Everything as a Service

https://curiositysink.substack.com/p/everything-as-a-service

by raptisj • 4 years ago

90 34 4 years ago

curiositysink.substack.com

SQueeeeeL• 4 years ago

It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structures of power and how individuals spend their time

ohCh6zos• 4 years ago

They could also be aware of it and reject the theory.

bobkazamakis• 4 years ago

One man famously said "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

seneca• 4 years ago

I don't think it's strange at all. After the fall of the USSR and the revelations of its horrors all but the most radical in the west came to consider Marxism as a dead letter philosophy.

One ought to believe what they believe to be right, even if it is radical, but you shouldn't be shocked when others don't join in your radicalism with you.

impeplague2• 4 years ago

While I understand why someone may think that (just because Marx is important on both topics), they are not much related at all. The Capital is something on it's own, and Marx has the best explanation about capitalism so far.

phernandez• 4 years ago

reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues

I’ve been interested in reading more about this. Do you have any pointers to good info?

nohope• 4 years ago

Marx's theory of alienation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

vorpalhex4• 4 years ago

Labor theory is an insufficient and poorly evidenced claim that does not align with reality.

yellowapple4• 4 years ago

That's the case for pretty much all theories attempting to model something as famously nebulous and poorly-defined as human society. In light of that limitation, labor theory provides one of the less-wildly-inaccurate models; the issues with it are more around people claiming to champion it while simultaneously imagining themselves as part of some privileged intelligentsia, the very existence of which is indistinguishable from the very thing labor theory directly challenges/criticizes.

CatWChainsaw• 4 years ago

There's that. What stood out to me was the philosophizing over how transactions won't fix the widespread outbreak of ennui/existential crises, but the audience here is tilted towards programmers who likely must advance this proliferation of XaaS, even if it is out of personal fiscal necessity. The political/economic circumstances would lead to this end, where the economic nibbles away at private spheres of life and everyone can sense something undesirable happening but cannot fight shadows.

impeplague2• 4 years ago

Not gonna lie, Marx is hard even for Marxists

joenot4432• 4 years ago

One man’s explanation of human behavior isn’t an objective reading of reality, that’s why it’s known as a theory. It’s possible other people, like me, are very familiar with Marxist theory and choose to reject it on a variety of grounds. Referencing one philosopher and noting that it’s strange others don’t agree with them is sort of funny - one could bring up Kant or Martin Luther or Rand or any other influential thinker using the exact same framing.

rocket_surgeron• 4 years ago

The author is remembering a past that never existed.

And one of the examples he used to illustrate his point is a university project done by a student, photoshopped (poorly) to appear real-- not an actual in-the-wild ad campaign.

NIKE FREE ad campaign for my Intro to Campaigns class. Photography by William Eason

https://www.behance.net/gallery/16285493/NIKE-FREE-Ad-Campai...

tyler-groves• 4 years ago

Agreed, this is an extremely simplistic view and write up. No references to any grounding theory or heuristics, wide use of hyperbole, and now this photo… good grief.

I’m not sure why this was posted to HN.

fleddr• 4 years ago

Substack is just reddit for grown-ups. It's "made up expertise". Well expressed nonsense.

Barrin92• 4 years ago

Michael Sandel's The Moral Limits of Markets is an good and very accessible book on this topic of civic virtues being turned into transactions.

There's a case study in the book of economists asking Swiss citizens about their opinion on having a nuclear waste storage facility near their community. When people in the community were asked if they were okay with this, a small majority agreed. A common argument was that there may be risk, but if it has to go somewhere it may as well be here, out of a sense of civic duty.

The Economists then added an incentive and asked others the same question, but added that there may be an annual payment involved for the risk. The support dropped to something like 25%, people starting to give answers like "I'm not going to sell out my kid's health for money".

The naive view is that turning something transactional cannot be worse, after all people can have civity duty and money. But of course it doesn't work like that. The transaction changes the entire nature of a process, turning activities that were about civic virtue into transactions about profit, degrading the entire thing.

Lots of other good examples in the book. Children being paid to read books switching from what they liked to what was shortest, paid volunteers actually being less effective than unpaid ones, and so on.

AlexandrB• 4 years ago

The transaction changes the entire nature of a process, turning activities that were about civic virtue into transactions about profit, degrading the entire thing.

Even worse, profit attracts bad actors like blood attracts sharks. In real life, you would soon have people "gaming the system" to get those incentives.

quickthrower2• 4 years ago

Ill help someone for free but not for $10/h

nicbou• 4 years ago

A similar passage in Freakonomics showed how fining parents for picking up their kids late made the problem worse. Paying the fine "excused" the behaviour.

abigail95• 4 years ago

That's because they limited the downside.

If I continue being late without any consequence eventually there will be some consequence to me, with a lot of uncertainty from a mild talking to, to being banned from the daycare.

What's the difference between a sign that says "No Parking" and "No Parking ($200 fine)"?. The second sign isn't excusing bad behavior - it's limiting the likely punishment to an infraction, rather than being towed or misdemeanor trespass.

LawTalkingGuy• 4 years ago

The Economists then added an incentive and asked others the same question, but added that there may be an annual payment involved for the risk.

If you tell me something is harmless I may believe you. But if you try to pay me for it that strongly implies you're actively lying about the harm and you're trying to trick me into "accepting" it so that I lose any recourse. "You can't change your mind, we already paid you!"

I suspect that if the offer was "Your canton will get extra transfer payments to be used for medical funding to proactively test and ensure that there are no additional medical problems" that the people would welcome the payment.

skybrian• 4 years ago

This essay seems to be about having a vague dissatisfaction with relying on other people so much. If you go along with it, you're buying into an individualist philosophy that you should do more yourself, somehow.

I'm wondering what a less individualist approach would be. Maybe it would emphasize joining or starting organizations more? Member organizations, created primarily for the benefit of their own membership, were once much more common.

user3939382• 4 years ago

Maybe smaller orgs are better for everyone in every way, except for what becomes possible with economies of scale (a team of 10 wouldn’t be making iPhones, as an extreme example). Even if that simple analysis were correct, it’s still hard to weigh.

Everything as a Service

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