The Backyard Digging (and filling it back afterwards) Point
Le mercredi, février 15 2012, 18:26 :: albedo, pirate, politique,
Traduction francophone disponible
Dear politician,
If you have been pointed to this text, it is because you tried to justify your position or your actions by the fact that "it saves jobs".
Sorry, you have reached the infamous "Backyard Digging Point". Your argument is invalid. Don't worry, you are not the first nor the last one. Let's see together why this argument is invalid and, even more, why it is very dangerous to rely on it.
A job is a service that a provider give to a customer in exchange for money (or other form of payment). The job exists as long as the price asked by the provider is inferior to the price the customer is willing to pay. If the customer doesn't want to pay that amount, the provider either has to lower his price, to offer more to the customer or to radically change his business model.
How much would you pay me to dig a big hole in your garden then to fill it back afterwards? As it would probably take me several hours of work, I guess that 200€ is a good price. I would even cut it down to 150€ for you. Would you pay for that? Probably not. Maybe I should consider that a job that nobody is willing to pay for is useless.
As the world is evolving, the society changes. A good business model of the past may not be relevant anymore. New business opportunities appear. Companies could make radical shift and grow even stronger. Or try to stick to their old paradigm and disappear. This happens every day: icemen go out of business because of better and/or cheaper alternatives. It is not a political issue, merely an evolution.
As a politician, you are elected by the citizens. Among your duties, you need to ensure that the state provide some services for less than it would really cost : education, transportation and many others depending on your political stand. Profitability of private businesses should never be your concern. If the service provided is seen as critical but unprofitable, maybe it should be managed by the state in the name of the citizen.
When they earn money, private companies pay politicians to stay far away. But as soon as something may be a threat to their future profitability, they will make friend, asking "to be protected". As a representative of the citizens, not the companies, you should not enter this game. Why?
Firstly because the evolution is unavoidable
Like it or not, the changes you are trying to avoid are already here. You can fight against them and make the transition longer and harder. That's all you will ever gain. It is like building a wall in the middle of a river. At best, you will be able to stop the flow for a few moments. But the water will eventually find its way around your barrier. That means flood, damages. Adapt yourself to the river and let it flow, everything will be easier.
Secondly because it is an economic disaster
Saving jobs or avoiding job loss is only a temporary measure. If the job doesn't pay for itself now, nothing will make it more profitable in the future. You are investing money and effort in a black hole. As a politician, remember that you are not playing with your own money, you are spending the money of your citizens. Your responsibility is to invest in something profitable for all your citizens. True, investing a lot to save some jobs for a few months might make a few votes. Is being re-elected your only political vision?
Thirdly because it is not ethic
Do you think that we should keep death penalty in order not to put the executioner out of a job? Extreme example? What about saving the planet? Why do we still hear that ecology should be balanced with the economy? If there is no planet, there will be no economy anymore.
By trying to "save jobs", you are hindering the natural evolution of the society. New companies, new business models, young entrepreneurs are directly hurt by your attempt at "saving jobs". It is a simple as that: despite all your good intentions, you are in fact destroying future jobs. A lot of businesses will never see the light because of your action.
Fourth, because it makes everyone's life a bit more difficult
Today's technology is wonderful. Administration and paperwork is a thing of the past. With very few investments, most procedures could be automatized, making everyone happy. But, guess what, we fear it. We are trying to make every step a bit more complicated to save the work of the guy putting useless stamps on a piece of paper.
This is mostly visible in public administrations but can be applied to most big organizations. The Luddite fear of "losing jobs" makes us rejecting everything that could make our lives easier. "We have always done like that" or "Everybody is doing that" are excuses, not arguments.
Last but not least, because jobs are not necessary.
Work is just one way of earning an income and having an income is only one way of living. Some people live perfectly happy without income. And, more importantly, a lot of people have an income without working. In fact, there are very few rich people that earn their income from their current work.
