Comment by aleqs
3 days ago
The problem is, in the minds of these people 'firing at 100% all the time' generally means doing busywork and/or thinking of ways to cheat/manipulate their customers and the market for maximum gain whole delivering minimum value. I would have loved to be 100% engaged working on solving real problems in honest ways at some of my past jobs, but alas MBA/marketing leadership, which has taken over much of tech has very little interest in actually building good things and solving real problems in honest ways.
This is what happens when companies become so nepotistic that they only believe in their own bullshit.
"Can they really breathe fire or did we make that up?"
Profit maximization is a continuous process that has generated our high standard of living.
P.S. I welcome all attempts to prove me wrong!
No, the process has impeded even higher standard of living, because it misallocates resources from value generation to value appropriation. It's the extreme short term profit maximization that makes the economy a zero sum game. Otherwise it is not.
Do you really think the economy is zero sum?
For example, who was Elon Musk's wealth transferred from?
What do you think about all that money being invested into AI? Is that "extreme short term profit maximization"?
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I would argue that profit maximization has had very many effects.
On the one side, it has succeeded at reducing costs, which has indeed given rich societies unprecedented access to consumer goods.
On the other, it has outsourced from us both jobs and knowledge, which has resulted in higher unemployment and dissatisfaction, with as consequences the political dominoes we see falling internationally. That and the shoddy US health system (which the rest of the world seems to have decided to follow, for some reason).
And there is the small fact that we're in the process of optimizing the planet to death, and that not-so-rich countries (as well as formerly-rich ones) have starved to death for this high standard of living.
So, let's appreciate our standard of living, but not assume that it's necessarily a good thing in the grand scheme of things.
Outsourcing happens when it is cheaper to build something somewhere else. Tariffs can compensate for that.
Where are the starving people in capitalist countries?
The US health care system is pretty much run by the government. It is not a result of free markets.
A large part of profit maximization (i.e. optimizing) usually means reducing the amount of material needed. Isn't that a good thing?
The people who "rough it" in the wilderness still seem to be backpacking in hi tech equipment. I read about the kit that Lewis & Clark carried. No thanks. (Even on that "Alone" show, they bring hi tech equipment.)
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"Profit maximization" on its own would have left most people working 12+ hours a day 6 days a week, like it was very common in the 19th century. Luckily, it's never been the only force shaping our societies.
Working long hours was necessary in those days because productivity was much lower.
Productivity has gone up so much people can work a lot less, and vast part of the population doesn't work at all.
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I think it's more accurate to say it is a process that has resulted in our high standard of living faster than other processes... so far.
There is no guarantee it will keep working for the majority of us going forward; as is becoming very clear all around the world, it also has downsides especially without checks and balances (which was predicted and observed in the past, which is why other processes were conceptualized in the first place!)
As a trivial example, profit maximization is directly responsible for the enshittification we're seeing everywhere, which definitely is negatively impacting our standard of living.
> I think it's more accurate to say it is a process that has resulted in our high standard of living faster than other processes... so far.
Nobody has found a better process. Not even close.
> As a trivial example
It's not an example, it's a generalization. If you have a specific example, let's have a look at it!
Have you ever wondered why communist countries never exported products?
Also, if you want better products and believe people will want to buy them, go into business making them and make yourself wealthy!
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> generally means doing busywork and/or thinking of ways to cheat/manipulate their customers and the market for maximum gain whole delivering minimum value
When I read comments like this I can’t help but wonder where people like you work. It’s completely unrepeatable to me. I work with really good people, all the way to the tip, and no try to make money by increasing value for our customers.
Apple, Google, Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Anthropic, Toyota, and a hundred other companies all offer me incredible value for so cheap. Why are people so cynical about a world that offers them unimaginable riches everywhere they look.
Sure there are bad companies. And if you work at one of those, go get a new job.
The parents are talking about things in-the-large, negative societal trends, while you are talking your anecdotal experience and perhaps survival bias striking it so lucky with your employer. The world offers unimaginable riches, but at what cost really? Who benefits most? Where does it lead? Big picture.
>Apple, Google, Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Anthropic, Toyota, and a hundred other companies all offer me incredible value for so cheap.
Try to find something with Google these days. Try to use an Apple product past it's planned obsolescence. They crowd out innovation with their monopolistic rent seeking.
Really?