I.T. Erudio

Once more unto the breach …

  • leadership is communication, “winning”

    I wrote a long post that either needs editing or deletion – but at least it served as “pre writing” for this post.

    status quo

    If you want to be precise the “status quo” is simply the “current situation.” Which technically means that whatever is happening at the moment is the “status quo.” Usually the term implies the “normal” and ESTABLISHED state of affairs.

    “Organizational behavior 101” is that “organizations” of any size tend to work to maintain the “status quo.” This “active desire to maintain the status quo” might be called “culture” or “tradition.”

    Whatever we call it – changing the “status quo” will take conscious effort. First it has to be recognized, and then the process of change can begin.

    In a larger organization there will be written/documented procedures that formally maintain “situation normal.” In a smaller organization there are (probably) fewer “rules” but a “status quo” has been established. Then in a “startup” organization the “status quo” has to be created.

    Of course a “startup” is rarely actually starting from scratch – the folks starting the company are bringing all of their previous experience (positive and negative). e.g. If you have heard the saying “you’ll find it the same wherever you go” – that is sorta the same idea …

    change

    Also true is that “change” happens – whether we want it or not. If an organization fails to adapt to change – then EVENTUALLY it will cease to exist.

    Which means that the “status quo” of “long term successful” organizations incorporates responding to change.

    The term “learning organization” was popular a few years back. The phrase might be a meaningless management buzzword in 2021. Back in the early 1990’s the “learning organization” was probably focused on implementing relatively new technology (i.e. that “interweb” thing the kids are using). In 2021 the “learning organization” should be focused on being an “effective communication” organization …

    communication

    If you are in a “leadership” position then you are always “communicating.” The only question is “how” and “what” you are communicating.

    Communication styles can differ greatly based on individual leader preferences. HOWEVER – one of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is to “assume” that “employees” understand “leadership’s” reasoning/expectations.

    This is particularly important when a leader is trying to change company culture. In a “change” situation it is probably impossible for a leader to overcommunicate – i.e. “change” will still happen if leaders “under communicate” BUT the change will almost certainly NOT be the desired change.

    The concept of “leader intent” comes to mind – i.e. leaders should communicate the “why” as well as the “what” behind their directives. If the desire if to cut waste and be cost effective – then expressing the desire to find ways to cut waste and encourage cost effectiveness will (probably) more accurately meet “leadership’s intent” than ordering people to count sheets of paper and track paper clip usage …

    Sports ball

    The same rules apply to sports teams. Of course it is much more common for “sports philosophy” to be used in the “business” world than the other way around.

    Teams/leagues are simply organizations that have agreed to compete based on a specific set of rules/standards. The big difference being that telling “who won” and “who lost” is much easier with a scoreboard.

    Obviously with “professional sports” the only metric that matters is “winning contests.” Professional coaches and athletes are paid to win. There are no “moral victories” in pro sports.

    Of course that doesn’t mean that “losing professional sports franchise” is actually “losing money”/unprofitable OR that “championship sports franchise” is actually “making money”/profitable. But that is a much different subject.

    Winning

    “Winning” always implies a competition of some kind. In “sports ball” the rules of competition are clearly defined. e.g. You can take a look at the NFL rulebook or download the MLB rules

    But is “winning the only thing?” Or is “just win baby” a functioning philosophy? How about “if you ain’t first, you’re last?”

    If you ain’t first, you’re last

    Reese Bobby

    Well, with all due respect to Vince Lombardi and Al Davis – both of their quotes have been taken a little out of context – as is true for a lot of “motivational quotes.”

    The quote from Talladega Nights humorously illustrates the “out of context” nature of most “win at all costs” quotes.

    Vince Lombardi was also quoted as saying that he wanted his players to place “professional football” third on their “life priority” lists – with God and family being in the first two spots.

    I never heard Al Davis try to explain his “just win baby” quote – beyond being a condemnation of other teams “player conduct” policies. In context he was asking for the same sort of commitment as Mr Lombardi. Mr Davis described that commitment as a “commitment to excellence” – which has also become a management buzzword in its own right (feel free to google the term).

    Meanwhile a lot of well-meaning coaches/managers have misinterpreted the “search for high performance” as a requirement for monastic dedication.

    As always the unexamined life is not worth living – but my point today is that in “non professional sports”/the real world there is ample room for “moral victories.”

    From a practical standpoint – being focused on the end product at the expense of the process that generates that product is counterproductive.

    Yeah, that is not very quotable – the idea is simply that if you take care of the small things along the way, the end result will take care of itself.

    From a sports ball perspective – that is why Vince Lombardi started each season showing the team a football and saying “Gentlemen, this is a football.” Mr Lombardi also pointed out that “Football is a game of blocking and tackling, block and tackle better than the other team and you will win.” First master the fundamentals, and then winning will follow.

    There is a famous story of John Wooden (UCLA’s 10x NCAA basketball championship coach) starting each season by teaching players how to put on their socks. Mr Wooden would explain that if a player put their socks on wrong, then the sock would “bunch-up” and the player would get a blister. If the player got a blister they couldn’t practice/play. So spending time at the beginning of each season to teach new players (and remind returning players) how to put on their socks was worthwhile.

    A stitch in time — something, something …

    Continuous improvement

    Saying that the focus should be on “continuous improvement” implies that the “learning organization” infrastructure is in place.

    If you are coaching “non professional sports” then the primary focus should be on “learning to prepare” much more than “winning.” The entire point of “non professional sports” should be as part of the “educational” process NOT as a developmental program for the next higher level of competition.

    I’m not saying that a “pro coach” can’t have a positive impact on player’s lives/character – I’m just pointing out that the primary focus of “pro sports” is NOT “character development.”

    “Big time” college football and basketball are both money making machines – but obviously tend to be “coach centered.” The most successful coaches tend to be very good at recruiting talented players to come to their school.

    Which means that there also tends to be a huge difference in “player talent level” between the “Big time” college athletic programs and everyone else.

    Meanwhile in “professional sports” ALL of the players are “professionals” – as obvious as that sounds, the difference in “physical ability” between the “elite” players and the “average” players is minimal.

    SO what distinguishes the “elite” pro players from the “average” players? Preparation.

    Of course “avoiding injuries” becomes a part of the story for any longtime successful player – and “offseason preparation” becomes part of the “avoiding injuries” story.

    But time and fate will always play their part 😉

    oh yeah, one more thing

    All of which means a high school wrestler could go winless and have a “successful” season – assuming that they improved over the course of the season.

    A high school football team could be “successful” but lose more games than they win – that 4 win 6 loss team might be setting the stage for future success.

    Successful companies and “sports ball programs” will pass along a culture of continuous improvement and positive change management – the profits in stakeholder pockets or wins on the field of competition will follow a focus on fundamentals and individual development.

    thank you very much and I hope we passed to audition

  • “great resignation”, part-time employees, engagement

    I think I have commented on my love of “buzzwords” enough – that we can just jump into the “great resignation”/reshuffle/reprioritization/recognition/whatever …

    SO a significant number of people are choosing NOT to go back to jobs they obviously found “unsatisfying.” Trying to come up with a single reason “why” is pointless – because there (probably) is no SINGLE reason.

    Sure, if you sell management seminars to “upper management” then packaging some buzzword tripe that reinforces what upper management has already been doing will get you some paychecks. Then the reality is that it is buzzword trip seminars targeted at “upper management” that created the environment for the “great whatever” to transpire.

    To be honest the “gig economy” has been coming for awhile. If you look at the history of humanity the aberration is the “hourly wage”/weekly schedule NOT the “gig economy.”

    For MOST of human existence the major form of “employment” was subsistence farming. The industrial revolution moved folks off of farms into factories – and also created “management” as a job category.

    Henry Ford and the assembly line is always a great example of how UNPOPULAR “factory work” tends to be with “sentient beings.”

    Higher wages cut down on turnover and the “$5 day” may have kickstarted the “middle class” – at the cost of “job satisfaction” and “purpose.”

    part-time good/part-time bad

    Of course if you are trying to build a company on “gig workers” or think that it is possible to grow/build a culture with only “part-time” employees – you are chasing an illusion.

    There was a study done way back when – it was probably the 1980’s – I remember reading the book in the 1990’s that summarized the “secret management miracle technique” that they “discovered.”

    I’m sure some actual research would find the study – but since I ain’t doin’ any real research today – the short form: “major university” did a study of “global companies” and “discovered” that the employees that were emotionally involved in their work were MUCH more productive than the employees that were NOT emotionally involved in their work.

    yup, hopefully that is blindingly obvious. The (wrong) takeaway is that “pay” isn’t a major motivation to increase performance. Salary/pay/total compensation is like oxygen – if you have plenty then getting “more” is not a high priority, but if you don’t have enough, it is EXTREMELY important.

    The same with “job security” – you either have it or you don’t – but threatening employees job security will just motivate employees to find a better company to work with.

