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Are bureaucracies generally bad, regardless of whether they are privately operated or government operated?
Yes 46%  46%  [ 11 ]
No 8%  8%  [ 2 ]
Government operated ones are generally worse than privately operated ones. 25%  25%  [ 6 ]
Privately operated ones are generally worse than government operated ones. 8%  8%  [ 2 ]
Other 13%  13%  [ 3 ]
Total votes : 24

ruveyn
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10 Oct 2010, 2:28 am

RedHanrahan wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
RedHanrahan wrote:
Let us judge the worth of the tree by it's fruits - again how can there possibly be one absolute and final answer to this question?



All generalizations are false.

ruveyn


:lol: :lol: :lol: and thus spaketh the grand generaliser... :lol: :lol: :lol:


You actually got the joke! Will wonders never cease?

ruveyn



iamnotaparakeet
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10 Oct 2010, 6:27 am

All generalizations have exceptions.



ruveyn
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10 Oct 2010, 11:22 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
All generalizations have exceptions.



Including the one you just stated which implies there is a generalization which has no exceptions.

Isn't logic and self-reference wonderful?

ruveyn



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10 Oct 2010, 11:28 am

Pistonhead wrote:
If I'm elected Leader of Earth, I will make sure I have nice cars and people don't hurt me. Everything else I really could care less about.


If I was leader of the earth I would probably go nuts.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutley.


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Master_Pedant
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10 Oct 2010, 12:11 pm

It's pretty absurd to make a general statement like "bureaucracies are bad". As ruveyn said, any organization larger than a lemonade stand requires some bureaucracy.

zer0netgain wrote:
[
I would say an efficient bureaucracy is an oxymoron, but I get the point you are making.

The very evil of a bureaucracy is that it's about delegating power to get things done. The inherent problem is that in such delegation, you have oversight, checks and balances, etc. which really means no one person has the power to do anything. He makes a call, it gets routed up a chain of people until someone sufficiently powerful enough gives the OK to do it.

So, rather than just the one person with the power to make the call being the first one you deal with, you go through a small army of lackeys who push paper and little more than that. This consumes resources and energy with people who can't get things done in an efficient manner.

The bridge joining Oakland and San Francisco was initially built by one man given all the authority he needed to get the job done. It was completed in a matter of months for an affordable cost. Now that bridge needs to be redone. Just the planning phase cost millions of dollars, took an army or people and 10 years to complete JUST THE PLANNING of the project because everyone had to have a say in the matter.

One man = results

Committee = delays and expense

Delegating someone (one person) authority over a specific area is one thing. To delegate power to a hundred people to inter-manage a department just leads to waste.


Who the hell was the "single man" who autocratically planned the bridge? Also, the idea for buiding the bridge had been around since the 1870s and work didn't start until 1933.

Quote:
Construction began on July 9, 1933.[15] The western span of the bridge between San Francisco and Yerba Buena Island presented an enormous engineering situation. The bay was up to 100 feet (30 m) deep in places and the soil required new foundation-laying techniques.[1] At the time of construction, suspension bridges could not be made with more than a pair of towers because of stability considerations, and a two-tower span would have been longer than was practical. The solution was to construct a massive concrete anchorage halfway between San Francisco and the island and to build two complete suspension bridges, one on either side of the middle anchorage.

The eastern span was a marvelous engineering feat as well. The crossing from Yerba Buena Island to Oakland was spanned by a 10,176-foot (3,102 m) combination of double cantilever, five long-span through-trusses, and a truss causeway, forming the longest bridge of its kind at the time, with the cantilever portion being the most massive one yet constructed.[1]

Much of the original eastern span is founded upon treated wood. Because of the very deep mud on the bay bottom it was not practical to reach bedrock, although the lower levels of the mud are quite firm. Long wooden pilings were crafted from entire old-growth Douglas fir trees which were driven through the soft mud to the firmer bottom layers.[16]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Franci ... Bay_Bridge

Without knowing the specifics that deeply, I can't help but think the longer time for renovations may be because, unlike in the 1930s, modern builders put a lot more emphasis on Earthquake protection.


