Prometheus (in snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com) said:
| On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:47:27 -0600, "Morris Dovey" | wrote: | || Prometheus (in snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com) said: || ||| On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:27:56 -0600, "Morris Dovey" ||| wrote: ||| |||| Robatoy (in |||| snipped-for-privacy@t46g2000cwa.googlegroups.com) said: |||| ||||| On Dec 16, 9:29 am, "Morris Dovey" wrote: | || I think we /do/ need to move forward (be more efficient, improve || product quality, make customers more satisfied, etc.) Final || judgement on whether we're going in the right direction || necessarily comes after the fact. | | Too true, unfortunately. I guess my continual mental block is in | wondering if many of the things in modern life that are *new and | improved* are really good for us in as far as we are human beings. | To my mind, there are a lot of pitfalls in things like television | and mobile phones that have GPS trackers in them. All of that | stuff is relatively benign on the surface, even valuable- but add | it together, and those things that were supposed to make us all | more connected seem to act as a barrier to actual interaction with | the people right in front of us. Add to that the continual | improvements in the sophistication of advertising, and these new | things become more status symbols than products.
Well, yes we do need to examine these things for actual value. Much of what's new has about as much value as a Pet Rock. Much of the excitement generated is because we're being given a glimpse of possibilities; and there's a lot to be excited about - as well a lot to be wary of. I think we don't get to live out our last years rocking on the front porch - as 'elders' we have a certain responsibility to warn of dangers and give our blessings for purely positive developments - and perhaps to at least speak out on the expected and possible consequences of the rest.
| Sorry if that's a little disjointed- the dogs woke me up early | today, so I'm a little groggy. | || Choosing not to move forward is making the choice of stagnation and || irrevelence - both at the individual and enterprise levels. It || isn't that the old ways are so bad; but rather that sticking to || the old ways ensures that the old problems will always be with us. | | New ways mean that there are new problems, of course. The problem | seems to my mind that once we've all been led down one path, the | older method or product is discarded and forgotten- it's not so | much that I would want to turn the clock back, as I would love to | see some of those missed paths not taken explored, rather than | being dismissed as irrelevant. I suppose that might be why it | seems we're always re-inventing the wheel, especially on a long | timeline.
No, we can and do still cherish the best of the old - and we've all seen the evidence of that here on the wreck and on abpw. The question is really about how much resource can we dedicate to that effort. Consider earlier threads on old Chinese joinery and somewhat more recent dining table and dining chairs...
We have the opportunity to explore, within the constraints of available resources, paths not previously explored. After a long career as a computer geek, I've decided that I want to explore the practicalities of harvesting energy from the sun. IMO, that path has been under-explored and it's something that appears to hold considerable promise. Other people will (re)visit other paths.
Yes the wheel will be invented again and again; but so will we invent a means of repairing damaged nerve bundles and of instantly producing virus-specific immunizations and of ensuring that all babies are born healthy and without debilitating defects. I keep hoping that some genius would shout: "Eureeka! I have a topical cure for presbyopia," so I can stop wondering where I left my trifocals.
| It's neat that we can move technology along at such a blazing-fast | pace, but there is absolutely no way that we are learning all the | lessons that could have been gained from each new method or product.
The hurrier-I-go-the-behinder-I-get syndrome? Methinks this is what's sometimes called the "human condition". This is humanity's Catch-22. If we were smarter, then we /could/ extract those lessons; but if we were smarter, then technology would be moved just that much faster...
|| Moving forward calls for wisdom (application of our knowledge of || the consequences for the actions we take) and for courage || (determination to take actions that fit our best principles and || ideals even when those actions don't constitute the easiest, || cheapest, or most comfortable course. || || I think we criticize the MBA "bean counters" when, in fact, they || aren't the individuals who make decisions resulting in degradation || of tool quality. The bean counters do analysis, brainstorm || options, and report to company management. If that management then || fails to exercise wisdom and courage, the enterprise will not do || well; and neither will its employees nor its customers. | | Can't argue with any of that. I can't even really say that the | corporate structure as I understand it is failing- they are | producing and distributing mind-boggling quantities of product and | making huge sums of money, after all. I guess my gripe is that it | seems like every year, we're becoming less human and more consumer. | I guess part of that was being raised in a pretty isolated area | that was about thirty years behind the rest of the US, and getting | the crash course along with everyone else. I watched people that | used to get together and do things drop into shells made from | manufactured plastic and begin communicating from isolated personal | command centers and ignoring the people standing in front of them | in favor of the ones that were filtered through a speaker or a | screen. It broke a lot of families, and scattered a lot of friends.
Yup. (We don't always make good choices.) The real questions are whether we recognize that we could have made better choices; and where do we go from where we are...
| Then all the latest and greatest medications came to town, and those | same people who couldn't figure out why they felt like crap | discovered the joys of of chemical happiness with things like | Prozac and a variety of other things with oddball names that | changed their personalities even further. All of it happened way | too fast, and most of the people I meet today have a sort of sick | desperation about them. We're not in the business of solving | problems any more- just making more sophisiticated band-aids.
