Author: Db0

Quote of the Day: The Way Things Are

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Kevin Carson has a way with words on Authority.

Kevin Carson offers an excellent analysis on the recent post by the WSJ on Power Trips. This quote struck me:

In conversations with authoritarians about the stupidity of the pointy-haired bosses, I frequently encounter statements  that “they’ve been put in authority for a reason, and it’s been decided that blah blah woof woof.”  Note the passive voice.  The people in authority, and their policies, are just part of “the way things are,” embedded in the nature of the universe.

Nothing more to say really except to suggest that you read both articles. The WSJ one especially is yet another nail on the coffin of the “Human Nature” myth where humans require some englightened authority to lead them through the straight and narrow.

Is Management Consulting useless? A Reply to the Baseline Scenario

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A former management consultants tries to refute the “management consultancy fraud”. But he completely misses the point.

The Top-Down Approach
Image by Sanctu via Flickr

Someone informed me of the recent semi-apologetical post by James Kwak on Management Consultants where he comments on the same article I wrote about a few days ago. Within, he explains that while downsizing was something Management Consultancy firms do sometimes, it’s by far not the most common reason they are employed. He then proceeds to explain what the most common tasks they are called to consult on are and how it all works together due to the restraints of the situation.

Needless to say, I’m not convinced.

The basic argument Kwak is making is that Management Consultants are usually called to advise on a specific question, rather than the all encompassing “How can we improve business/make more money”. They are tasked to find out stuff like whether it’s worth going into a new market and so on. And because the people who are hired for such management consultancy are usually the sharpest sticks in the bunch, they are qualified in figuring out the answers.

But his makes no sense. No matter how smart one is, they can’t just answer such questions without having lived and experienced the job they’re advising on. We’re led to believe that these bright-but-unskilled people can somehow do this by filling in some excel charts and studying a lot of business books and whatnot. Well, excuse me but this sounds to me as effective as a court magician claiming that his recommendations are accurate because he’s thrown the bones and read the stars very very hard. I challenge the basic premise that one can make accurate business decisions based on some skills learned on MBA courses, not to mention 2-week seminars on “Management Consultancy”.

It doesn’t matter that the people doing this job are bright. It doesn’t matter if they have more time than the management they are consulting (who are surprisingly being paid to do this but “don’t have enough time”). What matters is that there is no handbook on how to make such decisions that can ever apply to every kind of market in the same way, and yet management and their consultants keep weaving this lie that one can possibly make decisions on every kind of business given enough time and spreadsheets.

It’s nonsense. A scam. A fraud on a criminal scale perpetuated by the new nobility and their lackeys who get to make the big bucks by pulling decisions out of their arse. They are the ones who think of the (proprietary) algorithms and write the management books that the rest buy anyway. It’s a close circuit with little to no relation on the real world and sustained by little else than cognitive biases and marketing.

James Kwak attempts to skirt around the unchallenged premises by pointing out that Management Consultants are “really really smart” and are hired because the paid managers are too “busy” to do what they are supposed to. This even fails to accurately refute the article it was criticizing which was pointing out that when such Management Consultancy firms are hired to do the generic “improve business” consultancy, they usually end up suggesting to downsize. This is simply the most succinct representation of the MC fraud which points that they don’t really know what they’re doing, and when they do, their own management is so incompetent in turn, that it suggests the opposite. There’s no reason to expect that when MC firms are hired to do some other kind of consultancy (i.e. analyze new markets), they are any more competent at it.

Yes, Management Consultants can be smart. Yes they can be hard-working. Yes they can be perfectionist. But none of these will help unless they have any idea what they’re doing in the first place. This is why the MC firms which can best obfuscate the fact that they do not know what they are doing are the most successful. The dynamics of the situation – the “evolutionary” competition between firms – ensures that only the ones who are conscious of their ignorance and can best cover it up with fake confidence and pure marketing are the ones who will take the best and most expensive contracts in a world where nobody at the top knows what the hell they’re doing.

