250 Comments
Aug 13·edited Aug 13Liked by John Carter

There's another reason for the downfall.

I was working for a contracting company writing software for the Boeing 787 project in the mid-2000's. Boeing wanted to do things differently this time, deciding that instead of having most of their talent in one facility, they would take advantage of the global market and spread production throughout the globe. The idea was they would take advantage of skill sets regardless of time zones. They quickly found out how difficult logistics became without physical proximity.

My company was horrifically behind, and it was always a game of chicken hoping another company that was horribly behind would blink first so we wouldn't get blamed for delays. When parts came, they found you couldn't just connect them like legos, and there were subtle differences in dimensions that forced them to go back to the drawing board.

The only effective way to manage large, technologically sophisticated, safety critical, projects is to get a massive swath of people in the same area so you can walk to a guy's desk and hash things out. When you don't know the guy half a world away, and their team might as well be from mars, you will never be able to get the candor you need. There's no spreadsheet in the world that can smooth out human factors.

DEI is a lot of the story, but don't underestimate how much managerialism has deluded themselves that process and metrics can replace old-fashioned human relationships.

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I've heard similar stories to these very often. Outsourcing has ruined the ability of large corporations to innovate. You need that close, physical connection between engineer's office and factory floor, and you need the engineer and the machinist to speak the same language.

The lie the MBAs sold was that China would do the manufacturing and we'd do the engineering. Increasingly, we don't do either.

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Aug 13·edited Aug 13Liked by John Carter

In a previous job, some factory guys became practically my best friends when I came down and treated them like a fellow professional instead of as inferiors and thanked them in an email that cc'ed their manager.

After that, whenever I needed something, I was their first priority.

This isn't to toot my own horn, but more to emphasize how much they are taken for granted that such a small gesture had such an effect.

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The professional-managerial class in America has a cultivated contempt for tradesmen that is entirely unearned. Tradies know it, they resent it, and they respond very well when they're treated as the skilled professionals they in fact are.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

I've sat at work dinners where the MBA CFO type has solemnly sung the 'Nobody is Irreplaceable' (*) litany. And this guy is actually fairly well-meaning (as in not being a psychopathic jumped-up salesman CEO type). There's simply no getting through to people like him that it ain't necessarily so.

* Guys like him often like to virtue signal by tacking 'including myself' on the end. So they're not always wrong.

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When they’re talking about themselves they’re not wrong at all. Most of them are entirely superfluous.

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We don't need to do engineering, we just need to recite dumb lines from dumb tv shows during meetings to show how creative we are while larping at business.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

Ahhh, “process and metrics.” I could rant for hours about how managerialism has used those two concepts to screw up healthcare delivery in America.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

Outsourcing requires much more coordination between the facilities, extremely detailed specifications of the interfaces, and much more inspection of parts. If you don't do that, then things get crappier, don't fit, and are late.

Unfortunately the usual company that decides to outsource is doing it because they're already behind. I.e. they've already shown themselves as being less competent at doing the very things it would take to outsource successfully.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

Another issue is that a lot of specifications do not come from the realm of Pythagorean Forms. A silly example would be requiring a certain type of paint. What everyone who needs to know knows is that it got put in the spec docs only because that's what had been lying around in the warehouse gathering dust for the last decade. 20 years later when it comes time to repaint or manufacture a new batch of widgets and someone buys new instead of finely-aged 10 year old vintage paint and something obscure goes wrong because it's fresh paint... well you need institutional knowledge to have a hope in hell of solving that. If the parts get painted in Ouagadougou and then get assembled in Ulan Bataan yer @#$%ed.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

I worked as an industrial designer for a large pleasure boat manufacturer in the 90's. It was apparent even then that the goal was documenting process to replace human relationships. Human relationships were just too expensive. Great comment on a great article.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

There was also the ISO9000 scam. As in I have a friend or relative in the government agency or quango which issues certifications and he's going to make sure that everybody knows that you have to hire my consultancy to get certification in anything less than geological time scale.

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb pointed out in one of his books that the use of the internet to order stuff from far away places greatly increased the amount of time needed to complete construction projects due to the increased chance of delays.

