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It’s the right moment to pierce those layers of abstraction that allow you to get through each day, and question why it’s so financially lucrative for the system you’re building to exist.
I’m glad someone said it because this thought popped in my head yesterday. Been thinking about the consequences of my system, and really if it brings benefit to the users, but also who it affects indirectly.
So far, I’m ok with it. There is part of it that adds some safety for the business, the users, and people affected indirectly. But it still has a profit motive and that’s the uncomfortable part.
Edit: I should clarify that I’m talking about my software system. Not the healthcare system in the U.S. like the author is. It’s nowhere near as lucrative as making money off of people literally suffering from life. But the author mentioned how the CEOs see numbers not people. If the numbers my system collects ends up hurting people, that’s what I was reflecting on.
There is nothing wrong with making a profit. People have to be paid, after all, and that includes the ownership who put the money at risk in the operation to begin with. The problem is when making a profit becomes the only motive.
Every company is established with the purpose of offering a product or performing a service that makes their customers’ better or simpler. If is successful, it grows from nothing to something in a relatively short period of time. Then it gets the attention of the Investor Class, who shovels money into it with the expectation that it will sustain that growth. Now, the focus is on Building Shareholder Value, and the customer is seen as a necessary evil toward that goal.
The worst thing that ever happened was when we decided that public corporations had a duty to maximize shareholder value above everything else. It renders all those mission and vision statements irrelevant. No matter how much the CEO says the firm’s goal is to make the world a better place through selling stuff, we all know it’s a lie. Their goal is to enrich tthemselves, at our expense.
I added an edit to clarify my reflection.
It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t go into the defense industry. Not just working on weapons that are deadly to enemy combatants and innocents; but making profit off of doing so.
If there becomes a point in my career where it’s clear that my work doesn’t make things better, then I know I’ve made a mistake.
I know a couple of people who had jobs working with a defense contractor. One of them justified it by saying he doesn’t actually work on missile projects, his department does as air traffic control systems (and sure, there’s nothing objectionable about that). But they both knew what their company did and it certainly did make it an uncomfortable place to work. You can tell yourself that these weapons only get used on bad guys, but I think the more you have to tell that story, the harder it is to hear yourself.
They’ve both moved on at this point.
Everything I got offers for were weapons platforms, fire control systems, or guidance.
The exact same time I was going through these a cruise missile in Yemen hit a school bus full of kids - obviously one American made sold to the Saudis.
My kid wasn’t in school yet, but I looked at him, shook my head and said nope. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Turns out I do value things other than fun projects and money, and by a huge margin.
If the USA keeps putting off single payer. The first thing that should happen is all health insurance companies be required to become non-profits and cap CEOs and other c levels pay at a certain % of the lowest paid workers.
First time I’ve heard of the “Leaky Abstraction” concept, makes a lot of sense. Good metaphor too.
I first heard of it from Joel Spolsky’s blog and wikipedia also credits that article with popularizing the concept. In it’s original formulation, it was based on remote procedure calls being hidden in APIs. Because a remote computer call has all these limits of latency, packet/info loss, and possible connection loss, it is impossible to make a perfect abstraction that allows the programmer to treat the remote call as though it were local. The reality the abstraction tries to hide “leaks” in those fundamental limits.
All of contemporary global society is such an abstraction; that’s one of the principles of post-modernism. When you buy clothes online an entire invisible work force of shippers, manufacturers, resource procurerers, and more lies beind each article of fabric.
Pressure from climate change, tariffs, global war, and more are straining the foundations of society and the comfortable abstraction is starting to crack.
We need these abstractions though, we love them, and we should! The problem isn’t abstraction itself, we couldn’t survive without that. The problem is in how we build these abstractions, the problem is that we create unsustainable and irresponsible abstractions and then present them as legitimate options.
But we can’t throw out abstraction entirely. It’s like, if a person dies in a car crash, we should ask some questions, but you don’t ask “should we really have cars?”, instead you ask “should that person be driving a car? And is that car safe to drive?”
Because there is no abstraction as leaky as a man waiting outside your hotel at 6:45 in the morning with a gun and murderous intent.
A leak like that is the type that keeps leaking. The system needs to change, and it eventually will, doubtfully but hopefully peacefully.
Damn good article
More precisely, medical business strategy is a leaky abstraction; the assassination is the leak.