    The beatings will continue until moral improves

    Remember the key to “employee productivity” is “emotional engagement.” SO you could have highly engaged part-time employees just like you can have “disengaged” full-time employees.

    Communication

    How do you build “engagement?” Well, you gotta communicate in some form.

    The WORST thing “management” can do is “no communication” – this is the old “mushroom treatment”, “keep ’em in the dark and feed them excrement.” Of course if YOU hate your job and want to make sure that everyone reporting to you hates THEIR job – then the “mushroom treatment” is the tool for the job.

    If you fancy yourself a “leader” and are focused on things like “growth” and “long term success” – then regular communication is required.

    20/70/10

    One of Jack Welch’s tactics when he was running G.E. meshes neatly with the “employee engagement” theory.

    No, I don’t think Mr Welch was heavily influenced by the study in question. Mr Welch was influenced by years of ACTUAL employee performance data.

    The percentages the “engagement theory” folks came up with don’t really matter – maybe it was the top 10% of employees were much more engaged than the other 90% AND that top 10% was also more productive than the entire other 90%.

    If memory serves the bottom 90% are also two distinct groups – maybe it was 70% “not emotionally engaged” (i.e. “emotionally neutral” – but still of some value to the organization) and the bottom 20% were “actively disengaged” (i.e. “hostile” – these folks were actively working against the organization)

    SO Mr Welch recognized that the top 20% of G.E. employees were the “high performers” – i.e. these are the folks getting big raises and promotions. The 70% were still good workers and had the potential to become top 20%-ers – so they received smaller raises and training, then the bottom 10% were “eased out” of the organization.

    Hidden in plain site with the 20/70/10 concept is that the organization is tracking employee performance and giving regular feedback. Most companies seem to find ways to avoid giving regular “employee feedback” – for any number of convenient reasons.

    Obviously when Jack Welch was running G.E. they didn’t have a labor shortage or any issues with hiring new employees. If you are a smaller company then “easing out” the bottom 10% probably isn’t practical – but keeping someone around that is actively hostile to “company goals” is always a bad idea. How you deal with that problem employee as a small company will obviously be different than how a “large multinational conglomerate” deals with the problem (and if that “problem employee” is also a family member – well, that is another issue).

    ownership/recognition

    “Emotional engagement” is just another way of saying “ownership” – i.e. do employees feel a sense of responsibility/obligation for the performance of the company? are employees “invested” in the goals/purpose of the organization? if they are “obligated” and “invested” then they are “engaged.”

    Of course that sense of engagement can be destroyed by mistreating employees – sentient beings are NOT going to willfully work for an organization that treats them like disposable cogs in a machine for a sustained period of time.

    No, that doesn’t mean you coddle employees – it means you communicate honestly with them. No, you are not fooling anyone with the “mushroom treatment” – if you aren’t communicating people will still talk, and most likely that “internal gossip” will be negative.

    How you choose to reward employees is part of company culture – some folks are motivated by “employee of the X” type awards, some aren’t (my opinion: unless they come with a cash bonus – keep your useless award).

    IF you want employees to act like owners – you might want to consider actually making them owners. btw: The reason “CEO” compensation has outstripped “regular employee” compensation is simply because CEO’s tend to get stock options.

    Personally the CEO making a LOT more than “generic employee” doesn’t bother me in the least.

    IF the CEO is acting in the best interest of the organization, providing real leadership, and a positive company culture – then it (probably) isn’t possible to pay them “too much.”

    HOWEVER – if the CEO is using the organization as their personal piggybank, and creating a negative company culture – then it (probably) isn’t possible to dismiss them “too soon.”

    Company culture

    Dan Ariely has written some books on “behavioral economics” (“Predictably Irrational” is the one I read a few years ago).

    Mr Ariely comes to mind because the conclusion of one of his experiments was that “social obligations” tended to produce higher returns than “financial compensation” – I think he had people do a monotonous task and the ones that felt a “social obligation” did the task longer than the ones that were compensated/paid.

    Connecting the dots = employees that are “engaged” have a sense of “ownership” that includes a “social obligation” beyond monetary compensation. (but remember “total compensation” is like oxygen …)

    I’m sure we could easily find (a large number of) people that “work” harder as “volunteers” for non-profit organizations than they do for their “paycheck job” – e.g. in the former they are “engaged” in the latter they aren’t.

    Of course “creation” is always harder than “destruction” – i.e. “creating a positive company culture” requires concerted effort – if it was easy then you wouldn’t see (functionally) the same management books written/released every year …

  • buzzword bingo, pedantic-ism, and the internet

    just ranting

    One of the identifying characteristics of “expert knowledge” is understanding how everything “fits” together. True “mastery” of any field with a substantial “body of knowledge” takes time and effort. Which means there are always more people that “know enough to be dangerous” than there are “real experts.”

    Which is really just recognition of the human condition – i.e. if we had unlimited time and energy then there would be a lot more “true experts” in every field.

    There is a diminishing return on “additional knowledge” after a certain point. e.g. Does anyone really need to understand how IBM designed Token Ring networks? Well, it might be useful for historic reasons and theoretical discussion – but I’ll go out on a limb and say it isn’t worth the effort to become an “expert” on Token Ring – and if you are studying “networking” becoming an expert on Token Ring is not worth the time.

    There are also a lot of subjects where a slightly “incorrect” understanding is part of the learning process. e.g. Remember that high school chemistry class where you learned about electrons orbiting the nucleus at various discrete “energy levels” like tiny moons orbiting a planet? Then remember that college chemistry class where they told you that isn’t the way it actually is – but don’t worry about it, everyone learns it that way.

    (random thought – just because we can’t be sure where something is, doesn’t mean it can be in two spots at the same time – just like that cat in a box – it isn’t half alive and half dead, it is one or the other, we just can’t know which one – and moving on …)

    buzzwords vs jargon vs actual understanding

    Dilbert’s “pointy haired boss” is routinely held up for ridicule for “buzzword spouting” – which – in the most negative sense of the concept – implies that the person using “buzzwords” about “subject” has a very minimal understanding of the “subject.”

    Of course the “Dilbert principle” was/is that the competent people in a company are too valuable at their current job – and so cannot be promoted to “management”. Which implies that all managers are incompetent by default/design. It was a joke. It is funny. The reality is that “management” is a different skillset – but the joke is still funny 😉

    The next step up are the folks that can use the industry “jargon” correctly. Which simply illustrates that “education” is a process. In “ordinary speech” we all recognize and understand more words than we actively use – the same concept applies to acquiring and using the specific vocabulary/”jargon” of a new field of study (whatever that field happens to be).

    However if you stay at the “jargon speaking” level you have not achieved the goal of “actual understanding” and “applied knowledge.” Yes, a lot of real research has gone into describing different “levels”/stages in the process – which isn’t particularly useful. The concept that there ARE stages is much more important than the definition of specific points in the process.

    pedants

    No one want a teacher/instructor that is a “pedant” – you know, that teacher that know a LOT about a subject and thinks that it is their job to display just how much they know — imagine the high school teacher that insists or correcting EVERYONES grammar ALL THE TIME.

    There is an old joke that claims that the answer to EVERY accounting question is “it depends.” I’m fond of applying that concept to any field where “expert knowledge” is possible – i.e. the answer to EVERY question is “it depends.”

    (… oh, and pedants will talk endlessly about how much they know – but tend to have problems applying that knowledge in the real world. Being “pedantic” is boring/bad/counter productive – and ’nuff said)

    Of course if you are the expert being asked the question, what you get paid for is understanding the factors that it “depends on.” If you actually understand the factors AND can explain it to someone that isn’t an expert – then you are a rara avis.

    In “I.T.” you usually have three choices – e.g. “fast”, “cheap” (as in “low cost”/inexpensive), “good”/(as in durable/well built/”it is heavy? then it is expensive”) – but you only get to choose two. e.g “fast and cheap” isn’t going to be “good”, “fast and good” isn’t going to be “inexpensive.”

    Is “Cheap and good” possible? – well, in I.T. that probably implies using open source technologies and taking the time to train developers on the system – so an understanding of “total cost of ownership” probably shoots down a lot of “cheap and good” proposals – but it might be the only option if the budget is “we have no budget” – i.e. the proposal might APPEAR “low cost” when the cost is just being pushed onto another area — but that isn’t important at the moment.

    internet, aye?

    There is an episode of the Simpsons where Homer starts a “dot com” company called Compu Glogal Hyper Meganet – in classic Simpsons fashion they catch the cultural zeitgeist – I’ll have to re-watch the episode later – the point for mentioning it is that Homer obviously knew nothing about “technology” in general.