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That's 100% true.

But it's worse than that. People have become so comfortable with not working--they'll get mad if you come in and start getting things done!

It's like a union job. People get paid longer, the longer they stay on the job. So, they don't get things done. And they get paid longer. The more groups involved, the harder it is to tell where the hang-up is.

It's upside-down just about everywhere. You're considered clever if you can find out how to *not* get things done.

You don't want to one-up anyone, or they'll all turn against you.

Where I'm at now, that's not the case, but I've seen it over and over throughout the years. It's maddening, because you can be on the last step of a project for months because of one silly thing. But everyone expects it, so it just goes that way.

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We have a soviet style culture at this point. Where the smartest man is he who works the least while getting paid the most. Because we're in a mixed-economy, the banks will choose winners and losers anyway regardless of skill or drive. So those with the most drive are often comparatively punished while those who express the least are rewarded. There's a fellow I'm aware of whose job consists of sending about 10 emails a month who gets paid close to 200k. I'd do his job for half that.

He's a genius, milking the tax payer for every penny he can get.

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Wally from Dilbert was the prototype.

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DEI takes the above problem and makes it 50 times worse.

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https://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-found-dead-cubicle-4-days-after-clocking/story?id=113259298

Not a lot of interaction going on at that workplace. If nothing else, the productivity monitors should have noticed she wasn't setting up her quota of fake accounts.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

I would argue that this goes well beyond a profit motive. I don't think pumping stock prices is the goal when companies such as Disney actively destroy their stock prices in favour of progressive ideology. It's easy to blame everything on sleazy capitalism, but there is something more sinister at play here.

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You could be right, though I'd contest that the managerial class—the global regime that directs progressivism from the shadows—care most of all about cash and control. Capitalism reflects the consumerist culture we're all enveloped in, yet more broadly the powers that be simply wish to make money, garner further control, and set the narrative. The capitalist game that we all must strive to prosper inside is just the basic requisite for any kind of participation in public life—or survival, for that matter.

Disney is trash, but I feel that Hollywood is kind of removed from this sphere, at least to some degree. Most of Hollywood is progressive but only by outward-facing statements and actions; these people will do whatever is necessary to stay in the industry, I doubt that most of them really believe in progressive ideas (just look at their lives).

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

I agree but the degree to which so many of these celebrities have "trans" children makes me think that on some level they've submitted themselves to a gruesome cult in the name of "progressiveness". These poor kids don't seem to have a lifespan beyond 18 or 19 in any case.

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These celebrities have bought into the cult hook, line, and sinker. Many others haven't. It's understandable, I think. Being a celebrity does not mean that you are smart; we must remember that most Hollywood types are simply talented at what they do and were lucky enough to make it in the industry. They are surrounded by people who are smarter than them and who are constantly explaining the new Woke prescriptions for reality—it's only natural that some of them just buy it. They also intuitively understand the clout it gets them, and that's all that matters. To live that life, one must play the game until one has real fuck off money.

Their children? Well, I feel for them. It is truly a shame what all of this "trans" nonsense is doing to some young people; I have only good-willed pity for its victims—they were likely too young to understand that they had been brainwashed by an ideology or groomed by celebrities, the media, over-zealous parents, and mealy-mouthed "educators."

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Sold their souls for the fame…

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

Do you think there abides on the space station two living sacrifices to be marooned to their fate??

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Do I even believe they are “stuck in space” 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Do you? Is reality that fractured or fictionalized. ? Insanity is very commonplace. Like

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

The thing about Hollywood is that it has been occupied by morons, cultists, con artists and psychopaths from day one, so there was no change in competence to notice. They have always sucked as much as they do now, and have always been chasing some cultish dream. It's only that the latest fad cult's tenants are incompatible with making movies that people enjoy watching. So suddenly everyone is noticing what a bunch of creeps and assholes they are, no longer blinded by the entertainment value they used to deliver.

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author

Well, they've certainly lost the ability to make good movies. So the competence crisis has come for them, too.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

They have DEI’d some of their best people, especially in the writing department, so there’s that. The total lack of subtext and apparent inability to understand that they’re writing for a visual medium is a change.