Younger generations are often considered lazy because they don't want to work as much as their older counterparts. The reality is that they only want to live more. With today's technology, they don't see why they should waste their time doing useless stuffs. Yes, they will work but only if they see that it is worth the effort, if it's for something they care about. And backyard digging is not one of their priorities.
Very often, you will hear concerned people saying that not everybody can be an engineer or an artist, that we also have to give some work to the "stupid" people. Just like the world could be separated between “smart-asses” and people that don't have more capabilities than a machine. This question is raised every day since the industrial revolution and, so far, we still exist, globally more prosperous than ever. Nevertheless, some politicians are working hard to make digging your backyard and filling it back mandatory, proud of their patronization for the “stupid” people.
Conclusion
Dear representative of the citizens, from now on, each time you will say “saving jobs”, you will think “making people dig their backyard and fill it back”. You know that anything which is only justified by the need "to save job" is against the interests of your citizens. Give people more freedom, more time, less stupid stuffs to do and high-value jobs will spontaneously appear. People are not stupid. They may seem so because we are giving them stupid backyard digging to do. If we stop, we will realize how creative the mankind can be. Have you never dreamt of a world without any boring or useless tasks?
And, when you think about it, aren't the "stupid" those who fight and invest in a lost cause? Don't forget that the more the technology evolves, the closer you are to seeing your actual work done by a machine. It is only a matter of time so start investing in the future now.
Pictures by Chiot's Run and Travis S.
Commentaires
Other than your point about income not being necessary, I agree with you entirely. I wish more politicians would understand this.
Digging holes in the backyard, then filling them in again - we call that gardening... :)
"Digging holes in the backyard, then filling them in again - we call that gardening... :)"
Exactly... The analogy does not work because if you want to get your garden to grow and look great, you need to get your hand dirty and turn the ground upside down.
What is much better analogy, is at least on one famous Finnish writers stories about seven brothers, who are all kind different people, mostly all are dumb.
One of the stories was that they wanted to light their new build house what did not have windows. So they used bags. They went out and they opened their bags and closed it, carried it to in and opened a bags to fill house with light.
One of the (many) stories is as well that they were promised to be paid when they emptied a hole in a ice from water. They were told that they need to take their buckets and fill it with water on one hole, an empty it to other hole in a ice few meters away.
You can fill up your buckets as much you want, but when you empty it to same lake, you never success on that task.
Sometimes things need to be broken down so you can build it again. If the basis of the idea in the first place is broken, you can not fix it with new plans in the end, you need to throw the whole idea out.
That is with capitalism. Every money what gets printed, is borrowed to banks with small debit. Were it just 0.0-0.5% it is already braking the whole economy.
And when banks borrow that money to customers, they includes a own debit to that money. And when bank customers comes a store customer, they pays the product price what includes a manufacturing costs and employees, storing and all other things.
So store customers are paying all other things than just that product.
In the end, there is more dept than there is money to pay that dept. And money goes to rich people, dept stays on poor people.
It is not about intelligence but about ethics and moral. Those who are rich, they don't have such. Or then they are just ignorance as someone else such person is doing their money business.
One bad thing what even many Open Source community members are suggesting, is competition.
Competition is never good. It does not come as benefit for the end user (a customer). Far from it, it actually backfires to customers as almost everyone else.
Competition is bad. But saying that, does not meen that we should all stick on one service or one product.
The whole "Competition is good" is propaganda by greedy people.
They use that as to rip others off, while without understanding, suffering even itself (but just less than end users). It has been used against communism and to promote capitalism.
A competition in nutshell:
Everyone tries to win others. There can be only one winner. So everyone does what ever they can do to be that winner.
Competition causes that products quality is bad, it is not great, but just "good enough".
The production costs are kept too high, and resources are wasted to product all kind crap and useless stuff.
People are not wanted to have jobs, but they just want to have enough workers to maximize profit while minimizing outcomes.
Every competitor tries to make own product such that it ties user to them. Was it then a psychological or technical vendor lock-in, that is what they want. First you buy something, and then your choices are limited to that manufacturer.
Someone goes and invent something new outside of the standard or if there is no standard, then just new thing what ties end user again to that one.