    Homer’s “business plan” was something like saying “aye” after every word he didn’t understand – which made him appear like he knew what he was talking about (at the end of the episode Bill Gates “buys him out” even though he isn’t sure what the company does – 1998 was when Microsoft was in full “antitrust defense by means of raised middle finger” – so, yes it was funny)

    (random thought: Microsoft is facing the same sort of accusations with their “OneDrive” product as they did with “Internet Explorer” – there are some important differences – but my guess is THIS lawsuit gets settled out of court 😉 )

    ANYWAY – anytime a new technology comes along, things need to settle down before you can really get past the “buzzword” phase. (“buzzword, aye?”) – so, while trying not to be pedantic, an overview of the weather on the internet in 2021 …

    virtualization/cloud/fog/edge/IoT

    Some (hopefully painless) definitions:

    first – what is the “internet” – the Merriam-Webster definition is nice, slightly more accurate might be to say that the internet is the “Merriam-Webster def” plus “that speaks TCP/IP.” i.e. the underlying “language” of the internet is something called TCP/IP

    This collection of worldwide TCP/IP connected networks is “the internet” – think of this network as “roads”

    Now “the internet” has been around for a while – but it didn’t become easy to use until Tim Berners Lee came up with the idea for a “world wide web” circa 1989.

    While rapidly approaching pedantic levels – this means there is a difference between the “internet” and the “world wide web.” If the internet is the roads, then the web is traffic on those roads.

    It is “true” to say that the underlying internet hasn’t really changed since the 1980’s – but maybe a little misleading.

    Saying that we have the “same internet” today is a little like saying we have the same interstate highway system today as we did when Henry Ford invented the Model-T. A lot of $$ has gone into upgrading the “internet” infrastructure since the 1980’s – just like countless $$ have gone into building “infrastructure” for modern automobiles …

    Picking up speed – Marc Andreessen gets credit for writing the first “modern” web browser in the early 1990s. Which kinda makes “web browsers” the “vehicles” running on the “web”

    Britannica via Google tells me that the first use of the term “cyberspace” goes back to 1982 – for convenience we will refer to the “internet/www/browser” as “cyberspace” – I’m not a fan of the term, but it is convenient.

    Now imagine that you had a wonderful idea for a service existing in “cyberspace” – back in the mid-1990’s maybe that was like Americans heading west in the mid 19th century. If you wanted to go west in 1850, there were people already there, but you would probably have to clear off land and build your own house, provide basic needs for yourself etc.

    The cyberspace equivalent in 1995 was that you had to buy your own computers and connect them to the internet. This was the time when sites like “Yahoo!” and/or “eBay” kind of ruled cyberspace. You can probably find a lot of stories of teenagers starting websites – that attracted a lot of traffic, and then sold them off for big $$ without too much effort. The point being that there weren’t a lot of barriers/rules on the web – but you had to do it yourself.

    e.g. A couple of nice young men (both named “Sean”) met in a thing called “IRC” and started a little file sharing project called Napster in 1999 – which is a great story, but also illustrates that there is “other traffic” on the internet besides the “web” (i.e. Napster connected users with each other – they didn’t actually host files for sharing)

    Napster did some cool stuff on the technical side – but had a business model that was functionally based on copyright infringement at some level (no they were not evil masterminds – they were young men that liked music and computers).

    ANYWAY – the point being that the Napster guys had to buy computers/configure the computers/and connect them to the internet …

    Startup stories aside – the next big leap forward was a concept called “virtualization”. The short version is that hardware processing power grew much faster than “software processing” required – SO 1 physical machine would be extremely underutilized and inefficient – then “cool tech advancements” happened and we could “host” multiple “servers” on 1 physical machine.

    Extending the “journey west” analogy – virtualization allowed for “multi-tenant occupation” – at this point the roads were safe to travel/dependable/you didn’t HAVE to do everything yourself. When you got to your destination you could stay at the local bed and breakfast while you looked for a place to stay permanent (or move on).

    … The story so far: we went from slow connections between big time-sharing computers in the 1970’s to fast connections between small personal computers in the 1990’s to “you need a computer to get on the web” and the “web infrastructure” consists mostly of virtualized machines in the early 2000s …

    Google happened in there somewhere, which was a huge leap forward in real access to information on the web – another great story, just not important for my story today 😉

    they were an online bookstore once …

    Next stop 2006. Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com are (probably) one of the greatest business success stories in recorded history. They had a LONG time where they emphasized “growth” over profit – e.g. when you see comic strips from the 1990’s about folks investing in “new economy” companies that had never earned a profit, Amazon is the success story.

    (fwiw: of course there were also a LOT of companies that found out that the “new economy” still requires you to make a profit at some point – the dot.com boom and bust/”bubble” has been the subject of many books – so moving on …)

    Of course in the mid-2000’s Amazon was still primarily a “retail shopping site.” The problem facing ANY “retail” establishment is meeting customer service/sales with employee staffing/scheduling.

    If you happen to be a “shopping website” then your way of dealing with “increased customer traffic” is to implement fault/tolerance and load balancing techniques – the goal is “fast customer transactions” which equals “available computing resources” but could also mean “inefficient/expensive.”

    Real world restaurant example: I’m told that the best estimate for how busy any restaurant will be on any given day is to look at how busy they were last year on the same date (adjusting for weekends and holidays). SO if a restaurant expects to be very busy on certain days – they can schedule more staff for those days. If they don’t expect to be busy, then they will schedule fewer employees.

    Makes sense? Cool. The point is that Amazon had the same problem – they had the data on “expected customer volume” and had gone about the process of coming up with a system that would allow for automatic adjustment of computing resources based on variable workloads.

    I imagine the original goal might have been to save money by optimizing the workloads – but then someone pointed out that if they designed it correctly then they could “rent out” the service to other companies/individuals.

    Back to our “westward expansion” analogy – maybe this would be the creation of the first “hotel chains.” The real story of “big hotel chains” probably follows along with the westward expansion of the railroad – i.e. the railroads needed depots, and those depots became natural “access” points for travelers – so towns grew up around the depots and inns/”hotels” developed as part of the town – all of which is speculation on my part – but you get the idea

    The point being that in 2006 the “cloud” came into being. To be clear the “cloud” isn’t just renting out a virtual machine in someone else’s data center – the distinct part of “cloud services” is the idea of “variable costs for variable workloads.”

    Think of the electrical grid – if you use more electricity then you pay for what you use, if you use less electricity then your electrical expenses go down.

    The “cloud” is the same idea – if you need more resources because you are hosting an eSports tournament – then you can use more resources – build out/up – and then when the tournament is over scale back down.

    Or if you are researching ‘whatever’ and need to “process” a lot of data – before the cloud you might have had to invest in building your own “super computer” which would run for a couple weeks and then be looking for something to do. Now you can utilize one of the “public cloud” offerings and get your data ‘processed’ at a much lower cost (and probably faster – so again, you are getting “fast” and “inexpensive” but you are using “virtual”/on demand/cloud resources).

    If you are interested in the space exploration business – an example from NASA –

    Fog/Edge/IoT?

    The next problem becomes efficiently collecting data while also controlling cost. Remember with the “cloud” you pay for what you use. Saying that you have “options” for your public/private cloud infrastructure is an understatement.

    However, we are back to the old “it depends” answer when we get into concepts like “Fog computing” and the “Internet of things”

    What is the “Internet of Things” well NIST has an opinion – if you read the definition and say “that is nice but a little vague” – well, what is the IoT? It depends on what you are trying to do.

    The problem is that the how of “data collection” is obviously dependent of the data being collected. So the term becomes so broad that it is essentially meaningless.

    Maybe “Fog” computing is doing fast and cheap processing of small amounts of data captured by IoT devices – as opposed to having the data go all the way out to “the cloud” – we are probably talking about “computing on a stick” type devices that plug into the LAN.

    Meanwhile “Edge computing” is one for the salespeople – e.g. it is some combination of cloud/fog/IoT – at this point it reminds me of the “Corinthian Leather” Ricardo Montalban was talking about in car commercials way back when 😉

    Ok, I’m done – I feel better

    SO if you are teaching an online class of substantial length – an entire class only about IoT might be a little pointless. You can talk about various data collecting sensors and chips/whatever – but simply “collecting” data isn’t the point, you need to DO SOMETHING with the data afterwards.

    Of course I can always be wrong – my REAL point is that IoT is a buzzword that gets misused on a regular basis. If we are veering off off into marketing and you want to call the class “IoT electric boogaloo” because it increases enrollment – and then talk about the entire cloud/fog/IoT framework – that would probably be worthwhile.

    it only took 2400+ words to get that out of my system 😉

  • leadership, generals, and politicians

    I developed an interest in “leadership” from an early age. The mundane reasons for this interest aren’t important. It is even possible that “leaders” are/were a pre-requirement for the whole “human civilization” thing – i.e. we are all “leaders” in one form or another if we are “involved with other people.” SO an interest in “leadership” is also natural.

    There are certainly a lot of books written every year that claim to teach the “secrets” of leadership. There is (probably) something useful in all of these “leadership” books BUT there is no “secret leadership formula” that works all of the time for every situation. However, there are “principles of leadership.”

