of (rich) people possible and no one else.
You cannot have efficient government because eventually service efficiency always boils down to a triage process: who have you decided is hopeless/undeserving and therefore not worth serving?
But any government that does that is fascist and illegitimate. Government serves *all* the people, or it is radioactive poisonous garbage.
@johnzajac Sadly, in the US we currently have government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.
Apologies to Abraham Lincoln.
-
@DejahEntendu @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft The governments (all of them) goal is to protect the wealthy from the poor.
@cybervegan @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
Yes, that is what they are currently *doing*. That is not what we signed up for. (I will agree you can read that in the US's founding docs.)
-
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
But all the rich people get richer, so there you have it.
@johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft Which reduces neatly to "nice things or rich people, pick one".
It's not so much that you get what you reward as you get whatever manages to make the most of itself. (Sometimes by copying, sometimes by growing.) And our current system replicates greed.
-
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
I'm not saying "efficiency is good sometimes", I'm saying "efficiency as an outgrowth of good process and appropriate use of resources is desireable", which seems like a small distinction but is a huge difference, practically.
In a service provider example, resultant efficiency gains can lead to better service to more people (in the instance of resource crunches) and help critical infra *avoid* triage situations.
@johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft What I'm saying might reduce to "don't call that efficiency, we need another word". ("Effectiveness")
Because efficiency-the-word is pretty strictly the cost-efficiency zero-margin meaning and fighting with the mammonites for it is a lot more work than I think we have to do.
Jane Jacob's guardian and trader syndromes ("what can I get for this?" versus "what's the most I can turn this into?") come to mind here.
-
@cybervegan @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
Yes, that is what they are currently *doing*. That is not what we signed up for. (I will agree you can read that in the US's founding docs.)
@DejahEntendu @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft What a system does is what it is for.
-
@johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
Because in business, efficiency per se is used to refer to lowest cost without regard to actually creating a good product. The goal is to create a minimally acceptable product to create profit for shareholders.
But that's not the goal in government, despite the current/regressive fad. Many of us (people on Earth) have forgotten that the government's goal is to protect its citizens. From each other, penury, exploitation, external aggression, all that.
This is because, desired output is different for different people, and the costs accrue to different people.
In a government by the people—democracy—the government is supposed to arrive at a negotiated compromise between all parties. An almost impossible task in a complex system.
In government by the rich and powerful, such as in a large corporation or an oligarchy, it's a much simpler task, maximize wealth and power for the few.
-
@graydon @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
"Specify outcomes and reward effectiveness" is precisely what I mean when I say efficiency as an additional benefit of good process is a good thing.
Cost efficiency and outcome (what I call service) efficiency are an example of designing for efficiency rather than for outcome or effectiveness.
TBH, it reminds me of when I used to consult with startups and I would ask "why this product?" and the founders would say "because we want to be billionaires".
That's what the Faust legend is about.
Selling your soul to the devil, for Earthly power and wealth.
-
@DejahEntendu @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft What a system does is what it is for.
Not a useful aphorism because it trivializes the important question "is it fit for purpose?"
With that definition, the answer is always "yes".
Better (more useful) to ask "Whose purpose?"
Cicero said Lucius Cassius was famous for asking "cui bono?"—who benefits?.
-
@DejahEntendu @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft What a system does is what it is for.
@cybervegan @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
What a system does it what it was subverted to do. -
@DejahEntendu @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft What a system does is what it is for.
@cybervegan @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
What a system does is what it was subverted to do by those with the power to subvert. That's what checks and balances are intended to stop. Which is why allowing gerrymandering, for instance, is evil. It is using the power of a ruling party to subvert the voice of the people.
-
@cybervegan @johnzajac @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
What a system does it what it was subverted to do.@DejahEntendu @cybervegan @EricLawton @bonaventuresoft
No. The engineering principle of POSIWID (purpose of a system is what it does) is intended to help people understand that "reform" of a system is impossible. A system can either be used or removed, but it cannot be "reformed".
If you "reform" a system to the point where it has a different outcome entirely, you're simply replacing the system with another whose purpose is...the new outcome.