And every other competitor is doing same thing. We have lots of all kind products, but all incompatible with each other one way or other.
What is alternative for competition? It isn't communism or monopoly....
It is teamwork. In teamwork, there is no competition. Everyone works together. They plan and they discuss and they work out all together.
But teamwork does not mean that there is just one product, one service and one boss. As monopoly is not mirror to competition.
In teamwork, there are alternativies. But instead being competitive, they are working together. They are compatible to each other, while offering different way for things.
Example: KDE and GNOME. They are alternativies but not competitors. Many wants to say that it is "KDE vs GNOME". But in truly, it is "KDE & GNOME".
As there are things what makes things as teamwork, and it is a development branch and standard.
The open source is about teamwork, not about competition. If someone does bad choice, every user is free to implement a alternative choice and give a example which one works better way and which one should be continued while other discontinued.
As the development needs to be done outside of the standard, outside of the end user. As in development, there are lots of trials and errors being done. And only for end users is meant to give a best choice to be used.
In teamwork, there are lots of alternative development, research, testing and studying. And in the end, every result is discussed and presented and then together best is chosen and everyone stick on that one what is being brought to end user. And it comes the standard. And every end user product needs to be compatible with that standard and nothing else. No own implementations or added features outside of that standard.
Then starts a new round, where again development continues by multiple different teams and everyone tries to improve the existing one, while maintaining backward compatibility. And then again, together things are voted and chosen to be brought back to end users.
And because products are open source, everyone can see how products works and can come up the development effort with others.
And remember, Open Source does not mean open development. The development can happen behind the closed doors. but the end results need to be brought open for end users. Many has understood wrong that Open Source is about competition, while it is not. But it can be done as competition. And that is very bad thing. And that competition happens the way that someone brings to end users a development result what has not gone trough teamwork voting and chose to be a end user product.
As at that moment, that one does vendor lock-in. It brakes the teamwork and starts competition. And competition only harms end users, middle man and even manufacturer (developers etc). Competition harms EVERYONE.
The teamwork demands lots of politics, it is about discussing things, throwing ideas out and using freedom of speech. But it demands logic, diplomacy, open mind and trust to others, as no one can be afraid that someone is going to "steal" their idea or so on. As honor is need to be given those who invented things. But if someone improves others invention, they get their honor for that. And it needs to be respected that others can get ideas how to improve others inventions. As things needs to be shared in development, but they do not need to be brought to end users (Open Source is not about Open Development).
The problem with current economical state is that there is competition, but no teamwork. And that there is no one ready to go and turn the backyard up side down because "it is bad".
When the original idea does not work (every dollar what is printed includes a debit, the system is flawed from the beginning.
And it does not help how much you want to bring new rules to complex structure what all rest top of that flawed idea, as the only fix for the problem is to dig that flawed idea and turn it up side down.
Now everyone is pointing everyone else but not the problem itself. As the problem is the one what gives the greedy people a change to be a greedy and use end users moral against them as greedy people don't have such.
Those who compete, are in the end ready to do all what it is necessary to win. They are ready to pull all dirty tricks, all aces from their leaves, everything to win that competition. Was it then paying less for workers, hiring less workers, extending working times, lowering manufacturing costs by lowering quality, using dangerous materials and chemicals... doing anything to maintain and grow profit, income or power. You are ready to twist truth, lie, blackmail, sue, patent or even murder someone.
Those who competes, are like bullies. And the one who is the leader (or in leading positions as there can be many) are usually those who are biggest bullies, liers and blackmailers.
And most people has been brainwashed by those people to strongly do the biting for them by promoting competition, instead teamwork.
If you want to control group, divide and conquer them. If you want to invade a country or market, it is better to let people in there to compete each other and then after competition to enter there.
Competition is synonym for war. But even that there are rules of war, it does not mean there isn't wars or that someone does not brake those rules and get off from it.
As in the end, those who competes, are ready to work together if it benefits them. "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" goes as does "Friend of my enemy is my enemy" and "My friend is enemy to me"