Post AizJU86fAkOgjIvIpc by vaurora@wandering.shop
(DIR) More posts by vaurora@wandering.shop
(DIR) Post #AizJTtCqZTQmW8hWt6 by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:10:38Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I read _The Unaccountability Machine_ by Dan Davies on the train yesterday and wow. Attempted summary: society is in crisis because our current systems of governance and feedback are unable to hear the signal that is the vast majority of people screaming, "My life is intolerable." This signal gets routed into any channel available: Brexit referendum, far-right parties, protests against masks or wind turbines or housing - anything to signal rebellionhttps://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/
(DIR) Post #AizJTvo8tmS6aOALIW by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:14:33Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
The author structures this using the theory of cybernetics, approximately that there are a series of systems that regulate each other at higher and higher levels, using feedback that reduces complex information into simpler signals. When too much signal is lost or the regulating system is too simple to manage a more complex system, the system goes awry. Capitalism and markets are effective simplifiers in that everything has a price, a fungible easily compared signal. This has many downsides
(DIR) Post #AizJTxeI3NlAIPZVDc by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:18:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
He argues quite convincingly that one of the types of systems that regulate business, System 3, or "what to do here-and-now" is running amok with little input from System 4, "what to do in the future," which is pretty hard to argue with. The current financial system, shaped by private equity and leveraged buyouts, forces most companies to behave as if they must make a huge debt payment this month or else face extinction. Which matches exactly what we see: Google devouring search for AI, etc.
(DIR) Post #AizJTzeialI4WJmsAC by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:21:06Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
He also argues for not attempting to understand the inner workings of systems but to observe their behavior (a key element of cybernetics) and suggesting we may have to give up on explaining why things happen or holding individual people accountable for things they neither control nor understand. "Accountability sinks" are a useful concept: the customer service agent who can do nothing to help yet must receive the signal from the customer that something is wrong
(DIR) Post #AizJU1wA6sQrazxpdA by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:25:17Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Much of this is represented in the catch phrase of cybernetics:"The Purpose of the System is What It Does"If you try to look inside the system, you will see a lot of people who think their job is about producing petroleum products. On the outside, you will see an entire industry hell-bent on making the earth unlivable. This is the result of the overall economic system that focuses on this quarter's share price to the exclusion of nearly all else.
(DIR) Post #AizJU3tkonh7g6qw9g by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:29:41Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Another interesting point is that the system outsources the bad stuff to individual humans because they have no way to communicate back to the system that things are bad. This brings me back to the discussion of funding open source maintenance at #OW2con. Software engineers in general are burned out because we have to do jobs that require maintenance work but are not allowed to do maintenance work on company time because of the short-sighted quarter-at-a-time planning horizon of business
(DIR) Post #AizJU5vFIE4lxJZ9l2 by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:33:25Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
But the maintenance work must be done or we will lose our jobs, one way or another. So the software engineers with internal motivation and the ability to work unpaid end up doing the maintenance work - in addition to a full time job. The system has succeeded in blocking the signal that would prevent the focus on generating short-term profits by forcing the negatives onto individual humans. This, but for the entirety of humanity - and that's the polycrisis
(DIR) Post #AizJU86fAkOgjIvIpc by vaurora@wandering.shop
2024-06-16T12:34:42Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Hopefully this analysis makes it really clear why "why don't people just individually suddenly decide to do the 'right thing'" is never never the answer, in open source funding or supporting the arts or fighting climate change...
(DIR) Post #AizJVnZGVPTdbq66DI by clive@saturation.social
2024-06-16T14:28:53Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@vaurora Oooooo, this this really nails it I’m gonna have to read this book, thank you!