    As a “first concept” I’ll point out Amos 3:3 – “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” The point being that if “two people” becomes our smallest unit of “civilization” then “leadership” is happening in some form.

    This micro-civilization “leadership” probably consists of discussions between the two people on what to do, where to go, when to do whatever. It is unlikely that they will naturally agree on everything, if they can’t resolve those disagreements (one way or another) then they won’t be “together” anymore and they will go separate ways.

    leadership

    Of course we run into the problem that there are different flavors of “leadership” because there are different types of “power.”

    Another “first concept” is that “yelling” is not leadership. Yelling is just yelling – and while it might be a tool occasionally used by a leader – “constant yelling” is an obvious sign of BAD leadership to the point that it might just be “bullying behavior”/coercion and NOT “leadership” at all

    i.e. “coercive” leadership ends up being self-destructive to the organization because it drives good people away and you end up with a group of “followers” waiting to be told what to do whatever.

    e.g. when a two year old throws a temper tantrum – no one mistakes it for “leadership.” Same concept applies if someone in a position of power throws a temper tantrum 😉

    (but there is a difference between “getting angry” and “temper tantrum” – if the situation arises then “anger” might be appropriate but never to the point where self-control is lost)

    Generals

    In English the word “general” refers to a common characteristic of a group. It doesn’t appear as a noun until the middle of the 16th century – so eventually we get the idea of the “person at the top of the chain of command” being a “General officer”

    Whatever you want to call it – in “old days long ago” – the General was on the field fighting/leading the troops.

    Alexander

    If we give “Alexander the Great” the title of “general” – then he is the classic example of “leading by personal charisma/bravery/ability.” He was the “first over the wall” type of general – that led by inspiring his armies with a “vision of conquest.”

    The problem becomes that ultimately Alexander the Great was a failure. Oh, he conquered a lot of land and left his name on cities, but again, in the long run he failed at leading his troops. After fighting for 10+ years Alexander wanted to keep going, while his tired troops wanted to go home. Alexander would die on the trip home, and his empire would be spit between his generals.

    SO why did Alexander the Great (eventually) fail as a leader? Well, he was leading for HIS glory. Sure the fact that he – and his generals – were able to keep his army together for 10 years and conquer most of the “known world” rightfully earns him a place in history, BUT at an “organizational leadership” level he was a failure.

    Cincinnatus

    Arguably the best type of leader is in the position because they are the “right person” at the “right time” NOT because they have spent their lifetime pursuing personal advancement/glory.

    The concept becomes “servant leadership” – which became a “management buzzword” in the 20th century, but is found throughout history.

    Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus comes to mind – you know, the (implied) down on his luck “citizen farmer” of Ancient Rome when it was still a “new republic” (500ish BC) – twice given supreme power (and the offer of being made “dictator for life”) he also gave up that power as soon as possible.

    Also illustrated by the story of Cincinnatus is the “burden or command” IF a leader is truly trying to “do what is right for the people.”

    Of course Cincinnatus’ example was much more often ignored that honored by later Roman leaders – which eventually led to the end of the “republic” and the birth of “empire” – but that sounds like the plot for a series of movies 😉

    HOWEVER – Cincinnatus still serves as an example of great leadership. Yes, he had problems with his sons, but that is another story …

    Moses

    According to “tradition” Moses was a general in the Egyptian army. The first 40 years of Moses’ life are not described (except that he was raised as the son of the Daughter of Pharaoh) – then he kills a man in Exodus 2:12 and goes on the run to the land of Midian.

    There is a lot of potential “reading into the story” here. I suppose Cecil B DeMille’s 1956 version is plausible – the love story between Moses and Nefretiri feels like the “Hollywood movie” addition, and of course Charlton Heston as Moses is a simplification (Aaron probably did most of the “talking”).

    ANYWAY – the point is that (after 40 years of tending sheep in Midian) Moses didn’t WANT the job of leading the tribes of Israel out of Egypt – which is what made him perfect for the job.

    Feel free to do your own study of Exodus – for my point today, Moses became a “servant leader” after 40 years of tending sheep. The mission wasn’t about him, it was about, well, “the mission.”

    Just for fun – I’ll point at Numbers 12:3 and also mention that the first five books of the “Old Testament” are often referred to as the “Books of Moses” but that doesn’t mean Moses “wrote” them – i.e. it isn’t Moses calling himself “humble” but probably Joshua …

    Politicians

    From a practical standpoint – both Cincinnatus and Moses were facing “leadership situations” that involved a lot of responsibility but NOT a lot of “real privilege.” As they approached the job it was as a responsibility/burden not as a “privilege.”

    Old Cincinnatus simply resigned rather than try to rule. Moses didn’t have that option 😉 – so we get the story of the “people” blaming him for everything wrong and rebelling against his leadership multiple times (and as the leader Moses was also held to a higher standard – but that is another story).

    In the last 25 years of the 20th century the “management buzzwords” tried to differentiate between “managers” and “leaders.” Which is always a little unfair – but the idea is that “managers” are somehow not “leaders” if all they do is pass along information/follow orders.

    In practice “good management” is “leadership.” However, if an individual is blindly following orders (with no concept of “intent of the command”) then that probably isn’t “leadership.”

    Sure, saying “corporate says to do it this way” is probably the actual answer for a lot of “brand management” type of issues – which is also probably why being “middle management” can be frustrating.

    I’m fond of saying that a major function of “senior leaders” is developing “junior leaders” – so the “leadership malfunction” might be further up the chain of command if “front line managers” are floundering.

    With that said – “politicians” tend to be despised because they are in positions of power and routinely take credit for anything good that happens and then try to blame someone else for anything bad that happens.

    If an individual rises above the ranks of “smarmy politicians” and actually displays “leadership” then history might consider them a “statesmen” – but the wanna be “Alexanders” always outnumber the “Cincinnati” (btw: the plural of “Cincinnatus” is “Cincinnati” which is how that nice little city in southwestern Ohio got its name) and of course a “Moses” requires divine intervention 😉

    Management Books

    “Books on leadership/management” tend to fall into two categories: the better ones are “memoirs/biography” while the “not so good” are self-congratulatory/”aren’t I wonderful” books published for a quick buck.

    I’ve read a lot of these books over the years – and the “actionable advice” usually boils down to some form of the “golden rule” (“do unto others as you would have them do to you”) or the categorical imperative.

    Personally I like this quote from a Hopalong Cassidy movie:

    You can’t go to far wrong looking out for the other guy.

    Hopalong Cassidy

    George Washington summed up “good manners” as (something like) “always keep the comfort of other people in mind.” SO “good leadership” equals “good manners” equals “lead the way you would like to be led”

    Of course the problem becomes that you can never make EVERYONE happy – e.g. displaying “good manners” is obviously going to be easier than “leadership” of a large group of individuals. BUT trying to “lead” from a position of bitterness/spite/coercion will never work in the “long term.”

    If you are trying to provoke a revolt – then “ignoring the concerns of the masses” and trying to coerce compliance to unpopular policies will probably work …

    e.g. “most adults” can understand not getting everything they want immediately – but they want to feel “heard” and “valued.” …

  • Dune, dreams, predictions and prophecy

    I probably read Frank Herbert’s “Dune” because of the pre-release hoopla surrounding the 1984 movie. The novel was/is a “science fiction classic,” I was a “reader” so I hunted up a copy and read it.

    Dune (1984) has serious issues – but is a fun “80’s movie.” e.g. Sting (who was a full blown “80’s rock star” at the time) was gratuitously inserted into the movie – which I’m sure seemed like a good idea at the time.

    The big problem is that the movie makers tried to squeeze a 400+ page book with a large cast of diverse characters into a 2 hour 17 minute movie – which equaled “box office disappointment” (e.g. reportedly a $40 million budget but only $30 million gross in box office).

    SO Dune (2021) doesn’t make that mistake. Sure this time around the movie makers have modern digital CGI fx to bring the Dune universe vividly to the screen – but again the real issue with the 1984 movie wasn’t the special effects.

    I tend to avoid “movie pre-release hype” so the movie makers may have been explaining that the 2021 movie is really “Dune – part 1” – i.e. obviously they are splitting the novel material between two movies.

    The really short review – I mistook Timothee Chalamet for another “young, thin, dark haired” actor but he does a fine job. If you like the “movie experience” then seeing it on the big screen is worth the effort.

    The rumor is that Frank Herbert started researching and writing “Dune” in the late 1950’s – then spent a lot of time being turned down by publishers until the novel was published in 1965.

    random thought: this “popular book by first time author – turned down by multiple publishers” tends to be the norm for a couple reasons – first: if the subject/style is really something “new” or a “new approach” then the number of people that will recognize the potential of the book is small.

    Just the nature of “publishing” is that they tend to look for “something like something that was successful” NOT “something new.”