Follow up on Japanese Sexism

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A commenter expands on the subject of Japanese Sexism.

japanese white rabbit…
Image by colodio via Flickr

On my post about Sexism in Japanese culture, one commenter left a reply that I thought was far to interesting to let it delve in obscurity. So I’m posting it here to give you perhaps a deeper understanding on what goes on there.

Having lived in Japan for a while and having married a Japanese woman, I’d say that’s you’re fairly correct in your assumptions. In general, the progressive image of Japan comes under a lot of heat in many areas when viewed from the inside-out.

Japan has never truly had a woman’s revolution. I visit corporate clients on a daily basis and find that the majority of women are still used in a 1960s-ish ‘coffee secretary’ role. I’ve been told directly by more than a few clients that they tend to hire women solely for having them around the office to meet male workers, marry them, get pregnant, and leave the workplace so they can get new, younger women in the office.

The idea behind this is that it helps Japanese male employees meet women (which they’re fairly near utterly incapable of doing on their own sometimes) and don’t have the free time to usually pursue because of long work hours. In this way, it keeps Japan from extinction.

On the other hand, sexual harassment is the norm, and there doesn’t exist much currently to combat such things. I’ve seen female employees treated like complete garbage by men who have never had to confront the word ‘equality.’

So has the oppressing hand of man kept women down and successfully prevented a woman’s revolution?

Not Exactly….

In Japan, the workplace is traditionally the domain of men and the home is the domain of women. While men puff out their chests in public and can show dominance over their spouses there, they are normally completely at a loss to control ANY home issues.

The woman handles all money and the man readily gives her his monthly paychecks. She normally doles out a pittance to the man to buy a bit of lunch, and dictates all monetary issues.

I know many a man that I can deflate upon asking why they can’t come out for a drink.

“My wife only allows me 500 yen (5 dollars) a day for lunch.”

In this way, there’s a bit more under the carpet than can be easily seen.

I’d argue that a woman’s revolution has never occurred because the majority of Japanese woman are quite happy with the status quo and don’t feel the need for work when they can dream of being a house wife that holds out her hand to collect her husband’s money.

I liken it to some people on welfare in America/Australia that don’t bother getting jobs because life’s already basically paid for, but many Japanese woman seem quite comfortable with the arrangement. Perhaps they don’t know better, or perhaps it just IS better (I often wonder what life would be like if I could just collect a spouses money and maintain the house all day)

Of course, there are a minority of woman who want to achieve a life where they can manage companies and advance in their line of work/careers, and these women truly get the shaft and have to endure a barrage of men trying to put them back in their place.

I often get angry at it, but Japan is a place where you accept roles and stick to those roles. It’s not going to change overnight.

It IS changing slowly, extremely slowly. Men today seem to have lost a bit of their old ways and are slowly emerging in home life. Some would argue that women’s control has actually increased due to a weaker man.

I loved your post, totally agree, would love to see change, but am cognizant of the fact that I’m viewing the whole situation from a different cultural standpoint and perhaps could be wrong.

-Craig

EDIT: Just to make it clear since the comment above can be taken to apologize for the rampart patriarchy of Japan (Although I do not think that was Craig’s intention) when it says stuff like:

So has the oppressing hand of man kept women down and successfully prevented a woman’s revolution?

Not Exactly….

I believe it has been absolutely the oppressive hand of man that kept women down. I do not see the role of the woman in such a society as having any power but rather as having internalized their oppression and trying to use the position decided for them by the patriarchy to its full extent. As Sitakali wrote in the comments (and I agree wholeheartedly):

I find excuses like the one presented here to be good examples of why cultural relativism can be dangerous. Just as Sharia Law is not acceptable, regardless of the cultural history of Islamic nations, so is this separation of “duties” along gender lines unacceptable and unfair.