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Last edited by Master_Pedant on 10 Oct 2010, 12:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Master_Pedant
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10 Oct 2010, 12:11 pm

RedHanrahan wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
RedHanrahan wrote:
Let us judge the worth of the tree by it's fruits - again how can there possibly be one absolute and final answer to this question?



All generalizations are false.

ruveyn


:lol: :lol: :lol: and thus spaketh the grand generaliser... :lol: :lol: :lol:


"I don't like to make generalizations, generally."


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Tensu
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10 Oct 2010, 1:14 pm

DarthMetaKnight wrote:
If I was leader of the earth I would probably go nuts.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutley.


Power doesn't corrupt. weakness corrupts. power just makes our true nature known.

for example, if you're poor and you steal, you felt like you were left with no other option.

but if you're rich and you steal, you're just a bastard.



iamnotaparakeet
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10 Oct 2010, 7:52 pm

ruveyn wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
All generalizations have exceptions.



Including the one you just stated which implies there is a generalization which has no exceptions.

Isn't logic and self-reference wonderful?

ruveyn


It is, but it is less of a contradiction to say all generalizations have exceptions, even this one, than it is to say all generalizations are false, even this one. It you were to nit-pick it boolean, then the contradiction is absolutely the same, however it is not the same and that ought to be intuitively obvious even though I lack the words to express properly what I am attempting to say here.



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11 Oct 2010, 12:16 am

I'd also like to tell people who complain about the seeming uselessness of bureaucracies (especially technocratic ones) to remember that they standardize various codes and practices. Without professional trade bureaucracies anybody would be able to call themselves a doctor and get away with it. Bureaucracies also ensure that cars are a lot safer today then they were in the 1950s and prevent quack remedies from being sold as if they were scientifically credible. "One man"* could do things back in the good ol' days of lead paint and tainted meat because "one man" was given quite a bit of leeway when it comes to negligence, recklessness, and endangering lives.


ENDNOTE
* I'd also like more details on the "one man" who built the Oakland - SF Bridge because that story seems either bogus or grossly incomplete.


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iamnotaparakeet
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11 Oct 2010, 12:45 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
ENDNOTE
* I'd also like more details on the "one man" who built the Oakland - SF Bridge because that story seems either bogus or grossly incomplete.


I thought by "one man" it was meant that one man was given complete authority to lead a team, and possibly to design the bridge, rather than a committee of time wasting last-word-hogging congressmen.



Master_Pedant
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11 Oct 2010, 1:30 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
ENDNOTE
* I'd also like more details on the "one man" who built the Oakland - SF Bridge because that story seems either bogus or grossly incomplete.


I thought by "one man" it was meant that one man was given complete authority to lead a team, and possibly to design the bridge, rather than a committee of time wasting last-word-hogging congressmen.


I still think the "one may leading many" with the "buck stopping at team captain" autocratic type model is still a gross oversimplification of what the actual process was like. Maybe it happened that way, but building a bridge requires a shootload of technical skill and organizational skill and I doubt it's simple enough to complete under the sole direction of a single man. Perhaps it wasn't a feckless committee, but it was probably a lot more technocratic than zer0netgain is presenting.



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24 Jan 2016, 11:19 am

(I see that this is an old post, but it was listed, under "Similar Topics," where I could still see it.)

Bureaucracy is not only a question of organization, but of natural rights, when one social tier is given a survivable set of rules, and another social tier is made dysfunctional. This line of discussion typically assumes that there are bureaucrats and supplicants.

Although anarchy does observe honorary titles and does suppose that people can have spontaneous relationships, it assumes that the majority of people are inherently good, so will always respect eachother's boundaries, automatically.

So, either arrangement has it's strengths, weaknesses, and might be exploited.