But mostly their ideology drives them to be anti-everything that works in stories. The cult-of-the-moment and leftist propaganda used to be enjoyable as a spectacle even when the underlying principles made you groan, but now it’s all sermons and (nega)moral parables, and all the characters must be cardboard cutout shitlib tropes (the hypermasculine white girl/latina who’s tougher than all the boys! the black female supergenius! the submissive numale! the jaded journalist! and they’re all fighting The Man!).

Anyway I could rant forever. But all this stuff was always there. The new cult tells them it wasn’t there hard enough and that’s why Orange Man appeared, so it must be cranked up to the level of Sunday School lesson.

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No one:

Literally no one:

“Wow I really enjoyed Sunday school!”

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Murdoch Far reaching

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Not even capitalism. It's a soviet style mixed economy.

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The underlying concern in the ISS/Starliner debacle is that NASA’s leadership doesn’t seem to recognize the situation they’re in. Dual docking stations and dual contractors are obviously part of the plan because if one docking station fails, or one contractor proves incompetent, then the other can take over.

They have two people who are subject to gigantic mental stress along with their earthbound loved ones, while their cardiovascular health, muscle strength, and bone density wither away. Those astronauts and their families didn’t sign up for this. They need rescue!

This is the type of situation that those redundancies are designed for. That they are not doing all they can to get the Starliner off the station, and to get the astronauts home, and then giving Boeing the boot, is a failure of the worst kind.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

The "we must have two contractors" idea was likely originally designed as:

We must have two contractors. If one shows incompetent, we can fire them and use the other while we look for a new one.

However, as usual with government, it's become just "we must *always* have two contractors." The part about firing an incompetent one and looking for a new one just got...ignored after a short while.

As a result, yes they have two contractors. So they have all the additional overhead of having two suppliers with different inspection requirements etc., plus they don't have any of the additional flexibility they should have if they were able to implement this correctly. Instead of a disadvantage and an advantage, they have only disadvantages as a result.

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Asking SpaceX to save the astronauts is kinda like "firing" Boeing, in a way. Other than the actual firing part.

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I was hoping the Russians would do the rescue.

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Boeing The docking systems are identical second one few tweaks hasn't failed yet 2015 second International Docking Adapter IDA-2 tested Know the Astronauts knew full well what could possibly happened going up 💪 I hope to God they are doing everything parts up there to fix this with the Genius

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Aug 16Liked by John Carter

Is it me or is it odd that nobody is talking about food and water for two people who were planned to be up there for a very short time and are now potentially up there for the indefinite future. I mean, every ounce sent up is very carefully apportioned. Do they have that many extra rations stored up there? After all, it's a long way to the nearest Costco....

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They sent up a supply mission with extra rations. And the astronaut's personal effects, including clothing, which there wasn't room for in the first launch.

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The whole Boeing disaster is like something out of Atlas Shrugged, the more I see how society is breaking down the more I believe that Ayn Rand was a prophet who was warning us of what the future holds. Elites who believe more in virtue signaling than producing, governmental regulations that strangle innovation, doubling down on failed policies in order to extract more loot, censoring those who speak the truth, and, most importantly, those who are competent are being shunted to the back in favor of those "in need" or the competent simply remove themselves from the roles society needs them to fill in order to function properly. At this point, especially as a white man working in corporate america, I simply keep my head down and offer nothing of value to my employer beyond the bare minimum I need to do in order to keep my job. Why the hell would I work myself to death for an organization that is committed to the DIE principles? Better yet why would I contribute all of my skills and knowledge to an organization that due to it's internal policies is set up to be nothing but incompetent due to no longer believes in hiring and promoting the best employees but would rather bring in the dregs of humanity in order to gain access to that sweet sweet ESG cash? No thank you, I'll keep my head down until I eventually receive my severance due to being let go after AI takes over my job(something I'm currently assisting with though they claim it won't affect my job, yeah right).

John, you need to add a buy me a coffee button, want to send you something for the work you put into these articles.