    Then secondly – if someone wrote the greatest novel of all time, and then gave up after the first rejection, well, then the novel would be unpublished and no one would ever read it 😉

    While the “science fiction” community appreciated Dune, Frank Herbert wasn’t able to quit his “day job” after writing Dune. I was surprised to learn that Mr Herbert wrote 20+ “non Dune” novels – but that isn’t important at the moment.

    Dune covers a lot of philosophical ground – but I’ll call it “speculative religion” today.

    dreams

    SO it is possible to look at Dune and see a story about scarce natural resources, the wealth possible by controlling those resources – as well as the resulting conflict over those resources. Living in the U.S. the connection between “oil” and the “Middle East” and then “spice” and “desert plant Arrakis” is probably obvious.

    But if you want “spice” to be a drug or something else – it doesn’t really change the dynamic of the storytelling – the point is “scarce resource” and “cartel power.”

    The “religious” portion or Dune revolves around “dreams.” Numbers 12:6-8 comes to mind – but the idea that having “visions of the future” tends to equal something beyond what we can touch and feel is common throughout all cultures and history.

    Of course there is a big difference between “predicting” something will happen and “causing those events to occur.” The motivational poster might be “We predict the future by making it happen.”

    Carl Jung (a contemporary of Sigmund Freud) theorized about a “collective subconscious” shared by humanity – which is often useful when talking about “storytelling” across cultures and comparative mythology – BUT is “backward looking” and not prophetic in nature.

    “Time travel” also certainly qualifies as a science fiction “component” if not “cliche” – i.e. if you are “from the future” and “living in the past” then “predicting” the future is a matter of memory.

    Meanwhile the “gift” of seeing the future tends to be reserved for “gods” or their emissaries.

    If memory serves – Odin gave up his eye in exchange for “future vision.” The “blind prophet” that no longer has physical vision but can “see” the future tends to pop up on a regular basis (e.g. “O Brother Were Art Thou?” was a comedic retelling of the Odyssey – a couple characters lack physical sight – the first one is in the clip, the second runs the “radio station” both “prophets” in their own right – and John Goodman is a ‘cyclops’ stand in 😉 )

    SO “Dune” becomes speculative religion because of the “prophetic dreams” that the main character is having. If you have read the “Dune trilogy” and think “Paul goes ‘blind’ multiple times” then you know what I’m talking about …

    O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

    Hamlet – Act 2 Scene 2

    Predictions

    ANYWAY – “Science Fiction” as a genre covers a lot of ground – the “classics” of science fiction tend to deal with “present day” issues through the lens of “future speculation.”

    The problem is that making predictions about the future is easy, but being accurate about those predictions tends to be much harder.

    The “history of computing” documentary (from the late 1990’s) I like to show first year students is great for 30ish minutes – then they start making “predictions of the future.”

    No, the “experts” in the documentary don’t make “everyone will own a flying car and have lunch on Jupiter” predictions – what they were expecting kind of happened, just not the way they predicted – i.e. no one could have predicted the iPhone and “mobile apps” and Google was still a new thing in 2000 – again, illustrating the limits of “human predictions” …

    SO “false prophets” are also a given if you have “true prophets” running around – the difference being that the “false prophet” is, well, “wrong.”

    Well, I suppose the “prophets” could also be intentionally misleading like the witches in Macbeth – i.e. just having visions of the future doesn’t mean you are on the “right side” but it does imply a “spiritual connection” beyond human capacity.

    This is where Dune becomes “speculative religion” – i.e. the main character is having recurring dreams that come true – just where do the dreams come from? Just because Paul’s mother and the Bene Gesserit have been manipulating events for hundreds of years does NOT make them capable of “prophecy.”

    Frank Herbert kind of makes the “future sight” a genetic trait that Paul passes on to his children – but then loses himself. Which I suppose is plausible – IF “prophetic capacity” was genetic.

    fwiw: George Lucas was intentionally going for “quasi religious” with Star Wars – but the most “science fictiony” part of the “Star Wars universe” is probably the “droids with personality”/true consciousness — so maybe the most “science fictiony” part of the “Dune universe” is the “prophecy without gods” aspect.

    dream interpretation

    The Oracle at Delphi was once considered a source of “truth” – the exact process is lost to history, mostly because it was “common knowledge” back then and not one bothered to document the process. It appears that folks would make the trip to the shrine, ask their question – and then receive a response from the Oracle.

    Of course the responses tended to sound like daily horoscopes in modern times – kind of generic and open to interpretation. There is speculation that the shrine might have been built on top of a natural ‘gas leak’ of some kind that caused the oracle to have ‘visions’ but that is obviously speculation.

    Nostradamus also comes to mind – folks dig through his writings and try to match up what he wrote to history. i.e. it is easier to sound profound when you speak in “mysterious symbols” – Walmart will sell you “Magic 8 ball” for around $10 this is just as useful 😉

    As for “normal” recurring dreams – they tend to be very subjective and personal. If you are having recurring dreams about “famous historical figure” it probably has nothing to do with “history” but a LOT to do with how you feel about “historic figure.”

    A subclass of “dreams” might be related to “sleep apnea” or “bad sleeping position.”

    If you are allergic to your pillow you might have recurring dreams where you can’t breath – which probably means you need a different pillow, but not much else. If you have a dream where you can’t use an arm or leg – and then you wake up with your arm or leg in a weird position – well, there is probably a direct connection between the two.

    The idea that “dreaming about x” means “y” goes back to the old “collective unconscious” thing. Most dreams boil down to your mind processing data in some form OR “sleep fitness issues.”

    The “prophets” of the Old Testament had no doubt whom they were representing. They didn’t have a single weird dream and think “I wonder if God is talking to me” – i.e. there was no doubt that their “prophetic visions” were something different.

    God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son is in a special category for a specific purpose – so I’m not sure if that falls under “prophecy” or not. So if you hear “voices” telling you to do bad things – well, tell the voices to go away, they certainly aren’t acting in YOUR best interest one way or the other …

    Oh, and if your partner gets murdered and it turns out that the woman you love did it, well, that might be the stuff dreams are made of …

  • extremists, expert knowledge, more rules don’t make people honest

    Back when “tradition warfare” was, well, “traditional” – I stumbled across a book that tried to answer the age old “why do countries go to ‘war’ against each other.”

    The researchers where approaching the question from a secular psychology perspective – but I’ll point out James 4:1-10 as kind of summarizing what the researchers found – i.e. the problem seems to be part of that ol’ “human nature” thing.

    ANYWAY – this came to mind because (if memory serves – I have a copy of the book somewhere) one of the “phases” on the way to full blown “war” which the researchers identified was the depersonalization of the “other side.”

    In my lifetime I can remember when the residents of the U.S.S.R. were “Godless communists intent on world domination and destroying the American way of life” – which at one point may have been true for the leaders of the Communist Party in Russia, but was almost certainly NOT true for the “average Russian citizen.”

    There were “close calls” where a full blown “traditional war” could have erupted between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. – but obviously it never happened.

    The “why” is beyond me – but the “how” is that the leaders of both nations were always willing to communicate with each other at some level.

    In full blown 20/20 hindsight we might say that they realized that “winning” a modern nuclear war isn’t possible – but that is probably an example of the historian fallacy of seeing events as “inevitable.”

    I’ve heard it argued that “Dynasty” (the 1980’s primetime soap opera) helped end the cold war. How? Well, ordinary folks in the U.S.S.R. were somehow able to watch the show – and the “conspicuous consumption” obvious in the show wasn’t what they had been told life was like in the U.S.

    They didn’t see people waiting in line to buy things, or being put on a waiting list to be able to buy a car. The show was obviously not “real America” BUT then they would have seen the commercials as well – and again they saw “economic prosperity” not “capitalists oppressing the masses.”

    The larger point being that they began to see “Americans” as individual people – not as a large anonymous group.

    Of course in the “west” you can trace a similar change in attitudes by how “Russians” where portrayed in pop-culture.

    The Bond franchise serves as a convenient example – in the “Sean Connery” Bond movies, the “Russians” are anonymous at best. Sure, the U.S.S.R. is never the villain (Spectre is always the “bad guy”). When the villains/antagonists are “eastern European” they are agents of Spectre – but “Russia” exists as an “ominous presence.”

    Then in the “Roger Moore” Bond movies in the 1970’s and early 1980’s the “Russians” were “competition” but not “anonymous enemies.” The two sides were “respected opponents” – not “mortal enemies.”

    Then by the time the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991 the “Russians” had become “co-workers” in the Bond Franchise.

    In the late 1980’s and 1990’s we got Timothy Dalton (great actor, not my favorite “Bond”) and then Pierce Brosnan as Bond – and the “bad guys” were drug dealers and “extremists.”

    Finally in “No Time To Die” – Daniel Craig as Bond says his Russian is “rusty” …

    Extremists

    SO – obvious economic, cultural, ethnic differences aside – people tend to be the same where ever you go 😉

    The rule of thumb seems to be that “extremist views” are dangerous and must be censored/controlled. The question becomes “what makes someone an extremist.”

