[alistairSH]

And yet the government mostly does what we ask of it. USPS gets mail to the most remote locations for the price of a stamp. State and the military both protect our interests overseas (for better or worse). Healthcare.gov works pretty well (after that rocky rollout).

It's far from perfect, but I don't feel like it's any more dysfunctional than any other western democracy.

[mattmaroon]

It’s less dysfunctional than most organizations 1/10th its size.

[red-iron-pine]

having worked at, or consulted at, several F500 orgs... I believe it.

most could be politely described as "basket cases" or "cluster hugs" (hugs being the operative word). but they had so much inertia and so many assets that were effective on ground they couldn't be stopped.

anything outside of core business drivers were a mess, but they could still make in rain in their core competencies.

the level of corruption was also shocking. CTOs packing the PMO and Procurement teams to approve contracts, including 400k consulting fees to a company, only a few months old, and owned 100% by the CTOs wife. Sales Engineers offering "acquisition fees" for going with their SaaS offering. People fighting to get to be the gatekeepers for new RFPs so they could milk the baksheesh.

[mattmaroon]

Right and if you wanted to make money by being immoral, you’d have a lot better odds of success, and probably both less chance of being caught and less penalty, if you did, in the private sector.

A senator gets paid a tiny percent of what a c-suite exec does and there are much fewer of them. I know all sorts of small business owners who make more money than POTUS (though I suppose much fewer if you count speaking fees after retirement) or anyone in Congress. Etc.

I mean there’s corruption and graft and stuff, and plenty of waste, but for its size, I think our government is wonderful. The more I learn about other ones the more positively I feel about ours.

And here’s a way I like to think about things when there are big topics that are confusing. I ask “if you were wrong, would you still think you were right?” I often ask friends if Bing were better than Google (which I’ve never met anyone who thinks it is) would they know it? They say yes but then I ask them the last time they tried switching, or even know someone who did, and they realize that even if Bing was 20% better than Google they would still think it isn’t.

I think it’s the same with government. If ours were better than every other one in the world we’d mostly still think it wasn’t by sheer inertia and the marketing done by politicians to convince us it isn’t.

Im sure it isn’t the best in the world, but I think all the better ones are smaller wealthier countries that just have a much easier job.

[randomdata]

> And yet the government mostly does what we ask of it.

That's the problem, though. What we ask of a dating app is roughly "Give me access to partners that are 'out of my league'." It might work for some people sometimes, but it's not satisfiable in any meaningful way.

It's like asking the government to "Make me rich" – something we do ask of the government! It does what it can, giving some people the opportunity to become rich sometimes, but it's not meaningfully satisfiable either. And that is where the ideas of corruption and irresponsibility come into play. "He got rich. I didn't. The government must favor him!"

Few want a dating app for "healthy relationships". One only has to step outside in a reasonably populous area to find all kinds of healthy relationship opportunities staring them right in the face. But that's not what people, generally speaking, are looking for.

[whstl]

> What we ask of a dating app is roughly "Give me access to partners that are 'out of my league'."

I don't really believe this is what we ask of apps.

It is however what that the current apps promise us.

If I install one of those apps, I need to swipe a lot of people to see an average woman. If I were single, I would probably be ok with the first 50 that show up if they weren't bots or onlyfans bait.

[randomdata]

Apps only get used if they deliver what people want. Apps promise that because that's what people want. (There are always exceptions)

> I need to swipe a lot of people to see an average woman.

Right. If you were after an average woman (and an average woman was after you, we'll say someone also average), there would be no value proposition in swiping endlessly to find each other. You could both just step outside. There are average people abound.

But the likelihood is that at least one of you, if not both, seek someone who is more than average. A connection isn't being made outside because either one or both parties is saying, implicitly or explicitly, "No thanks."

And fair enough. If you think you can have something that you perceive as being better, why wouldn't you try to go for it? (Exceptions notwithstanding)

[whstl]

But the app doesn't promise women or men. It promises potential contacts. And it delivers. That's why people pay premium, etc.

If you read again what I said, I never said I was looking specifically for an average woman. What I said is that it takes some time to show them.

This changes expectations drastically. It also changes possibility of meeting someone that's "at your league", unless you use the app constantly, apply some strategy (such as swiping "no" to a lot of pretty people), or simply pay.

[randomdata]

> I never said I was looking specifically for an average woman.

Nothing suggested you were...?

> What I said is that it takes some time to show them.

To which I said that's on purpose, because that's not what people want to see. If they did, they'd just go outside. You don't need an app to find average people. The world is teaming with them. It's the quest for someone 'better' that draws people to these apps.