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Yes, I should really set that up.

I suspect that there are a great many who, like you, are demoralized and, as the Chinese call it, “lying flat” - doing the bare minimum. It's the only sane response.

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Exactly. I received a 1.5% raise this year while they laid off my coworker and tripled my work load; nothing says your employer appreciates your effort better than this but somehow they think this will motivate me to work harder? Could care less about my job, once I’m gone from this employer I will never work in corporate america again, just a cluster fuck of insanity that I can do without.

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Imagine having any sort of loyalty to a large institutional employer these days.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

Imagine a large institutional employer having any sort of loyalty to you. (Like it used to be way back in the day.)

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

After reading Atlas Shrugged I too realized Ayn Rand was a prophet foretelling the future of America. Even though is was many years ago when I read it, I saw all the signs of societal collapse happening in real time; government making laws to punish the producers and innovators, productive employees being passed over to promote the incompetent, constitutional rights being restricted and eliminated to protect and promote government powers. The last few years of my employment for a major defense contractor I "quietly quit" just doing the minimum to reach retirement and collect my pension. I'm creating my own little Galt's Gulch (I call it Garinger's Gulch) where I have the basic necessities (water / power / food) on site. Inflation will eat up any savings so I'm spending everything I have/get on hard assets as quickly as I can. You seems to have a firm grasp on reality, Good Luck to you. We're not going to be able to vote our way out of this mess.

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No, there is no way voting will lead to anything but more delusions, lies, and incompetence. I'm through with giving my sovereignty away to "leaders" who I wouldn't choose to manage a carwash let alone affairs of state. The assclowns who think voting is the answer are part of the problem, giving legitimacy to this charade they call democracy is the exact opposite of what one should do. American#1: Hey, lets elect people who can then impose "taxes" on the rest of us at the point of a gun, American#2: Hey, that's a great idea!, American#3: looks at 1 and 2, shakes his head in disgust at their utter stupidity, walks away and decides to remove himself from the realm of politics.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

The word on Boeing is that when Boeing bought McDonnell Douglass, a firm who was essentially destroyed by their almost criminal C suite occupants, those "criminals" managed to get into leadership spots at Boeing, where they did the same thing. I've come to the conclusion that unless your product is money (banking, insurance, financial services) you should never have a CEO coming from a financial background. Only your CFO should have that background, and they should never see the captain's chair. They care not for the product, but for green. It's good to have them counting your cash, but keep them in their lane, and out of the rest of the business.

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Bang on. The same principle applies to society in general. Money men should never be in the driver's seat.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

That's how (in part) Ingvar Kamprad took IKEA from a local little furniture-making company in one of the poorest districts of Sweden, to a global chain of superstores: the economists were kept on as accountants only, and weren't allowed to touch, not even speak about, anything but the book-keeping.

No bean counter telling designers, marketers, engineers or secretaries or even the cafeteria staff how to run things. Kamprad kept a choke-chain on the money-men, precisely because while they are good at numbers, that's also all they're good at.

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This is how it's done.

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This is NOT new. Back in the 1990s, Bob Lutz (a former Chrysler and GM executive) wrote a book called "Car Guys and Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Industry." It's a great expose in the same class as John DeLorean's "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors." https://www.amazon.com/Car-Guys-vs-Bean-Counters-ebook/dp/B004IYJEA6

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Yes it's been going on for a very long time, and many have pointed these things out before. I make no claim to originality or stunning insight, here.

Yet I feel things have gotten much, much worse.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

Yup. My brother in law was a senior Boeing engineer, and can confirm this. He has nothing good to say about Harry Stonecipher et al.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

Problem is that when the CFO doesn't come from a Finance Background he/she usually comes from a Sales background. Just as bad.

Agreed that CFOs need to be kept on a leash. They have a habit of running around cutting costs they don't understand to make themselves look good -- especially when fresh in the role. That being said, a good CFO who doesn't spend all day harassing the line workers about paperclip usage and doesn't spend all day sucking up to the rest of the C-Suite by finessing their stock options is a wondrous thing.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

Oh for sure. I worked with one who was fabulous, knew his lane, was good with ops, and counted the money well. Sales as CEOs can be fine because the CEO is in reality a salesman for the company. Ops is preferable if they are good with people and in front of a crowd. Engineers are a coin flip.