PS: This is the reason why I like blogging my thoughts on things like this, even if they’re not so well educated. So often will you find people that are able to provide a thoughtful and new perspective on something you’re thinking of, correct your preconceptions and generally ecpand your understanding.

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Management Consultants or Court Magicians?

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If Managers are the new nobility, Management Consultants are their Court Magicians.

Japanese-born American poet and critic Sadakic...
Image via Wikipedia

I just read this very interesting opinion piece from The Independent where it is shown how Management Consultancy is the largest legal scal of the 20th century. In the piece, the author is quite surprised how time after time various big firms will fall for the same scam with disastrous results and how come the bad reputation of such Consultancy firms has not yet caught up to them.

This immediately made sense to me, for the truth is that the Management are absolutely incapable of telling what is a good or bad result, since they themselves are more likely than not, as incompetent in management as the consultants they are hiring. In the past, I’ve likened the Management and the paths they use to achieve such positions, to the Nobility of old and this latest article nicely allows me to extend this analogy.

If Management is the new nobility, then the Management Consultants are the Court Magicians.

Much like a court magician, they do not have any knowledge or skill in making decisions for other people, not to mention whole organizations. In the past, those court magicians used cantrips, displays of mysticism, cold and hot reading and simply psychology, to make the Nobles believe that they had powers of foresight and Intuition. Management Consultants instead use complex excel sheets, alchemical algorithms, free market drivel and orthodoxy and raw bluff.

Court Magicians were used as advisors to Kings and Lords in important decisions. Their advise, when not simply reinforcing the opinion of the ruler as a form of sycophancy, were nothing but random. Much like current management, Court Magicians relied on the fact that a King or Lord had no more an idea on how to rule other humans and were gunning for that 50% of random chance success, while and padding it up with the cognitive biases of the nobility. Management Consultancy can’t even get a 50% success rate but they rely on the fact that current Management is so desperate in times of crisis that they would be even willing to believe in astrology or alchemy if it promised a way out.  Of course, those two disciplines have been severely discredited by actual sciences while in the field of business, marketing is king. And Management Consultancy firms can afford a lot of Marketing.

In fact, I think that if Management firms hired actual court magicians, they might actually have better success, since at least they wouldn’t be mired in the orthodoxy of  “Cut 30% of Staff no matter the circumstances”.

The more one looks at this insane system we’re living in, it truly starts to resemble some kind of neo-feudalism more and more. The incompetent are born into their positions of power, and are then advised by the more cunning incompetent on how to rule everyone else.

Now I just need to figure who the court jester is…

Epic Portal Ringtone. Epic Reddit thread

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Reddit provides.

For some reason, it seems that reddit and its random ad-hoc memes really brings out some spontaneous creativity. Watch what happened when someone posted a thread to th GLaDOS ringtone, when someone decided to type the first sentence of a fictional “Still Alive” ringtone.

But the best part isn’t this, it’s the fact that a redditor took this idea and run with it, creating a wholy new Portal ringtone, set in the tune of Still Alive. This is the result (Grrr. No embed *shakes fist*)

Even though the artist didn’t follow all the reddit comments (which imho were funnier) and didn’t sing the whole Still Alive tune, the result is still brilliant. I love how spontaneous crowd-sourced creativity can provide us such awesome things and this also shows how much creativity is affected by the ideas that came before it.

I now just need to figure how to get this one my (locked down) phone.

UPDATE: I’ve just realize that someone has written a fuller version of the lyrics below for a ringtone that stays closer to the reddit thread. Hopefully someone will actually do this.

Quote of the Day: Idiots

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An unassuming Dutch traffic engineer showed that streets without signs can be safer than roads cluttered with arrows, painted lines, and lights. Are we ready to believe him?

Quoth Hans Mondermann

When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.

The whole article is really insightful on the way that people think and interact with each other, with or without someone else (i.e. an authority) doing the thinking for them. This is very similar to the other quote I posted a while back and it also reinforced my observations on obedience.