    It must be pointed out that just because you don’t agree with the message, or don’t like the messenger – does not make the message “extreme.”

    e.g. “I think men that button the top button – and don’t wear a tie – look silly.” Agree or disagree (I see enough guys with “top button buttoned/no tie” enough to know that some folks disagree with me) am I an extremist? obviously not.

    MAYBE, the easiest way to identify an “extremist” is that they tend to address those that disagree with them as a malicious group – just like the “early phase to war”.

    e.g. “I think men that button the top button – and don’t wear a tie – look silly AND they are out to destroy us all therefore they must be censored!” extremist? this time very much “yes”

    (oh, and while I’m at it – belt OR suspenders NOT both, and you over there pull up your pants and tie those shoes!)

    Expert Knowledge

    Silly examples aside – we have run headlong into the concept of “expert knowledge.”

    Merriam-Webster tell us an expert is someone with “special skill or knowledge representing mastery of a particular subject.”

    Another way to put it is that an “expert” is someone that knows “more and more about less and less.”

    SO while I don’t consider myself an expert on ANY subject – I get paid to talk about computers/technology. Sometimes I might appear to “know things” but that is usually an illusion – some form of this quote applies:

    It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.

    HOWEVER – a lot of actual research has been done into the “learning process.” I tend to use the term “expert knowledge” because in the early 1990’s the concept of “expert systems” was something of a computing fad (which probably grew into “AI” and/or “computer learning” in the last few years) – but call it the “path to mastery” if you prefer.

    When we first start learning about a subject we tend to over generalize as part of “knowledge processing.”

    The old saying that someone “Can’t see the forest because of the trees” might be an example of the concept “amateur knowledge.”

    e.g. someone first learning about “trees” might go out and look at a bunch of different types of trees in the same area and come away from the experience overwhelmed by information about individual trees.

    It turns out that “experts” – as in “those that have ‘mastered’ a certain set of skills/knowledge” – tend to seamlessly go from specific to general and back again.

    e.g. the “expert” showing that group of amateurs the trees also has an appreciation for how those trees interact with each other as well as the impact “the forest” has on the larger ecosystem.

    Which kinda means that the “expert” sees the trees AND the forest.

    Of course there is a Biblical reference – umm, I’ll just point out that those who were regarded as “experts” where quizzing Jesus on the “greatest commandment” – and Jesus summarizes the teachings of what we call the Old Testament in two sentences – which probably also illustrates that there are always more people that THINK they are “experts” on a subject than are ACTUALLY experts …

    as always, don’t trust me – I am only a bear of very little brain 😉

    Rules, Rules, Rules

    From a organizational behavior point of view “more rules do not make people better.”

    I’ve worked for a couple of places that wanted me to sign “non compete” agreements – which I was happy to sign because signing the “non compete” agreement was completely pointless.

    I understand that the employer wanted to guard themselves against someone coming in and stealing “organizational intellectual property” or (more likely in the tech support arena) an employee stealing “customer support contracts” and starting their own company.

    I say it was pointless both because the judicial system rarely enforces “non compete” type contracts AND because if I was the type of person that would actually do what they are afraid of – then no “contract” would stop me from doing it.

    The point being that “making a bunch of rules” hoping to change the behavior of lazy/stupid/malicious employees ends up making the “good employees” less productive.

    i.e. the people that are doing what the rules are supposed to stop don’t care about the rules, and the people that aren’t doing it will be burdened by having to comply with additional (pointless) rules.

    SO there is probably an inverse relationship between the size of the “employee manual” and the efficiency/productivity of the organization – but that falls into the “personal observation” category

    … with the obvious addendum that industries will differ and the need to comply with “regulation” is the root cause for a lot of very large employee manuals…

    EVEN WORSE

    Then add in that the additional rules are (usually) made because of a problem with an individual that is no longer with the organization.

    This becomes my favorite example of “incompetent management 101” – i.e. they are “managing” employees that aren’t there anymore.

    Hey, I’m sorry the last guy was an incompetent jerk – how about we pretend like I’m NOT an incompetent jerk – you know, just in case I’m NOT that other person that caused you problems.

    Yes, that is (almost certainly) unfair – with “interpersonal relationships” of any kind, it is seldom only one sides “fault” – a Hank Williams song comes to mind – but that is a different subject 😉

    $600? $10,000? does it really matter?

    Those with long memories might remember Eliot Spitzer (for those that don’t there is a documentary called Client 9).

    Salacious aspects aside – Mr. Spitzer reportedly got caught in part because of deposit notification rules

    “They” (as in the various law enforcement entities involved) have been monitoring “large deposits” in an effort to catch “money laundering” by drug cartels and terrorists for a long time. I’m not sure HOW long, but it has been going on for awhile.

    Apparently Mr Spitzer was aware of the rules in question – and so he purposefully kept his withdrawals below the $10,000 limit that was supposed to trigger notification.

    It turns out that the people that work in the banking industry aren’t complete idiots – SO they had been monitoring for “suspicious activity” that someone trying to avoid setting off the automatic notification limit might use.

    It wasn’t the AMOUNT of the transactions that got Mr Spitzer investigated – it was the suspicious behavior that caused the investigation.

    I don’t know if it was still based on a specific limit or not – i.e. did 3 transactions of $4,000 each in the same week equal 1 transaction of $12,000? either way, it doesn’t matter.

    The point is that if you are trying to catch scofflaws you need to monitor behaviors NOT specific transaction amounts.

    Which PROBABLY means that any law requiring “automatic reporting” to “some gov’ment agency” is also PROBABLY pointless for “law enforcement” purposes and simply becomes gov’ment intrusion on individual liberty – i.e. another step towards “Big Brother” watching you – which might start with noble intentions but becomes the slippery slope to modern serfdom …

  • programming, teams, and the limits of automation

    It is always worth pointing out that (as a general rule) human beings are terrible at predicting the future. This isn’t a harsh condemnation so much as recognition of the human condition.

    It wouldn’t take much effort to fill up a small book of quotes/proverbs/sayings that all boil down to “it is out of our hands – we can’t guarantee what will happen.” A personal favorite:

    “If the good Lord’s willing and the creeks don’t rise”

    –Jerry Reed

    Of course that doesn’t stop folks from making predictions – which is what I’m getting ready to do …

    Career Training

    Historically the entire concept of “career training” is something that most folks didn’t have to worry about. For most of human history “subsistence farming” has been the “career” for most of humanity.

    The entire idea of needing to be specifically trained for a profession probably only goes back a couple hundred years. What often gets called the “oldest profession” didn’t require any “training” at all.

    Even what modern folks would call “professionals” – people like doctors and lawyers – didn’t require a great deal of formal schooling/training until the 20th Century.

    The reasons “why” this is true becomes a lesson in the development of human civilization – so I’ll just say that the AMOUNT of human knowledge has grown at a great rate due in large part to improved technologies.

    Obviously first you need a writing system – then you need materials to write on and create “tomes of knowledge” – then you need a way to reproduce those “tomes”, etc.

    So if we did a poll on the “most influential invention in the history of humanity” – the “moveable type printing press” would easily be near the top – metal working, gun powder, domestication of animals, fishing/boat construction would probably make the list – but being able to record and transmit knowledge over time and space (i.e. what books allow) was obviously kind of a big deal.

    Of course none of these “inventions” developed independently of the others – that isn’t the point. At some point the accumulation of “knowledge”/”skills”/”expertise” made the concept of “job training” a reality.

    Upward mobility/Job satisfaction

    MAYBE in an ideal society individuals would be able to choose the work they perform.

    Of course there aren’t many “ideal societies” – so I’ll just point out that the worker makes the work “honorable.” How a society tends to reward different professions says a great deal about that society not the workers/profession itself.

    In general people can put up with almost any “how” as long as there is a good enough “why.” (I’ll mention/recommend “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl for the curious).

    ANYWAY – for better or worse, most folks don’t “choose” a profession so much as “wander into one.” Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – e.g. once again, the unexamined life is not worth living. Yes, there is a larger plan being worked out here on earth – but one way or the other:

     Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

    Ecclesiastes 9:10

    ANYWAY – wrong predictions

    I’ve spent a lifetime in “technology” almost by accident. I picked up some “personal computer repair” skills when the ‘personal computer” was a new thing – then moved into “computer networking” partially because it paid more AND an opportunity presented itself.

    During that 20 year period I tended to “buy a book” and read up on the latest technology. While I’m “naturally curious” and enjoy learning – most of the time my motivation for learning was a larger paycheck/$$.

    There was a point in the early 1990’s when the expectation was that “computer programming” would be outsourced to lower cost workers “overseas.” Which did happen – but then those jobs ended up coming back when the “theoretical cost savings” were consumed by “real world communication issues.”

