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Comment by bulatb | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes asking, "When will we..." is just a turn of phrase, but sometimes it's a serious misframing of the issue. There is no such thing as "we" that meaningfully acts or makes decisions. Thinking about "we" as if it's real because the individuals in "we" are capable of choosing is the fallacy of composition.

If you want collective outcomes that are different than the sum of uncoordinated individual action, you have to design them. Don't talk about "we." Who specifically is doing what, and for what purpose, and why would they do that, when they could just not?

Answering those questions often shows you that the problem isn't what you thought—because the mental model of a "we" that does things is so harmful.

Or you end up with a plan to solve the problem, so win-win.

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This also applies quite well to "they", with the added bonus that the speaker doesn't even assume fractional responsibility. This is the root of a lot of moralist / ideological "solutions" to issues: e.g. "the problem with teen pregnancy is that teens are choosing to have sex, they should be more chaste!" It neatly sidelines all of the systemic factors that actually produce the outcome they're looking to change.

Yes! This, this, this. Moralizing is the opposite of problem-solving. Assuming is the opposite of understanding.

When combined you get a fundamental metaproblem that:

1. You can't solve a problem you don't understand.

2. Moralizing is more satisfying than understanding.

3. This is a problem, which can't be solved if people choose to moralize instead of understanding.

When the means become the end things start to go bad. When one's ego becomes the goal then Moralizing is more satisfying than understanding.

Fine - for each industry "X", when will a CEO of a company who is given oligopolistic control over software which is deeply entrenched in a stranglehold over "X" decide to fund desperately needed improvements to said software?

Presumably the CEO would believe that improving the quality of their company's products will lead to increased profits/revenue.

It's not just the "we", it's also the "when".

The tools that the world runs best on were built over a period of man-years that were not mythical either.

Plus if you go back far enough, you hit a point where often the key people involved were 10x more suitable than the average or below-average candidates who would be most likely to come under consideration today.

To have the most realistic chance of success, you just have to allocate 10x the resources that you think it would take on first blush. Especially the amount of calendar time before deployment. Simple ;)

Plus if the world in question is really already running without the replacement tool, when are you willing for the world to come to a halt during a pitstop for the proven tools to be retired while the new replacement is inaugurated?

Otherwise, the most talented and productive tool-building team in the world would further need a much more-rare capability that was not even required of the original builders, the knack for servicing airplane engines in flight.

I figure that would be when.

Hear him! Hear him!

(by him I am referring to the public identity of the process that generated the message above)

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