Thinking about this thread of mine today, in light of stuff like this.
This is the kind of thing I was talking about when I said that our way of doing things is unsustainable.
This is the kind of thing I was talking about when I said that our way of doing things is unsustainable.
You start with something that's perfectly reasonable sounding, like: people go into business to make money, THEREFORE you have to expect that if a business can make more money somehow, it will, THEREFORE it is right and good when a business does anything in order to make money.
And if you pretend that everything exists in a vacuum with only that logic, then it makes sense for businesses not to pay for quality insurance (and for health insurance businesses to charge a lot and give poor service), not to offer sick time, not to hire more redundant people.
In engineering a system, "redundant" is often another way of saying "safe" or "foolproof". In running a business, it means "wasteful" or "excess".
Cutting safety margins to increase profit margins is the right move if your goal is to make as big a profit as possible... right up until you need those safety margins, and then everything comes crashing down.
Our systems are unsustainable and it's only seemed otherwise because the parts that wear out first are the human element, and we usually take a long time to wear out, and the poorest and least powerful take the burnt of it.
But a breaking point is approaching.
But a breaking point is approaching.
If it's not COVID-19 now, it will be something else soon.
We can't keep going like this.
We can't keep going like this.
