The Architecture Thread

[StephenHero]

The hope of an incorruptible bureaucracy springs eternal.

 

[Hayward]



The hope of an incorruptible bureaucracy springs eternal.

Naive Cynicism -> more corruption -> more Naive Cynicism.

 

[StephenHero]

 

[Loathing]

Haha, I do think you are being overly cynical though, which is probably a product of your living in a particularly selfish country and city. It's clear that much of Western Europe does a better job than the US, and a lot of progress has been made in recent decades.

This is a map of corruption by country:

I think it's possible to culture selfishness out of people and therefore corruption out of societies. After all, cooperation is a positive-sum game.

 

[lawyerdad]

double post deleted

 

[lawyerdad]



Haha, I do think you are being overly cynical though, which is probably a product of your living in a particularly selfish country and city. It's clear that much of Western Europe does a better job than the US, and a lot of progress has been made in recent decades.

This is a map of corruption by country:

I think it's possible to culture selfishness out of people and therefore corruption out of societies. After all, cooperation is a positive-sum game.

Um, no. What's "clear" is that intellectual honesty isn't your strong suit. I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make with that graphic, but assuming it's a knock-off of the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index heat map:
1. It is, as the name suggests, an indicator of "perceived" corruption, which is a term of art defined by the creators of the chart. (And to be clear, I'm not in any way questioning the bona fides of the Transparency International folks. They do great work.)
2. In the 2013 index, the U.S. got the same cute little color as the United Kingdom, which presumably is why you didn't use the up--to-date graphic. The U.S. (like the U.K.) ranked above some western European countries, below others. (The Danes always kick ass on this metric.)
3. If (as appears to be the case) you are equating "selfishness" with "corruption", the PCI rankings are completely inconsistent with the suggestion that the U.S. is a "particularly selfish country". More generally, folks here are indeed selfish. In my experience, people in most other countries -- especially other industrialized countries --are equally so. And this is a side point, since I'm mainly just pointing out that what you're saying isn't even internally consistent. But equating the levels of perceived endemic corruption in a society with the "selfishness" of its inhabitants is pretty dubious, given multitude of historical, governmental structure, and other relevant factors.
4. Attempting to reason from facile generalizations about an entire country's level of perceived corruption to conclusions about SH's (or any other individual's) views and personality is utterly moronic.

 

[Loathing]

Oh grow up, you chauvinist. I’m not interested in your petty UK-verus-US bullshit. I told you I’m not even British (not that it would make a difference, although it clearly does to you).

Your first point is a bit contradictory: first you question the validity of the index and then you express unqualified admiration for it. In actual fact, the index is not just an indicator of “perceived” corruption, because it correlates closely with several other discrete measures of corruption. There is a reason why the CPI is the most widely used and respected proxy for corruption. It's obviously not perfect, but which data are?

As to your second point: just because the US improved a shade from 2012 to 2013, it doesn’t change the fact that the US’ numerical score is still worse than almost all of Western Europe. You should have looked at the actual data rather than just glanced at the map. By the way, I chose the 2012 map because I happened to have the data to hand. No reason to falsely and nastily accuse me of being a manipulative liar. In actual fact, relying on either the 2013 or 2012 data points alone would be equally stupid. Looking at the 10-year trend would be required for any real accuracy, but this isn’t a ******* statistics seminar. So why bother with the pedantry? You come across as terribly butthurt about the fact that the USA lags behind Western Europe. You really should have left that kind of tribalistic umbrage in 5th grade.

In any case, your claim about my point being internally inconsistent is thus just flat out wrong, even going by the CPI data alone. But that would be ignoring all of the other data and research which shows pretty unambiguously that regulatory capture is a far graver problem in the US than in Western Europe. Anyone who bothers to do their homework, or even take a cursory glance at Google Scholar, can find out the facts about that on their own. So there’s no point in your vainglorious tribal campaign of blindly defending the US.

As to my musings about the selfishness or individualism of the USA and particularly NYC: they are hardly original, but I never claimed to have evidence for them. Although I will add that I obviously wasn’t referring to innate selfishness but rather to the national culture, which is the product of exactly the “multitude of historical, structural, and other relevant factors” which you mention. Also consider how wealthy the USA, and yet how bad its Gini coefficient is. To my mind, it follows rather naturally that a dog-eat-dog culture would foster corruption: a venal regulator or politician must be profoundly selfish to damage the lives of many for a relatively small personal gain.