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100% spot on. The decision makers are far removed from the product--and they lack the drive to learn about it. That's why they suck.

Regardless of what people think about Elon Musk, at least he puts in the effort to understand the product. That's why he's done well.

He's building a brand. Too many of these other CEOs are just there to milk it, and get out. They don't care about branding, or the future of the company. They're getting theirs, and then they're out. Peace! ✌️ ☮️

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Lawyers are even worse. At least a finance guy can do numbers.

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NASA is Never Ascend to Space Again.

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author

Holy shit.

Brilliant.

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Steal it and use it, I need no credit.

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I was just talking with a friend of mine about how damn near everything seems to be both taking longer and being done worse across the board. My sister moved across the country and paid a small fortune for a moving company that's taken over three weeks to get just one truck to its destination. I remember when we moved across the country as kids, the moving trucks beat us to the house (maybe because we stopped to visit family on the way but I know it didn't take three weeks for the trucks to get to our new house). Service at every restaurant, even the nice ones, have noticeably declined, and since poor service begets poor tips, the management at a lot of the places in our town worth eating have implemented mandatory service charges of 20%, which only further incentivizes the wait staff to not give their best since now they get tips no matter how badly they perform. Road construction? Never ending. Permit approvals through the city? Don't hold you're breath, since the city council will waffle on any given proposal for months and there's nothing anyone can do to get them to finally make a decision. Car repairs? I was looking at paying almost 7k to get my car touched up to sell until a friend offered to do the exact same work at his shop at cost, which he quoted around 2k, which tells me I was going to get gouged an exorbitant amount by anyone I'm not already friends with. "Lie and loot" really is the name of the game right now. It feels as if we're in the "looting" phase of collapse proper, now; everyone is charging as much as they can, almost extortion level prices, to do the bare minimum as slowly and as drawn-out as possible. If that.

The moral of the story is be willing to move your own stuff in a U-Haul and know how to fix your own car, I guess.

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Tipping has gotten out of control. Not that long ago 10% was considered standard, even decent. Now it's considered niggardly. Meanwhile you see tipping options on debit machines everywhere.

And of course, high tipping expectations reduce demand for restaurants. Vicious spiral.

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In Australia Tipping is a very controversial practice, which many people resent American influence encouraging, as it is usually believed that the business owner should be properly paying their employees rather than essentially expecting customers to subsidise them beyond the price of food/service.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

In Switzerland and parts of Germany waiters are actively insulted if you attempt to tip them. They will tell you they are paid professionals and not beggars.

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author

I love countries like that.

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Aug 15Liked by John Carter

Don't forget the service fees to supplement the cost of doing business in California, oh and a bag fee.

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Aug 15Liked by John Carter

I call Canada "an extraction economy." It's economy runs on extracting the prior generated wealth of the population. Reminds me of the SNL News joke, "Mr. Smith, a farmer won 2 Million dollars; when asked what he would do now, he replied, 'I'll just keep farming until it's all gone.'"

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My dad (a farmer) used to tell that joke back in the mid 60's

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We need a massive decentralization of production and a reintroduction of Darwinian free market economics. The competition alone would revolutionize all production.

I find it infuriating I can't find a toaster that will last longer than 6 months. Do I have to build everything I need myself?!

With digital tooling, that is almost a possibility.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

What happens with DEI hires is that no one is allowed to criticize them or train them properly. Any interaction with them short of "you're so great!" is likely to "go wrong" and you will be accused of a dreaded "ism" , and maybe even fired. So...if they're only in charge of a power point presentation, well ok, but if they are in software development -- oh shit.