    Now, I don’t think anyone ever officially stood at a podium and said “don’t go into computer programming” – but the trendy concept at the time was “globalization” – and if you wanted a job “safe from globalization/outsourcing” then maybe you should avoid “computer programming” as a career choice.

    The end result? Well, there are a LOT of “coding boot camps” out there trying to fill the the need for trained “computer programmers.” Ok, the “Interweb” kinda happened in the same time period – which changed a lot of things, not just the computer programming field …

    More predictions

    Now (written in 2021) everyone is expecting driverless cars and trucks to make “truck drivers” obsolete.

    Maybe. Maybe not. Either way – the immediate need for “truck drivers” isn’t going away anytime soon.

    Would I suggest “truck driving” to someone looking for a “lifelong career?” Probably not – but that requires context.

    In general I try to stay away from “giving advice” – particularly “career advice.” The problem is that there are just too many variables – e.g. “should someone pursue THIS field or THAT field?” – I have no idea, it depends on the person.

    I tend to say “know yourself” in those situations. HOWEVER – just for fun – “should someone become a truck driver in 2021?”

    Well, relatively short training time, relatively high wages, in demand skill set that isn’t likely to go away anytime soon – might make the job of “truck driver” a good choice for a large number of people.

    If we divide the “supply line” into “long haul”, “medium routes”, and “the last mile” – the sweet spot for HUMAN truck drivers (as in not easily replaceable by automation or crowdsourcing type apps) is the “medium routes.”

    e.g. a “shipment” might come in on a big boat in a large container, get unloaded and placed on a train where “X” miles and then gets “dispatched” to a truck that takes it to a local warehouse, where it gets unloaded and (maybe) delivered to “customers” by someone using “crowdsource delivery app.”

    Automation isn’t free …

    The problem with trying to automate any process is that then the “automation” needs to be maintained.

    Which means the “processes” best suited for “automation” have a few simple steps.

    e.g. if the process is “place a box (that is always the same size) in the same spot (that is also always the same size)” – automate away. BUT if the process is “make hundreds of smaller decisions along the way to an uncertain destination” then automating (and maintaining) the process will probably be extremely expensive and error prone

    … which means that training human drivers is gonna be cheaper than automation for the “foreseeable future.”

    Yes, the technology for “driverless cars” is available in 2021 – the problem is the variability of the deliveries and routes and the cost of constantly updating/maintaining those routes.

    e.g. GPS is great – but if it goes down, then what? Well, the automated system probably completely ceases to function – while the “human driver” might be unaffected or just slowed down.

    I know the “automated workforce” always sounds great to “upper management” types – and I’m not saying that drones/driverless cars aren’t going to change/improve the supply chain EVENTUALLY. Just not in the next couple years …

    Teams

    Imagine that you have “human like devices” that can be trained to play “sports.” Which sport would be easiest to “automate?”

    Well, we would want the sport that has the least amount of interaction between “devices.” Maybe an individual sport like golf? then maybe something like tennis?

    When the “devices” have to work together as a team – then things get complicated. So then the sports with the fewer “players” would be easier to automate – basketball? hockey? Both fast paced, hockey (usually) has a dedicated goalie – I’m not sure if that would make it easier or harder to automate – not important at the moment.

    Both hockey and basketball lack unique “offense” and “defense” players – sure, some players are expected to perform different functions but in theory all of the players are on both “offense” AND “defense”

    Baseball has a kinda complex set of 9 players on defense that we might be able to subdivide into “outfielders”, “infielders”, “pitchers”, and then “catchers.” Maybe the “hitter” and “baserunner” functionality can be 1 generic “offensive player.” still MORE complex in theory (harder to automate) than either basketball or hockey.

    What gets called “soccer” in the U.S. has 11 players on each side (including a goalie) – but from a “theoretical automation” point of view (POV), those 11 players are NOT supposed to run into each other. Coordinating passing of the ball would be a challenge – but from a “team complexity” POV probably somewhere between basketball/hockey and baseball.

    (remember I’m not rating the “sports” – I’m estimating the complexity of automating)

    Then we get to “football” – or more precisely “American football.” We have 11 distinct players on offense AND defense with “collisions” between players/devices on every play. Maybe the players on defense don’t require as much “unified precision” as those on offense but a very high level of “interaction” between all of the devices.

    Obviously the devices on “defense” are working together to try to stop the devices on “offense” which are also working together in a coordinated manner … and don’t forget the “kicking” game … ANYWAY

    SO “in theory” American football would be the hardest sport to “automate” because it requires the most “teamwork.”

    Again, this is about one sport being “superior” to another. In the real world this difference in “required team coordination” is seen in pro-sports on a regular basis.

    Every once in a while some wealthy owner will try to “buy” a championship by spending a lot of money acquiring great individual players.

    This seems to happen in the NBA on a regular basis.

    The NY Yankees have been doing it in MLB since 1923.

    Hockey has had great NHL franchises win a lot of championships in a row – but I don’t know enough about the history of the sport to comment on ownership $$ spend. The Montreal Canadiens have won 24 Stanley Cups – but I don’t know if I would compare them to the “NY Yankees” from a player acquisition POV …

    I’m told that the successful “European football” clubs tend to be the same each year because of $$ spent on players – again, I don’t know the sport well enough to make comparisons.

    HOWEVER – anytime a franchise is extremely successful over a long period of time – they are doing something “right” besides spending a lot of money. I certainly don’t want to imply that just because the owners spend a lot of money, AND win championships that they are “cheating” in some form – and moving on …

    … and then we have the NFL. Forbes estimates the “team value” of the Dallas Cowboys (in 2021) at $5.7 billion. The Cowboys are always near the top of the list – and last I checked EVERY NFL franchise had a $billion+ valuation.

    Then as I was writing this an article on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ownership came up – they guaranteed Tom Brady $50 million to come to Tampa Bay. Does that constitute “buying a championship?”

    Ok, obviously you need great players to win a Super Bowl – and those players are gonna cost $$ – but then those players need to work together as a team to win. You can’t just go out and spend a lot of money on free agents and expect them to automatically win championships.

    I’m guessing that Tom Brady saw a potential championship in Tampa Bay, or he would have gone somewhere else.

    The Cowboys and the “whatever we call the franchise in Washington DC” (last Super Bowl win 1992) both have owners that are willing to spend a massive amount of cash to win a championship – and are still searching for that right combination of talent and then something that money can’t buy “team chemistry.”

    ANYWAY – What makes football fun to watch is that the team with the “best players” doesn’t always win –

    As always – I’m just making observations – if I actually knew the secret ingredient to “winning” in the NFL/pro sports, I’d be making a lot more money 😉

  • the “happiness” thing, team sports, usefulness

    The problem with “happiness” is that it is easy to recognize as a concept but (for most folks) hard to nail down causality on a regular basis.

    Merriam-Webster tells us that “happiness” is “a state of well-being and contentment.” Easy enough – but can “happiness” be measured? Where is the “happiness store?” Can I get free two-day shipping on my “happiness?”

    Yes, I’m being silly – but you get the point.

    The “happiness” quote

    An oft repeated thought is that “Happiness isn’t about getting what you want. It is about wanting what you got.”

    -Anonymous

    Good ol’ Aristotle argued that human motivation could be reduced to the idea that humans “do things that make them happy.” Which is a great simplification – and implies that the “human” in question actually understands “what makes them happy.”

    At this point I’ll point out that “material possessions” do not always equal “happiness.” The old hierarchy of needs comes to mind – e.g. of course if you are cold and hungry then NOT being cold and hungry will certainly make you “happy” – BUT if you are warm and well-fed then other needs require “servicing” for “happiness.”

    Add in that constantly examining yourself to see if you are “happy” is a sure fire way to NOT be happy – and it is easy to see why anti-depressant medication is so popular in “modern times.”

    the sure path to unhappiness

    Just for fun (with tongue in cheek – talking in general terms) – I’ll point out that (just in general) if you want to be “healthy” then it is a very good idea to NOT stab yourself in the thigh with a knife, shoot yourself in the foot, or get hit by a bus.

    In the same line of reasoning – if you want to be happy avoid bad relationships. I’ll throw out Proverbs 12:4 and Proverbs 19:13 as examples.

    Solomon was blessed with wisdom, but then he “lost his way” in large part to the fact that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. I’m sure each one of those marriages “made sense at the time” – but Solomon (via Proverbs) very strongly implies that having one “faithful and prudent” wife (and of course the husband being faithful and prudent as well – i.e. a “good marriage”) – is worth more than any amount of “material possessions.”

    The light-hearted early Rock & Roll novelty song version drives home the point found at the end of the book of Proverbs

    … and of course these are all observations from the crazy ol’ bachelor – um, don’t hate me because I’m beautiful – I’m not giving advice, just making observations 😉

    a process not a destination

    Way back when good ol’ Solomon “had it all” – and discovered that “having it all” didn’t MAKE him happy. The book of Ecclesiastes records Solomon’s (inspired) thoughts on the matter

    SO the idea becomes that “happiness” is not a constant state of being – but is the result/product of other actions.

