[spam] Re: is outsourcing good control

CSGnet Archive CSG2006
1

[From Rick Marken (2006.06.18.1120)]

Fred Nickols (2006.06.16.0825 EDT) --

Sure, such a "leveling" of income would constitute a "disturbance" for many of the people whose incomes are being lowered. Moreover, it strikes me as a somewhat overpowering disturbance, that is, individually, people can do little about it. Good paying jobs simply disappear and people have to make do. But the money isn't simply going overseas: the rich here in America are getting richer and richer and richer. There is a great divide between the high end and low end of income in this country and that divide grows deeper every day. Moreover, this bi-modal distribution isn't one of two roughly equal humps; instead, the high-end is a very small hump and the low-end hump is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. As several have noted, the middle class is disappearing. This "great divide" is also showing up in other places, most notably in standardized test scores (which might not tell us much about individuals but they do tell us something about groups and distributions).

Great post, Fred.

It is not clear to me whether the situation you describe above is an accidental side effect or an active goal of the Rethuglicans. But it is clear that the increasing "great divide" in wealth and educational achievement, the disappearing middle class, the increase in child poverty, the continued decimation of the environment and the worsening healthcare mess don't seem to be creating any error signals for this administration.

Best

Rick

···

----
Richard S. Marken Consulting
marken@mindreadings.com
Home 310 474-0313
Cell 310 729-1400

2

In my opinion, distributed and integrated labor works in different aspects. Distributed labor works when there has no clear purpose, while integrated one works when there’s a definitude goal. If I have a goal, no doubt that I will integrate what I have to achieve it. However, in case that there has no clear purpose, competition will be better to create more chances. For instance, in the progress of evolution, large amount of creatures were born and were eliminated through selection or contest. In this case, they wasted the resource of the world. However, they are essential, because we don’t know where are we going to be? Market doesn’t have a clear goal as well, it only has a principle just as Darwinism, so companies compete with each other to exam which one is better(according to the current environment). Meanwhile, after a goal was set, all will engage in achieving it, a s humans did
in The Manhattan Project, The Apollo Project and The Human Genome Project.

Put this thought in the position of our minds. We loss sight of our goal when we’re doing something senseless. However, these tiring actions make more chance for those appropriate ideas to come out.
Some times they are lying in the different layers. Collectively, the body have a goal, but on steps approaching it, how to do is not clear, there may be a place for competition. It’s recursive.
jim dundon jannim@COMCAST.NET :

···

I am not sure what you refer to when you say that certain countries encourage conflict. Do you speak of free enterprise where the consumer is free to spend where and how it pleases him? What are some alternatives? Yes, this certainly encourages companies to spend a lot of energy to cut costs, improve quality, and thereby nullify the competition efforts. There are certainly some negative aspects to competition. But the competition is caused by the very thing you describe in your paper. Distributed labor. It may be that it results in lower quality and poorer use of resources in the production of relatively useless gadgetry. When I said efficient I meant with respect to time in production of like quality products. The consumer will seek generally out the best cost value. This doesn’t mean that no
other problems will ensue such as over population etc which will certainly impact on our sense of efficiency. It becomes a very complicated matter. Yes, we need legislation to deal with some of the negative aspects of consumer driven economy, [what do you propose] but efficiency is encouraged by competition just as if I would have to choose between competing alternatives to action if I were alone on an island. I would choose the course of least action, lowest price, shortest distance, least time, relative to the goal. As I see it, individual amplification [outsourcing] is the same as a consumer driven competitive economy.

抢注雅虎免费邮箱-3.5G容量，20M附件！

3

[From Bill Powers (2006.06.21.0525 MDT)]

Let me quote from your paper the origins of purpose. "

A control system is a dissipated system with a continuously renewable source of energy.

If you're going to quote, be sure you quote. The term is "dissipative", meaning that the system dissipates energy which has to be resupplied from outside it.

This allows amplification to take place, a process whereby a small cause has a large effect, achieved by drawing all the stores of energy and bringing them to bear on the creation of narrowly focused effects in the environment"

What you have described is my ability to distribute my time among various tasks.