It further presses the point on how wrong it is for people to defer to (corporate-provided) experts, who much of the time, especially in social sciences like economics and traffic, have a very limited perspective and are unable to reconsider their premises.

Is it just me or is Japanese culture really so sexist?

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Watching Japanese anime, I can’t help but notice the implicit sexism that permeates them.

Sakura Haruno
Image via Wikipedia

I recently started watching Naruto and by now, I’ve watched around 17 episodes and what has really made an impression of me is the undeniable sexism that exists in the story. You see, in these series, at the point where I am now at least, you follow the story of Naruto, a kid “ninja” who is travelling around with his Sensei and his two schoolmates, 1 girl and one boy. As is to be expected, they have to overcome any number of enemies and challenges in their travels.

Until now, I haven’t seen the girl do anything. Seriously. While the two boys have defeated enemies far stronger than them, and shown some awesome initiative and power, continuously impressing their Sensei, the girl’s accomplishments until now are: Faint, Fail to provide a weapon to he schoolmate, cry over the body of the one she loves, roundhouse kick someone (not anyone powerful mind you) who tried to steal her bag, be the object of lust for Naruto. And that’s about it. Oh no, wait, her biggest accomplishment is that she managed to climb a tree using Chakra.

I keep waiting, since the 3rd episode, to see her do something exciting. Anything. But she won’t. She politely stays away from all the battles and is dutifully impressed and scared when the true heroes, teh mens, do all the dangerous stuff. This kind of shit is so heavy it really threatens to ruin the whole show for me. I keep hoping it will get better but given past experience with Japanese cartoon, I can’t hold my breath.

You see, I’ve also been watching the Legend of the Galactic Heroes for a while now and that one is far worse at reinforcing the patriarchy. There’s basically two strong women in that show, both in some kind of advisory role, which isn’t as bad per se but given that the whole thing revolves around dozens and dozens of men, it’s really sad that the only thing women can do apparently is advise the men. But as bad as this is, it got even worse as the show moved on, one of these women got married to one of the main protagonists and then she immediately became practically his wife-slave. It would show the protagonists sitting in the living room relaxing, while his wife would cook, clean and arrange of all the social duties. Her biggest fear was that she wasn’t a good enough cook for fuck’s sake.

All the other women that were married naturally had the same role. Take care of the household while the men did the important stuff like war and politics. I was thinking if this was because this looked like an older TV show but then I learned that it run from 1988-2000 which is definitely not that old. This can only mean that Japanese culture continues to remain so patriarchal that such displays of sexism are considered the norm and expected by the majority of their viewers. Nevertheless, I was hoping that Naruto, which started 10 years later, would be more progressive, but alas it was not so.

It also makes me wonder if any girls watch shows like Naruto or if it’s explicitly targeted at boys. If girls watch it, which character could they possibly identify with an support? Can they really enjoy having their gender being displayed simply as an object of lust?

So I’m curious, is Japanese society really so sexist in the 21st century? For one of the most progressive countries out there, their patriarchy seems exceedingly preserved.

If you hate Absolute Monarchy so much

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To all you naive utopians who think that anything other than absolute monarchy can work, these are the real results. Beware and don’t challenge the status quo.

Quoth Bowers of Paradise

What can we learn from this?  To all opponents of absolute monarchy, torture, enforced superstition, and feudalism, the message is obvious: this is what your naive, utopian views lead to in practice.  Your views sound beautiful in theory, but they forget to take into account Human Nature™, which as any wise person knows makes inevitable the eternal rule of the House of Normandy.

The post above hilariously points out the fallacy of using the Human Nature™ argument to argue against anarchism, and the flawed idea that whatever follows the collapse/disorganization of the society one lives in, is Anarchy by default.

The later thing is quite often used in fact, even by people who should know better.


Now this is interesting…

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The Pirate Party turn the system’s tools against it. Lets see how the system will respond.

