- Location
- Russia
The fact that a good chunk of people will always be possessive and envious, and no amount of education or decrease of things to be possessive/envious over will ever change that. You will never be able to completely get rid of it.
Cliches you can't stand
- Thread starter Mithras
- Start date
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm told that it's all about proper timetabling. Your mileage may vary on that, admittedly.
- Location
- Russia
A compromise isn't always a solution, because the degree to which people are willing to compromise varies much more than even your mileage.
I have nothing against polyamory. But it takes all people involved being okay with polyamory. And there will always be people who aren't.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
We have examples of communities where there is no property, and the hierarchy is not so strict. Envy and greed are much less common there.
- Location
- Russia
But not non-existent. And on the global scale, the amount will be significant to the point of potential total disruption even with a much lower percentage.
There is a critical mass of assholitude that, once passed, becomes invariably more disruptive than just the sum of its parts.
Yeah good luck organizing your communal stores and allocating resources without a bunch of people tracking those things and recording their movement and disposition. Bureaucracy hate is indeed, the worst. It's the engine that makes civilization run. But its under the hood so people only notice it when its chugging and belching smoke.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh, I know. I'm one of the ones who would probably be the problem in a society where that was the norm.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
It's still a matter of social morality. If the setting is set for a pair / monogamous marriage, then the majority will be brought up in such a spirit that they will consider monogamy to be the most suitable for themselves (like me). While under the dominance of polyamory, the majority will choose polyamory. At the same time, there is a nuance - the forms of marriage are still tied primarily to microeconomics and so on, and the marriage union is, after all, primarily a certain economy and property. That is, if humanity is organized in the form of polyamorous communities, then these will not necessarily be sexual unions. Within them, monogamous couples can exist - that is, they enter into an intimate relationship purely with each other, but maintain platonic relationships with others and participate in the social life of the community (say, take care of young children together, or jointly organize leisure).
Firstly, the skirmishes on this ground in non-proprietary societies are much less serious, and secondly, it will already be progress if we reduce them to a minimum (both in size and scope).
Because it smokes all the time - if it is not avoided, then how will you deal with the Peter Principle, with bloat in numbers and an increase in unnecessary work (that is, more people do unnecessary work), and the growth of corruption with the growth of bureaucrats?
So no, I still do not agree to anything less than the election and turnover of all officials. As well as the right to hate the parasitic caste.
- Location
- Russia
My point is simple.
It has been proven throught history many, many times that all it takes is one.
It is better to have the safety net of bureaucracy to stall and slow down corruption to be able to be dealt with than to hope that "Now we've solved all the problems and there won't be a singular jackass who happens into a position of power despite all odds and despite there not even being a true position of power".
Even if there isn't a position of power, it will be created.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
In addition, I don't understand you - a huge number of works are devoted to the problems that bureaucracy brings (state and corporate), and it is clear that its existence brings problems, and you propose to leave everything as it is?
- Location
- Russia
The fact that what we currently have is bad doesn't mean that its lack would be better. We hadn't yet figured out an actually functional alternative that is actually better at a scale larger than a small community.
- Location
- Finland
In most western societies, bureaucracy almost never goes wrong in noticeable way.
It's just that when it does, everyone notices, and the bureaucracy is so large and all encompassing, that "almost never" seems like "constantly" because people don't really comprehend just how much of society is people, or computers, pushing pieces of paper (or computer files) back and forth.
Also, this idea that people handling paperwork are parasites is the exact trope i was calling out.
No, you do not get a society without paper pushers, and that has been true longer than there has been paper, when bureaucracy breaks down, civilization falls.
Yeah; it's social infrastructure, and infrastructure is seldom noticed unless it breaks. You don't think about the electrical infrastructure when you turn a light on; you think about it when the lights suddenly go out.
I think that another reason people find bureaucracy irritating though is that it's unnatural. Literally so; we had to invent it and design it and build it, it's a machine made out of people and bureaucracy is as unnatural as any other machine. So humans find it boring and irritating and clunky; we're tribal apes, not bureaucratic ones, our instincts tell us to "just go do it" not follow artificial procedures. It's rather similar to how the wilderness tends to be prettier and more emotionally appealing to us than a city because that's the conditions we evolved in, but towns and cities are where we are better off because we built them for our own needs.
In fiction of course the protagonist can "throw off the shackles of bureaucracy" and have everything work out well, because fiction isn't bound by real life constraints. And there's nothing wrong with fantasy. It's trying to apply fantasy rules to reality that is a bad idea.
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Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Only any official can afford to bribe himself, and besides, create a chain of subordinates whom he will load with duties that he can do himself - and at the same time wipe his feet on everyone else.
So yes - we must insist at least that he was elected, and may lose his position if he performs poorly.
Or we are just used to what is considered natural. How slavery, war crimes, homophobia, and all that kind of stuff was considered natural for a while.
Firstly, a huge number of people who admire the beauty of artificial objects - cityscapes, car design ... and even classical cultures are an example of something that was created by human hands. Secondly, a huge part of the work that makes bureaucrats unnecessary is "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber - like all sorts of HR consultants, communications coordinators, PR staff, financial strategists, corporate lawyers or those people (there are a lot of them in the academic field) who spend long hours in committee meetings discussing the issue of unnecessary committees. So if you answer "no" to my thesis "eliminate bureaucracy", answer how you are going to deal with red tape and other delights of bureaucracy.