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author

Yes that is an excellent point. The same thing happens in universities. Diversity students fail your test? That's going to be a problem for the professor.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

" You can know a lot

You can know a little

But whatever you know

Just don't blow the whistle

Joshua Dean had a memory keen

He was strong and he ran every day

But his lungs turned to goo

And he had a stroke too

At 46, he was sent on his way

Oh, and Swampy Barnett loved his mama

And he took a lot of pride in his work

He found 300 reasons why a plane couldn't fly

And now he's over his head in the dirt

You can know a lot

You can know a little

But whatever you know

Just don't blow the whistle

You can toot a flute

You can play the fiddle

But whatever you do

Just don't blow the whistle

Now, Boeing's got planes in the sky

Yeah, but Boeing's got men on the ground

Ooh you mess with their shares

Buddy beware

They can make sure that you land safe and sound

They keep cutting their deals

With the FAA, USA, fantastic lawyers of law

A little blip of the whistle

Cuts their bonus a little

But you can't never see what you never did saw

You can know a lot

You can know a little

But whatever you know

Just don't blow the whistle

You can toot a flute

You can play a fiddle

But whatever you do

Just don't blow the whistle

Your life can be trash, completely dismal

It could always get worse if you just blow the whistle."

- "Whistle Boeing," by Jesse Welles

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Aug 15Liked by John Carter

Goddamn.

The (alleged) assassination of John Barnett is far more disturbing than the attempted one on Trump. The latter I kind of get. "He's Hitler 2.0! Project 2025!" etc.

But a Quality Assurance engineer? Who might, after years of Congressional hearings, force new contracts undercutting some quarterly bottom line? To go full Stalin -- "No man, no problem" -- and just take him out? That's really crazy. The only way that could happen is if our country were ruled by an insular, short-sighted, war-profiteering oligarchy of sociopaths whose only concern is their next paycheck from Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc...

Give me a break.

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author

Hardly surprising. Consider the record of the Clintons.

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Aug 15Liked by John Carter

RIP Seth Rich.

(That's a fun story with which to freak out normies, if the chance arises.)

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

In Joseph Heller's novel "Catch 22", The novel’s protagonist, Captain John Yossarian, remarks:

"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.

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author

Our ruling class has no shortage of no character.

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Aug 14Liked by John Carter

🙌

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Usual Suspect channeling an Armenian... so it figures.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

All our rulers know how to do is lie and loot.

That line alone is Truth writ large.

Pathocrats managing incompetents.

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"Eventually, the electrical grid will start struggling. Blackouts will become more frequent, then the norm." I live in California and my grid power comes from PG&E. I should say, sometimes grid power comes from them. I've had more than 20 outages in the past year. Roughly half of those were planned and the other half were unplanned. Either way, my point is that this is happening now.

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author

Yep. Also in Texas. Very much also in South Africa.

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Texas seems like incompetence and corruption. CA is malice and its downstream effects.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

Excellent piece - I would add that it's only going to get scarier.

DIE-induced incompetence will first take down industries with lower fault tolerance - which, coincidentally, are also most valuable for the functioning of society - like aerospace.

I fear that medicine might be next on the chopping block. It too requires a nearly perfect competence and coordination from its parts; it too is deeply infected with DIE; and it too takes very little effort to damage. What's after that? Energy grids?

Ayn Rand was right. We owe her an apology.

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author

That's about the order of decay I predicted in the essay.

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> I fear that medicine might be next on the chopping block.

Implying it still works.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

"Every time someone unsuitable is admitted to a university program or hired for a skilled position, someone who is suitable is left out in the cold. Some of them will find other things to do, sure ... but in general, their work goes unrewarded, their intellects unchallenged, and their talents fail to be honed into demanding skills."

Not only that. A competent person is more likely to do the job in a way that opens up new positions, where other competent people could do more work to fulfill more needs. An incompetent person is more likely to burn things down, making everyone poorer.

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Aug 13Liked by John Carter

What we are seeing with Boeing is 30 years of unbridled pursuit of stock price by MBAs with an overlay of DEI, because that keeps the 'new' MBAs happy. I'm sure this is happening in many other boardrooms in corporate America, but Boeing is the first company where the 'results' have visibly gotten people killed. It won't be the last. Right now it appears to be impossible to run a public company for competence, and any renaissance of American industry will have to come from private companies such as Space X.

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