Generation Starships

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

What is Google's true project?

In all seriousness, this is not a bad comparison in a small way.

Google presents themselves as a search engine that finds information for their users. Which they do. But the user is not the customer.

The actual customer of Google is the advertiser buying access to the user, and customizing the adds using the data Google collects. Google also hopes to gather myriabytes of data about the users and more-or-less sell that.

None of this is secret, of course, but little of it gets emphasized in Google's PR, and a surprising number of people never stop to ask themselves what Google's actual business is, they just accept it as part of the background of life.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

None of this is secret, of course, but little of it gets emphasized in Google's PR, and a surprising number of people never stop to ask themselves what Google's actual business is, they just accept it as part of the background of life.

But it's still a good enough reason for them to be very generous with employees, giving bennies like free commute buses, gourmet meals, face-time with international speakers, rec rooms, free office supplies...

[Flyndaran]

It might take some accounting research to determine the difference between marketing PR generosity, and real get-nothing-in-return altruism.
I doubt altruism lasts long without very strict control by individuals in anything approaching capitalist societies.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

It might take some accounting research to determine the difference between marketing PR generosity, and real get-nothing-in-return altruism.
I doubt altruism lasts long without very strict control by individuals in anything approaching capitalist societies.

The problem with meeting your citerion for not looking suspicious Flyndaran is that you are a gamer. Doing realworld things makes you suspicious in a game/fictional setting. But realworld spies don't live like story spies nor do they think like them either. Heck, realworld conspiracy theorists often miss the good stuff. Everybody makes up conspiracies about the CIA and Proctor&Gamble. Meanwhile the KGB was provably guilty of at least ten times as many proven murders as the CIA is of likely/suspicious deaths that might be murders. Nestle Co., through its "Milk Nurses," tricked thousands or tens of thousands of women into killing their children, in the name of profit. That's far more Satanic than anything Proctor&Gamble are acussed of doing. But neither Nestle nor the KGB and its sucessor organisations gets any flack.

All the things you find suspicious real people would find dull.

[mindstalk]

Being generous to employees has direct benefits like "more productive employees" and "lower employee turnover". Particularly useful if they're highly skilled and in demand, though that doesn't cover Trader Joe's and Costco (alternatively, being a really productive employee at such places does take learned skill, that most employers are too classist to credit.)

A friend of mine used to do software for a firm in the Bay Area, mid 1990s, that was unusually generous with vacation time (4 weeks?) and work hour expectations (it's been 40 hours this week, *go home* and recharge.) Turnover was much lower than normal for the tech industry there.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

The problem with meeting your citerion for not looking suspicious Flyndaran is that you are a gamer. Doing realworld things makes you suspicious in a game/fictional setting. But realworld spies don't live like story spies nor do they think like them either. Heck, realworld conspiracy theorists often miss the good stuff. Everybody makes up conspiracies about the CIA and Proctor&Gamble. Meanwhile the KGB was provably guilty of at least ten times as many proven murders as the CIA is of likely/suspicious deaths that might be murders. Nestle Co., through its "Milk Nurses," tricked thousands or tens of thousands of women into killing their children, in the name of profit. That's far more Satanic than anything Proctor&Gamble are acussed of doing. But neither Nestle nor the KGB and its sucessor organisations gets any flack.

All the things you find suspicious real people would find dull.

Originally Posted by mindstalk

Being generous to employees has direct benefits like "more productive employees" and "lower employee turnover". Particularly useful if they're highly skilled and in demand, though that doesn't cover Trader Joe's and Costco (alternatively, being a really productive employee at such places does take learned skill, that most employers are too classist to credit.)

A friend of mine used to do software for a firm in the Bay Area, mid 1990s, that was unusually generous with vacation time (4 weeks?) and work hour expectations (it's been 40 hours this week, *go home* and recharge.) Turnover was much lower than normal for the tech industry there.

Both points are true, but Flyn has a point, even so. It depends on how generous the employer is perceived to be, and the details of the situation. As Flyn observes, an individual employer (or the cover illusion of one) is more believable with extremenly generous pay and benefits than a long-running organizational one is. Likewise, if the generosity goes past 'good' into 'unebelievable', sooner or later someone may notice and wonder.

A large organization can benefit from generosity to the employees, certainly, but these benefits tend to appear over time, while the costs are immediate. There's a tendency for the accountants to insist on the immediate cut, either out of disbelief in or disinterest in the long term benefits. Short-sightedness is common trait.

If there's the equivalent of a strong union or th elike in place, it becomes less suspicious than if it's presented as just the generosity of the employer. Likwise, if there is some apparent political reason for doing it, the generosity becomes less noticeable.

By itself, such generosity would probably never be noticed. But if something else left someone wondering about the real nature of the generation ship project, and that person then noticed the peculiar generosity as well, then you've got 2 oddities instead of just one.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

A large organization can benefit from generosity to the employees, certainly, but these benefits tend to appear over time, while the costs are immediate. There's a tendency for the accountants to insist on the immediate cut, either out of disbelief in or disinterest in the long term benefits. Short-sightedness is common trait.

Short-sightedness is relative; in terms of hab building, projects can easily last decades, and specializable portions can go for years. "The spacious quarters and park land for workers and customers/visitors is because you are a generous employer" or because you're running a company town in space, where studio apartments are cheaper than tenements for heat reasons.

[mindstalk]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Both points are true, but Flyn has a point, even so. It depends on how generous the employer is perceived to be, and the details of the situation. As Flyn observes, an individual employer (or the cover illusion of one) is more believable with extremenly generous pay and benefits than a long-running organizational one is. Likewise, if the generosity goes past 'good' into 'unebelievable', sooner or later someone may notice and wonder.

Trader Joe's has been around since 1958. Costco opened in 1983. Southwest, also known for decent labor treatment, started flying in 1971 (founded 1967). 31 to 56 years and counting. How long is building this generation ship meant to take?

And if you're trying to attract skilled labor to the outer system, or off Earth in general, for long terms, being "generous" in building spacious rooms or mini-parks may be the minimum you have to do anyway.

A generation ship is largely a habitat with an engine, after all. Building a self-sustaining habitat -- especially in THS -- is probably completely unsuspicious, compared to building interstellar class engines and shielding.

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

Short-sightedness is relative; in terms of hab building, projects can easily last decades, and specializable portions can go for years. "The spacious quarters and park land for workers and customers/visitors is because you are a generous employer" or because you're running a company town in space, where studio apartments are cheaper than tenements for heat reasons.

Or the company was initially generous, and it's easier to keep the parks going.

[Astromancer]

I would think that the Meme "Treat high skill employees very well because they have other options" would be commonplace in THS. And with the difficulty of getting top quality talent in the Deep Beyond, high quality digs and recreational perks would likely be normal ways to keep the talent in place.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

And with the difficulty of getting top quality talent in the Deep Beyond, high quality digs and recreational perks would likely be normal ways to keep the talent in place.

Given the difficulty of going elsewhere, it's necessary to treat them pretty well to avoid them going stir-crazy.