I don't think that is what I have described. I don't think it comes within a mile of what I have described.

You have described distributed labor. If I cooperate with another human being we can benefit exponentially from that cooperation. It is still distributed labor. In this cooperation each of us will obtain a measure of increase more than double either of our efforts alone.

That is part of the current economic religion. If two people combine their efforts, I agree that they can do more than one person could do, but whether they do more than two could do alone depends on the task. Two people do not wield a hammer better than one person could. Two people cannot direct the efforts of a group of people better than one person could do. That is why we have specialization. That is why businesses have one CEO.

The fact that I do many tasks alone does not change the fact that it is distributed labor. As one person I benefited from the assorted distribution of my efforts. So if Jim does fishing on Monday, salting of fish on Tuesday, repairing of tent on Wednesday I am effectively three different people.

I disagree; you are one person putting in 1/3 time on each of three jobs, so 2/3 of the time, each job isn't being done by anyone. If you count the time it takes to switch from one job to another, you are putting in less total work than if you specialized in one of them.

  I have effectively outsourced. This is distributed labor. This is outsourcing.

I can't make sense of the way you are using words. Outsourcing means to me getting rid of a high-priced worker and replacing him by a lower-priced worker, to reduce the total cost of production. This also reduces the total amount of money available with which someone can buy the product. The producer thinks he is being smart in keeping the extra money for himself,but in fact he is firing or improverishing his own customers, and finds he is forced to reduce prices to get rid of his inventory.

  If I cooperate with someone else I have outsourced, this is no different from my being three different people on three different days.

It is certainly very different. Cooperation means working together simultaneously, not one at a time. While you're being one person, nobody is being the other two persons, so there is nobody to cooperate with.

You call this amplification. You are calling distributed time, which is distributed labor, which is outsourcing, amplification.

Sorry. That does it for me. Your mode of verbal reasoning is one with which I am not familiar, and in fact try to avoid.

Bill P.

4

From [Marc Abrams (2006.06.22.0752)]

  [From Bill Powers (2006.06.21.0525 MDT)]

  > I can't make sense of the way you are using words. Outsourcing means to me getting rid of a high-priced worker and replacing him by a >lower-priced worker, to reduce the total cost of production. This also reduces the total amount of money available with which someone >can buy the product. The producer thinks he is being smart in keeping the extra money for himself,but in fact he is firing or improverishing >his own customers, and finds he is forced to reduce prices to get rid of his inventory.

This and your notions of "outsourcing are a myth.

First, the people in India, Pakistan, China, & Bangladesh who "take" these jobs are now beginning to earn wages that far exceed anything available to them from their own economy so _thier_ standard of living increases. You cry about world poverty and hunger. How do you expect to eliminate it if you refuse to allow their standard of living to increase? It's the best "foriegn aid" we can provide. Second, you make it seem like the people who lose their jobs need to work for less pay. This is a myth. Just like any other position that gets eliminated by obseleseance folks need to and often do find better jobs and higher pay elsewhere.

So contrary to your ideas, now folks in India and elsewhere might be able to afford to buy that American produced product

Change is never easy, even if it is for the good. Just ask the folks in Rochestr NY who worked for Kodah film and had to find new work because of the lack of deman for film because of the dogital camera's.

For the first time in history we are actually working toward a global economy. But this is not coming easy because of the cultural & political diversity existing in this world.

Jim D.

> If I cooperate with someone else I have outsourced, this is no >

different from my being three different people on three different

days.

  >It is certainly very different. Cooperation means working together simultaneously, not one at a time. While you're being one person, >nobody is being the other two persons, so there is nobody to cooperate with.

Says who? If I produce the graphite for pencils and someone else produces the wood stock and someone else the eraser and still another assembles it all together to make a pencil, is that not cooperation? If not, what is it?

Every single product you use involves the cooperation of many people. From the initial design to the manufacturering and through to the distribution of it and the miracle is that no single person is "in charge" or even has to know the entire process.

···

________________________________________________________________________
Check out AOL.com today. Breaking news, video search, pictures, email and IM. All on demand. Always Free.