korrents

korrents · piece

Institutional Failure as Surprise

Samo Burja · 24 Apr 2018 · samoburja.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Samo Burja did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    You cannot tell a failing institution from a healthy one by looking: the parts visible from outside are the parts that least reflect its actual health.

    Their wordsDiscerning whether an institution is near failure is a difficult epistemic problem. There are many outwardly visible pieces of institutions that do not reflect their actual health.
    Interesting

  2. Our reading

    Institutional decay is the normal case: keeping an existing capability alive is difficult and growing a new one is rare.

    Their wordsDecay is in fact the rule: the maintenance of old institutional abilities is difficult, and the growth of new ones is rare.
    Interesting

  3. Our reading

    The easiest way for an institution to protect its reputation is to stop attempting anything that could visibly fail.

    Their wordsAn easy way to avoid spoiling a reputation is by never failing, and an easy way to never visibly fail is to never undertake a task.
    Interesting