 

[lawyerdad]



Oh grow up, you chauvinist. I’m not interested in your petty UK-verus-US bullshit. I told you I’m not even British (not that it would make a difference, although it clearly does to you).

Your first point is a bit contradictory: first you question the validity of the index and then you express unqualified admiration for it. In actual fact, the index is not just an indicator of “perceived” corruption, because it correlates closely with several other discrete measures of corruption. There is a reason why the CPI is the most widely used and respected proxy for corruption. It's obviously not perfect, but which data are?

As to your second point: just because the US improved a shade from 2012 to 2013, it doesn’t change the fact that the US’ numerical score is still worse than almost all of Western Europe. You should have looked at the actual data rather than just glanced at the map. By the way, I chose the 2012 map because I happened to have the data to hand. No reason to falsely and nastily accuse me of being a manipulative liar. In actual fact, relying on either the 2013 or 2012 data points alone would be equally stupid. Looking at the 10-year trend would be required for any real accuracy, but this isn’t a ******* statistics seminar. So why bother with the pedantry? You come across as terribly butthurt about the fact that the USA lags behind Western Europe. You really should have left that kind of tribalistic umbrage in 5th grade.

In any case, your claim about my point being internally inconsistent is thus just flat out wrong, even going by the CPI data alone. But that would be ignoring all of the other data and research which shows pretty unambiguously that regulatory capture is a far graver problem in the US than in Western Europe. Anyone who bothers to do their homework, or even take a cursory glance at Google Scholar, can find out the facts about that on their own. So there’s no point in your vainglorious tribal campaign of blindly defending the US.

As to my musings about the selfishness or individualism of the USA and particularly NYC: they are hardly original, but I never claimed to have evidence for them. Although I will add that I obviously wasn’t referring to innate selfishness but rather to the national culture, which is the product of exactly the “multitude of historical, structural, and other relevant factors” which you mention.

Where did I question the validity of the index? The index is great, it's just that it bears no relationship to the idiocy your'e spouting.

 

[StephenHero]

Dog-eat-dog cultures don't foster corruption. The proximity of a sizable group of intelligent, powerful, and wealthy people to an even more sizable group of dumb, hopelessly powerless, and poor people does. The relationship between countries in Europe and their corruption shows a pretty straightforward relationship between the lack of corruption in Northern/Western Europe and their small, broadly well-educated, and ethnically-homogenous populations while the most corrupt countries in Europe are the southern countries, which are mine fields of unfavorably dissimilar demographic groups, placing the highly educated in patronage of the minions. To be exploited, one must be dumb enough to fail in preventing it.

As a 10 minute stroll through New York could tell you, the magnitide of those conditions in New York could surprise nobody who learned it was the most corrupt city in America, even with Chicago's heroic efforts to supplant them.

 

[ethanm]

The relationship between ethnic fractionalization and corruption actually appears to be non-linear. High corruption in highly homogenous and highly fractionalized populations and low corruption in the middle.

Anyway, this isn't CE and you guys have gotten off topic.

 

[evilWagon]

Anyone come across any decent architecture lately?

 

[redcaimen]



Dog-eat-dog cultures don't foster corruption.

Maybe not, but according to that map there is a strong correlation between man-eat-dog cultures and corruption.

 

[Hayward]

As noted previously, San Francisco is finally getting starchitecture. First Jeanne Gang, now Lord Foster:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/place...ower-needs-to-go-on-5647917.php#photo-6629968

 

[TheFoo]

Just to state the obvious, in case it isn't obvious: corruption is hardly the only obstacle to effecting optimal regulatory policy. Even incorruptible, well-meaning rule makers and rule enforcers are not omniscient.

I am not familiar with how architect licensing really works, but I am not principally against the notion of professional licenses. To the extent they efficiently provide valuable market information, they are a good thing. Hairdressers and janitors perform low risk jobs so the cost of instituting a licensing regime is probably not worth it. People tend to care quite a bit whether their houses collapse on their families, though.

 

[Journeyman]

People tend to care quite a bit whether their houses collapse on their families, though.

Could always do what the ancient Romans did and execute the architect who designed the faulty insulae or domus.