I noticed that - starting from around the millennium - from personal experience in the National Health Service, in the medical profession, in universities and schools - all change is bad.
The fact is clear, the reason is obvious: that we now live in a top-down world dominated by bureaucracies; and managers always change things for the worse, because they care nothing about functionality.
Bureaucrats are indifferent to what a thing is for; only interested in how management can get more from it (i.e. more money, power, status... or whatever).
That is why whenever change is imposed - whether globally, nationally, inside corporations, or in social institutions; it always makes things worse - especially when that change is dishonestly "sold"/ advertised as intending to pursue some good goal; eg. lying claims that this is being done to "protect" consumers, security, or - worst of all... children.
As if politicians, managers, lawyers, auditors etc. cared one molecule about me or my family; and our prosperity, safety, and enjoyment!
As if They cared about improving the economy, the environment, or keeping things working!
When all change is bad; sooner or later, everything good gets changed and thereby degraded by the very nature of the totalitarian structure, inverted values, and career incentives of The West.
**
Note: The microcosm reflects the macrocosm; so this is seen in small things, as well as the biggest. Today's tiny trigger for this generic rant is that IMDB, the only major website I still use frequently, has just rendered its review section worthless by blocking access to individual user reviews. We are allowed to see the (supposed) averaged rating, and a couple of Them-selected reviews - but nothing individual.
I too noticed the IMDB change and am really annoyed, as many of the reviews there are thoughtful, reflective and considerate. But of course everything good must be crushed!
ReplyDelete@Karl. Indeed. Furthermore, and fundamentally, the process of averaging individual human judgments is a strictly meaningless procedure.
ReplyDeleteI am still able to see the IMDB reviews -- but I think now you need to be logged in. (It wasn't required before, you could see them even not having an account there). I am now unable to see reviews if I am not logged in. I assume they are doing to force more people to create an account.
ReplyDelete"especially when that change is dishonestly "sold"/ advertised as intending to pursue some good goal; eg. lying claims that this is being done to "protect" consumers, security, or - worst of all... children."
One of the claims that annoy me the most is the one about "privacy". Almost every page or site or messaging app now, before you can actually read it or use it, you have to click on something to "agree" to something and you are assured that it is to guarantee your "privacy" -- when it is exactly the opposite! They immediately use all your data to train "AI" models, or for ads, or for databases, or for anything they want really (sometimes being open about it, sometimes not -- many people don't know that the "captchas" that were used supposedly to "prove you are not a robot" were actually being used to train "AI" models...). They might as well just remove all those stupid warnings, as they are pointless, but I suppose they do it on purpose to add insult to injury.
@Zeno - The Orwellian situation is that humans are required to prove they are not a robot; as evaluated by... A Robot!
ReplyDelete