The part I really liked is "Is Toil Always Bad?" because quite astute
psychology and management ideas appear here. My takeaway is that
people who like toil (and there are many zealous oversystemetisers
around) are some of the most dangerous to long-term productivity.
However, I really feel for the author, because the distance between
this philosophically ambitious position and the reality of using Big
Tech products - which in my life are the primary source of pointless
makework activity - is sad and frustrating.
Now, one cannot blame the tools for stupid policies that lead their
misuse in constructing makework processes, but (to take the
Heideggerian stance) they carry certain exacerbating values along with
them. Technologies can be 'seductive'.
The point of departure for me, was the definition of "overheads"
as justifiable makework according to some value set. Whose values,
exactly? And if, in Weber's sense, bureaucracy is an unavoidable side
effect of process, then the possibility to design "toil-free" systems
is really about complexity management, not post-facto eliminating toil
through automation, because that will only break things and introduce
more toil (Which is of course the primary theme of Gall's
"Systemantics").
At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
Something can be both - and effectively work as both. Almost anyone can move a shovel even if not very well, but operating heavy machinery has many more dangers.
If your question is “how do we keep a relatively uneducated workforce employed gainfully” digging a canal with shovels Amy be the way to go. Especially if you only have a fixed number of useful canals.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, goes pretty far in explaining why American infrastructure costs are so high (although I suspect the paperwork burden, NIMBYism, and “citizen voice” are just as important).
I strongly support the Biden Administration infrastructure program. BUT selling it as a “Jobs” program (at a time of near record low unemployment) makes me very wary.
"the definition of "overheads" as justifiable makework according to some value set". What does this even mean? How is this "a value" that's "carried" in "Big Tech" software? What part of "the reality of using Big Tech products" produces makework? Making such a broad, sweeping generalization about an entire class of make zeros sense to me. Does Facebook "justify overheads" in the same way that Netflix "justifies overheads" in the same way that Apple "justifies overheads"? Instead of just lazily blaming toil on "Big Tech", I think it's better to recognize that toil happens everywhere that people care more about short-term solutions than optimizing long-term processes—a fundamental human problem, certainly not one that's unique to the latest fad of technology companies.
However, I really feel for the author, because the distance between this philosophically ambitious position and the reality of using Big Tech products - which in my life are the primary source of pointless makework activity - is sad and frustrating.
Now, one cannot blame the tools for stupid policies that lead their misuse in constructing makework processes, but (to take the Heideggerian stance) they carry certain exacerbating values along with them. Technologies can be 'seductive'.
The point of departure for me, was the definition of "overheads" as justifiable makework according to some value set. Whose values, exactly? And if, in Weber's sense, bureaucracy is an unavoidable side effect of process, then the possibility to design "toil-free" systems is really about complexity management, not post-facto eliminating toil through automation, because that will only break things and introduce more toil (Which is of course the primary theme of Gall's "Systemantics").