I think there’s something historically unusual going on in the US currently. We got an incredible lead when the rest of the world blew it self up right in the middle of industrialization. Things worked out by default, allowing other parts of the system to half-ass it. Now we have a tradition of half-assing it which seems likely to come back and bite us in the ass as the feedback loop slows down.
Our whole corporate culture is based on the idea that business doesn’t have to plan more than a quarter ahead, because engineering will pull a magic trick instead.
Yeah. Despite gains in productivity, we've had the same 40 hour work week for what seems like forever, and all the monetary gains have gone to capital instead of labor.
I think "If it's worth doing; it's worth doing half-assed." is a personal working philosophy that is probably thousands of years old.
It's just that now, we have better tools for half-assing it.