The System Works: Five SFF Organizations and Institutions Worth Defending
Not all systems and bureaucracies are corrupt.
https://reactormag.com/the-system-works-five-sff-organizations-and-institution
s-worth-defending/
On 3/17/2025 11:12 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
The System Works: Five SFF Organizations and Institutions Worth Defending
Not all systems and bureaucracies are corrupt.
https://reactormag.com/the-system-works-five-sff-organizations-and-institutions-worth-defending/
One for five. I love "The Star Beast". It is one of my six star out of
five star books.
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
On 3/17/2025 11:12 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
The System Works: Five SFF Organizations and Institutions Worth Defending >>>
Not all systems and bureaucracies are corrupt.
https://reactormag.com/the-system-works-five-sff-organizations-and-institutions-worth-defending/
One for five. I love "The Star Beast". It is one of my six star out of
five star books.
_The Adolescence of P-1_ is one of my favorites. It anticipated early artificial intelligence.
_The Two Faces of Tomorrow_ by James P. Hogan is an almost prescient
tale about developing an AI. Some rather interesting parallels with
the modern machine learning exercises incorrectly called artifical intelligence.
Of course one would would be remiss to leave out D.F. Jones _Colossus_ et alia.
James Nicoll wrote:
The System Works: Five SFF Organizations and Institutions Worth Defending
Not all systems and bureaucracies are corrupt.
<https://reactormag.com/the-system-works-five-sff-organizations-and-institutions-worth-defending/>
Bureaucracies can stay on track if kept FIRMLY in hand. However, it is
my contention that the bigger a bureaucracy becomes, the less
intelligent it behaves (thus the jokes about military intelligence).
Bureaucracies can stay on track if kept FIRMLY in hand. However, it is
my contention that the bigger a bureaucracy becomes, the less
intelligent it behaves (thus the jokes about military intelligence).
In article <robertaw-A4A11E.10151017032025@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
Bureaucracies can stay on track if kept FIRMLY in hand. However, it is
my contention that the bigger a bureaucracy becomes, the less
intelligent it behaves (thus the jokes about military intelligence).
Ah, but who will bell the cat?
Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy:
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the
bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to
the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have
less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
I suspect bureaucracies might be considered to be behaving
intelligently if you take into account that their purpose
is entirely to expand the scope, power, and resources of the
bureaucracy, and nothing else.
In article <robertaw-A4A11E.10151017032025@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
Bureaucracies can stay on track if kept FIRMLY in hand. However, it is
my contention that the bigger a bureaucracy becomes, the less
intelligent it behaves (thus the jokes about military intelligence).
Ah, but who will bell the cat?
Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy:
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the
bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to
the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have
less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
I suspect bureaucracies might be considered to be behaving
intelligently if you take into account that their purpose
is entirely to expand the scope, power, and resources of the
bureaucracy, and nothing else.
In article <robertaw-A4A11E.10151017032025@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
Ah, but who will bell the cat?
Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy:
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the
bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to
the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have
less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
I suspect bureaucracies might be considered to be behaving
intelligently if you take into account that their purpose
is entirely to expand the scope, power, and resources of the
bureaucracy, and nothing else.
On 3/17/2025 11:12 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
The System Works: Five SFF Organizations and Institutions Worth
Defending
Not all systems and bureaucracies are corrupt.
https://reactormag.com/the-system-works-five-sff-organizations-and- institutions-worth-defending/
One for five. I love "The Star Beast". It is one of my six star out of
five star books.
Lynn
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the
bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to
the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have
less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
I am bit more optimistic then he was in that it I am assuming (hoping
that it is possible) that a bureaucracy can be forced to stay focused on
what it is supposed to accomplish. It does require significant effort
from higher authority (who are NEVER selected from the bureaucrats in >question). BTW, if "FIRMLY" requires executing 1% of the bureaucrats
every decade, you must execute that many.
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