Hmm - /some/ of us are still in the business of /trying/ to solve problems. :-)
| We're getting pasteurized and homoginized, and while that might be | good for the big picture, where there are few sharp divisions left | and anyone can be just exactly the same as everyone else if they | choose, I still miss the cranky old guys that would sit in front of | the gas station and jaw all day, and the kids who actually used a | playground- instead of pretending to kill things on the television.
I dunno. I know of a place (right close by) where a bunch of cranky guys get together and gab (mostly about woodworking, but every now and then they'll let their guard down and talk about life outside the shop.)
| I know there's no easy answer to any of that- if there were, I'd | file it away and move on. Don't get me wrong, some technology I | like a whole lot (I am talking to you via a computer, after all) I | just wish there were a way to move forward without forgetting all | the past that lies behind us. Every time that happens, empires | fall- we are what we are today because of those that came before us | and their values. We forget those values and ways of life at our | own peril. How many people can make a wagon today- or shoe a | horse? What about butcher a pig- or even just wash their clothes | without a machine? How would a modern family keep one another | entertained if the TV, telephones and internet connection went | down? I think about that, and then I wonder what happens when the | gasoline runs out, or our military adventures isolate us from those | cheap foreign suppliers we've handed almost everything over to. A | synthetic life does not teach people how to cope with the real | world and it's challenges. Ancient Rome is a great example- they | were powerful and technologically advanced. They had cental heat | and indoor plumbing, great works of art and amusement for the | masses. If you were there, it would have seemed it couldn't end, | right? But then of course, there were a thousand years of darkness | that followed on it heels- and they didn't have quite so far to | fall as we do.
Take a slightly different perspective and ask yourself how long would it take to, for example, learn to make a wagon (starting from what you know right now) with no requirement that the wagon be particularly beautiful (that could come later)? How long to learn to butcher a hog; or to wash clothes by hand?
No matter what, you can't fall any farther than all the way. Yup, it definitely could happen. The really important question becomes how long does it take to get back on your feet?
| Getting back to your original statement, it *does* take wisdom- but | where is our wisdom coming from these days? I hate to think that it | is from YouTube and Comedy Central. The same for courage- the only | times I see that word used any more are in the context of killing | foreign people with rediculously advanced weapons or when someone is | dying of cancer. There used to be more opportunities for it (and | there still are- it just seems to be a concept that is going by the | wayside.)
Both are alive and well to the extent that they ever have been - they're just not talked about as much. I've found it interesting that many people are more comfortable talking about excrement than they are speaking of either wisdom or courage. When we get past shocking one another with the inevitable, then perhaps we'll have more time for the things we admire and respect.
| Anyway, another fairly useless rant on my part. | ||||| During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers ||||| were afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed ||||| out the stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to ||||| move up if they don't have a replacement for their vacancy?" ||| ||| Also very true- I've been training one of the shop lackeys in ||| setting up the mill and running the laser cutter whenever ||| possible. If he can get to where he can take that over for me, ||| great! I already know that when that happens, I'll be heading ||| into the engineering department full-time. || || Hmm. I'm trying to reconcile this good news with your last || paragraph below. :-? | | There is something to reconcile? I'm not taking another person's | place, I'm creating a new position to help with an increased | workload (there is *no* full-time engineer on nights). There's a | bottleneck in engineering, and I can help clear it up- but there | needs to be someone who can do my job as well, or it's just moving | the bottleneck elsewhere. Right now, I'm doing double and | sometimes triple-duty.
Thank you for clearing that up so nicely. Only really small people need to leave their boot marks on other peoples' shoulders. If you help the people around you to grow and be strong, most will be glad to give you a boost.
| Or was it the difference between "forward" and "up"? I confess, I'm | not even entirely clear on that myself- it's a sort of fuzzy matter | of semantics. I guess the idea of moving forward is just more | appealing to me, without the mental image of climbing up someone | else's back and stepping on their head when I get there, which | seems to be a common practice.
IMO, it'd be a really Good Thing to achieve some inner clarity on this one. Might even be a good lunchroom discussion...
|| But there's no call to feel like a jerk. For everything that you || (or I) do, there's likely to be at least one other person who can || do one of those things better. IMO, a better response would be || gladness to have found someone from whom we can learn. The jerks || are the people who resent those who've found a better way and || won't learn from them. "Jerkhood" doesn't fit what I've seen of || you here. :-) | | Well, thanks! But that doesn't stop me from feeling shame about not | having found the most efficient way of doing something I'm being | paid to do. As noted in the previous post, it's what keeps me | hungry to learn- if I didn't feel anything but positive about being | shown up from time to time, it'd be too easy to assume I've got it | figured out and just coast.
Not a chance. It'd out the first time you were honest with yourself.
||| Must be the difference between corporate and production ||| environments- I usually think "forward" as well, but I hear "up" a ||| lot. To move "up", I'd have to be doing things I don't think I'd ||| like doing, like finding ways to push people out of thier jobs and ||| sneak into their place. || || One of my discoveries has been that those people who keep an eye || out for problems and offer good solutions for those they have the || ability to solve (not necesarily all they find) build an in-house || reputation as problem solvers. In healthy operations solutions to || problems and the people who produce those solutions are valued || highly. | | An apt summary of what I try to do- which is why I get to move | forward.
Bingo! :-)
-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA
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