The Pirate Party
Image via Wikipedia

Apparently the Pirate party of Sweden decided to take thing one step further and has announced the world’s first Pirate ISP which will be focused on protecting their user’s privacy and take the MAFIAA and the rest of the gang head on. I assume it’s going to be protected via the governmental immunity the parliamentary members have so it’s going to be much more difficult to shut down, although the US copyright industry will definitely focus all their political muscle in order to nip this in the bud. Remember how they managed to have the Swedish authorities raid the Pirate Bay Offices even though they were legal under Swedish law.

I find this a very good example of turning the state’s weapons against it, but ultimately I don’t know how successful it will be (but naturally I hope to be proven wrong). Of course this doesn’t mean that “The system works” since they’re in effect trying to combat the system in the first place. No. Rather what is happening is that they’ve found a loophole in the system which allows them to use it in a way the ruling elite didn’t plan to. This is a very good way to use the system actually but the problem is ultimately that the power still relies on the ruling elite. And when the new material circumstances make previous rules work against them, then they will make sure that the previous rules are modified enough to suit their interests.

At the moment, I can foresee a few ways they are going to go around shutting this down or neutering it

  • Change the law to make this illegal. Perhaps they will disallow parliament to be involved in business. Perhaps they will stop political immunity from affecting businesses run from parliamentary members. Sure, this may harm the already established interests but given how much the IP lobby (and remember, the US is practically surviving on IP at the moment) is set to loose if this idea starts to spread to other countries, they might be willing to compensate those who will be harmed by new laws handsomely, so that this particular tactic becomes impossible. Certainly the parliamentary members might try to fight this on constitutional grounds but seeing as how easy it was to find biased judges to oversee the Pirate Bay case, and how important this decision will be, this is certainly going to be stacked against the small amount of people behind the Pirate party.
  • Create a moral panic about child porn. Someone (planted or not) is going to start sharing child porn through the Pirate ISP which will then force the pirate party in a very precarious political decision. Either it will be seen as supporting or covering child porn and other nasty stuff, or the Pirate Party will have to start keeping logs and other tracking measures, which can then be used by law enforcement to track down file sharers. Perhaps they will attempt to provide the info only for child porn and not for piracy, but that’s how it always starts anyway.
  • Disconnect the Pirate ISP from the Internet. I don’t know how possible this is, but it could be possible that the anti-pirate outfits as well as the USA and its nation-bitches will attempt to block any connection coming from the IPs assigned to the Pirate ISP. This would not require a legal precedent but it will require a lot of logistics and coordination of many nations, which might in turn make in unrealistic or simply impossible given the distributed nature of the net. This means that the US could by itself try to protect its IP interests by blocking its own people from accessing the Pirate ISP addresses but what they’re most interested in – extracting the wealth from the developing nations though IP – will be severely harmed as the poor people will simply route via the Pirate ISP for the piracy fix.
  • Try to muscle Sweden into compliance via Trade Sanctions. They WTO might allow others to embargo Sweden in order to put them into a very bad imports/exports situation, therefore creating civil unrest and hopefully blaming this on the Pirate Party and their ISP and attempt to kick them out of parliament.

I can see the second point being used in conjunction with the first point for the most effect. If those two fail, it will be the 3rd and 4th one, as they do not require the compliance of the Swedish people. Whatever happens though, once again the system will have to reveal its true nature (protecting the plutocracy at the expense of the will of the people) and will once again show how using the state’s tools cannot work if it’s creating too many headaches for the ruling elite.

Of course, I might be wrong and the Pirate ISP will be a success, nothing will be able to take it down and in one fell swoop, Sweden will be liberate file-sharing,  which will in turn trigger a chain reaction in the other nations and their own Pirate Parties. But given how much is at stake here, I truly believe we’ll see all the weapons against harmful reformism come into play. It will be interesting to watch, no doubt.

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