- Location
- Finland
Feel free to figure out how to run a society without logistics, and people keeping track of it.
- Location
- Russia
Without bureaucracy, all of that would be easier to achieve for said power-hungry douchebag and it would be harder to get rid of such a douchebag.
Bureaucracy provides rules and guidelines and unremovable paths to deal with all of that kind of stuff, along with barriers and disruptions for someone who aims to achieve such a position.
As I said prior: the slowdown isn't a bug, it's a feature.
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Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Only for some reason, most tyrants worked to expand the bureaucracy. Although okay - the reasons are obvious, but it created problems everywhere - in the USA, in Nazi Germany, in the Soviet Union, and the corruption and bloat of the bureaucracy creates problems for the Russian Federation.
And again, this does not remove the question that the higher the position, the lower the level of competence, as well as the problem that so many bureaucratic applications are useless.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't buy this.
If the power of bureaucracy is the organization it provides, and it clearly is, then logically speaking it can allow for much more efficient wealth extraction. Sure some guy could just round together some buddies and shake people down but that's obviously less efficient then a modern cartel, or hell just a corporation. Economy of scale applies just as much to kleptocracy as it does to anything else.
Bureaucracy is a tool and like any tool it can be used for good or evil ends. It's simply a question of who's wielding it.
- Location
- Russia
And yet you have to recognize that such tyrants always give themselves way to bypass the bureaucracy. They always remove themselves from it, along with making themselves immune to its touch.
As for the matter of competence... removing bureaucracy will, again, only exacerbate that situation. What we need to get rid of isn't bureaucracy, but the pants-on stupid career system where each consecutive position in the promotion chain requires completely unrelated skills from the previous position. Of course an engineer is fucking useless in a managemental position, they have virtually no organizational and probably social skills.
Again: the problem in such a situation is that those people always end up removing themselves from the bureaucracy.
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Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
The engineer is not so bad - he is at least competent in his field. That is, in any case, he can give adequate instructions - "if the red button is on fire, turn lever two." In practice, this is not even the case - often promotion depends on the level of flattery to superiors and correct acquaintances.
- Location
- Russia
Which, again, is entirely tangential to the issue of bureaucracy, since all of that is, in fact, bypassing it.
I had a plot idea a while back of a fantasy world where a nonhuman race essentially takes over human civilization, simply because they actually enjoy bureaucratic work. So over a few centuries with nobody really even intending it or thinking about it, they become the infrastructure of government & business that nobody can do anything without.
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- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
Bureaucracy is an attempt to create an organized system of accountability, in the sense that if I say I did something, you could go over and check and see that I did indeed do something, and there is a figurative paper trail proving that I did that something if anyone else needs to reference it.
It's not a very good system of doing so, but it's the only one we know of so far that works for large populations over long periods of time, if done properly. The problem is it also has many failure states, such as providing loopholes and simple lying on forms, which I would argue is an abuse of bureaucracy, rather than bureaucracy's intended state.
So a lot of places and organizations that gain a reputation for corruption is due to the bureaucracy being bypassed or abused, which is like rules being useless because they are not being followed. Currency and property have no bearing on this corruption, because quite often the corruption is due to the human social currency of reputation: someone wants to "look better" to their peers or superiors, or "meet quotas" without actually doing so. And there is no material reward for gaining this reputation other than ego.
It's not a very good system of doing so, but it's the only one we know of so far that works for large populations over long periods of time, if done properly. The problem is it also has many failure states, such as providing loopholes and simple lying on forms, which I would argue is an abuse of bureaucracy, rather than bureaucracy's intended state.
So a lot of places and organizations that gain a reputation for corruption is due to the bureaucracy being bypassed or abused, which is like rules being useless because they are not being followed. Currency and property have no bearing on this corruption, because quite often the corruption is due to the human social currency of reputation: someone wants to "look better" to their peers or superiors, or "meet quotas" without actually doing so. And there is no material reward for gaining this reputation other than ego.
Comrade Future
Man from Zeerust
- Location
- USSR
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
This problem is still connected with a society where there is a hierarchy, wealth, and power is limited in the hands of a narrow group of people.
And the bureaucracy is precisely hierarchical. At the same time, higher officials seek to shift all responsibility to lower ones, and those who are below are trying to pay off super-overloads by sabotaging work and recoup them with extortions from managed persons.
And over all this the spirit of privileges dominates.
kaillll
Judgment Upon You
Not related to the current subject, but I'm tired of seeing fiction depicting religion( The concept itself, not the people ) Bad or good or whatever. Religion itself is neutral, What makes it bad or good is the people in said religion, On itself, Religion and Ideologies are only a tool to help the Rulers to control people better and comfort the weak the poor or the elderly, Or to provide thought exercise and/or to scare people to not do bad things.
The concept itself is harmless. What makes it bad or good is the one who use this concept.
But often than not, religion gets to be the scapegoat for everything wrong in a society.
Which is ironic enough in itself. But anyway, I'm sick and tired of it but I kind of enjoy it in some way?
Not sure why.
The concept itself is harmless. What makes it bad or good is the one who use this concept.
But often than not, religion gets to be the scapegoat for everything wrong in a society.
Which is ironic enough in itself. But anyway, I'm sick and tired of it but I kind of enjoy it in some way?
Not sure why.