    Maybe it isn’t that “happiness is an elusive butterfly” so much as that “happiness is the process of being useful/productive.”

    Team Sports

    If you’ve seen an episode of “The Dog Whisperer” you’ve seen the difference between “simple association” (dogs, most animals in general) and “complex emotional beings” (humanity in general).

    Many dog breeds are the way they are because humans intentionally breed the dogs that way. Which means that most dogs are happier when they are doing what they were bred to do.

    The ongoing popularity of “The Dog Whisperer” is due to the fact that when humans have behavior issues with their canine companion, it tends to be a problem with the human expecting the dog to act like a little human and not a dog (yes, your dog loves you. yes, your dog understands you more than most people would expect. no, your dog is not a little human).

    Of course the inverse is also true – human beings are not dogs. We naturally want to have “control over our environment” but that doesn’t come about by “simple associations” (like dogs).

    Volumes on “abnormal psychology” have been written about the disastrous impact a “lack of a sense of self mastery/control” can be – i.e. the classic “serial killer” profile includes bed wetting past a certain age – yes, that is extreme to say the least – and of course there is a relevant Proverb

    (the short “Silence of the Lambs” – psych 101 – serial killer explanation is that the “serial killer” gets a “pleasurable release” by committing their serial killing. As opposed to mass murderers, or spree killers – i.e. so the “serial killer” will continue to kill until stopped because they “need” it – and moving on …)

    The point being that we all want to feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves, AND that we are contributing to the success of that “larger something.”

    In extremely generic terms – this is why giving children “chores” qualifies as “parenting advice” in 2021. Yes. it is probably “easier” for the parent to just do “whatever the chore” is themselves – but the child will be “happier” in the long run if they are held accountable for their “chores.”

    Oh yeah, sports …

    Ok, so now that the crazy ol’ bachelor has given suggestions on marriage and how not to raise a serial killer – the value of team sports and the connection to “happiness” …

    A long time removed from my “athlete” days – I can say that what I miss about playing “sports” is NOT the games.

    Obviously for competitive athletes the games are the whole point. As a spectator, almost any competition can be fun to watch – by definition all “sports” have defined rules and a measurable result (i.e. winner/loser) – neither of which are common in the “real world.”

    What I miss is the “team” aspect of sports and the “purpose” that competition provides. Winning and losing games/seasons can be out of anyone’s control – but the preparation that goes into playing the games provides a common goal/purpose. i.e. it is that sense of common purpose and “team goals” that I miss – both of which are examples of a “human need” for “happiness”.

    Sure, “winning is a habit” just like “losing is a habit” (thank you Vince Lombardi) – but in the long term an “average player” probably gets just as much (if not more) value from playing a team sport as that “college bound superstar” player.

    Pro sports are “pro sports” but concern with the happiness of individual players is (probably) one of the great differentiators between “pro sports franchises.”

    To be clear – that “average player” that shows up ready to practice everyday hoping they might get into the game that week – is a VERY valuable part of the team. Cliches abound – but the point is that the “practice team” has to take pleasure in the process – which is certainly an example of finding “happiness.” Then, when the team wins ALL of the members of the team “win.”

    Usefulness

    Of course negative lessons can also be learned from “playing sports” just as easily as positive lessons – e.g. I’m not a big fan of “organized youth sports” when it becomes more about the parents than the children (different subject).

    From a “human development” point of view I don’t see any value in children that can barely walk/run participating in “organized team sports” – simply because it is NOT “useful” except maybe as baby-sitting/socialization.

    Again, “just in general” – young humans want “structure” but not “regimentation.” The old “ditch” analogy is (as always) valid – in one ditch is “completely unorganized” and in the other ditch “mini-pro sports level organization” – stay on the road and you are probably gonna be better off.

    Solitary Confinement

    Being an extreme introvert – I like to point out that the only thing worse that Always being alone is NEVER being alone (remember, stay on the road 😉 )

    Consider the practice of imprisonment and then “solitary confinement.”

    (tongue in cheek, again) If someone does something violent/bad enough society may restrict the movement of that person. Then if that someone does something bad while imprisoned – what happens?

    Well, I suppose a lot of things could happen – BUT take the extreme case where someone keeps attacking their cell-mate. Eventually the “solution” is solitary confinement.

    Sure, putting that “someone” with homicidal tendencies into solitary confinement will (almost certainly) make them worse. However, they have proven that they can’t play nice with polite society – and must be confined to protect others.

    Anyway – I’m not arguing about the positive/negative values of the penal system – just pointing out that the ultimate penalty (short of death) is solitary confinement.

    SO modern society tends to encourage self-imposed “solitary confinement.” The “information age” has given us the “isolation age” in various forms.

    The problem isn’t technology in and of itself – but technology tends to be “human interaction lite” not a substitute for actual human interaction. Social media should be the icing on the “interpersonal communication cake” NOT the entire meal.

    Umm, all of which means “family meals” are a good suggestion along with giving your child chores. But that wasn’t where I was heading …

    ANYWAY – I always point out that folks tend to make decisions based on what they THINK will make them happy. In much the same way people want to be “useful” but often don’t know how.

    No, your salary is not a measure of your “value” but it is probably an indication of your “usefulness” to your employer. The problem becomes how to be “useful” without losing site of the “big picture” – i.e. the “job” is important but never THE MOST important thing in your life.

    A related part of the problem (in the U.S. in 2021) is that “work” is considered a necessary evil not as a worthy endeavor. Sure, not every job is a “forever job” – but all work has value.

    The solution is simple – all that we need is to train and then place everyone in the job for which they are best suited. Simple. How do you do that on a large scale? Well, that is harder … and probably not possible on a “national” scale

    From a “hey wasn’t he talking about ‘happiness’ at some point” level the wild finish – one of the most prescribed drugs in 2020 addresses Vitamin D deficiency (brand name “Drisdol”) –

    Which kinda implies that proper care and feeding of the machine carrying your brain around is important for “happiness.” Diet and exercise matter for mental health – who would a thunk it?

    Also worth pointing out is that “walks in nature” tend to be beneficial beyond the “getting exercise” part.

    SO maybe there is a community building idea for someone feeling entrepreneurial – combine nature hikes with random group pairings and a meal. Collect all cell phones before the walk, give them back after the meal, maybe groups of three or four people just for liability purposes … who knows, it might work if implemented correctly …

  • parenting, birth order, destiny

    Recently noticed a “social media post” from a well meaning individual about individual responsibility – that I would tend to agree with, but is still slightly specious …

    Before starting, I feel obligated to point out that no one has “perfect parents” – we are all imperfect human beings. I will argue that MOST parents are trying very hard and doing the best they can with what they have.

    I am NOT talking about anyone in particular. My Bachelors degree is in “Liberal Studies” – e.g. which kind of means I took a lot of psychology and history classes, but not enough of either to get a degree is “psychology” or “history.”

    Umm, so whoever is reading this – I’m not talking about you 😉 Most of what I’ll point out has “research” to back it up and of course the occasional Bible verse will popup.

    Parenting

    The “motivating meme” said something about children raised by the same parents turning out differently – the old one is a Sinner the other a Saint, but both came from the same circumstances/had the same parents.

    This is where the “speciousness” occurs – the assumption is both that “parenting” is a uniform/consistent product and that children are all the same.

    Two individuals can grow up in the same household with the same parents and have very different “parenting experiences.”

    Part of that difference is due to the fact that “parenting” isn’t something you buy in cans from the “parenting” store. Once more – there are no perfect human parents – because there are no “perfect” humans.

    (oh, and this is where if someone says there family is “perfect” – feel free to ask them about their eating disorder. No family is “perfect” but thinking you are supposed to be part of a “perfect” family tends to be a sign of an eating disorder.)

    The point is that “parents” are living life as well – again, most parents are doing the best they can.

    Of course differences in “parenting” between “families” is easy to understand – but my subject today differences in children raised by the same parents.

    I’ve chatted with (some) parents that admit they thought their first child would be a “blank slate” that just needed to be “trained right” and everything would be perfect (this is the old “tabula rasa” theory).

    Well, then it turns out that the child came with a “disposition” and the “blank slate” thinking goes out the window.

    SO this is where the “humans are complex emotional beings” concept comes into play – no two siblings are going to be EXACTLY the same. If the same two parents have multiple children, then each child comes with a “disposition” installed at the factory 😉

    Birth Order

    Back in “the old days” of “landed gentry” the cliche was that in a family with four male children – the first born would inherit the “estate” (and enter politics), the second born would join the military, and the third would go into “law”, and the fourth would join the “church”.

    That tradition sounds “cute” in 2021 – but in an agricultural society “land” equals “wealth.” Obviously if the family divided the land between all the children, eventually the segments of land would be to small to be productive.

    The point for bringing up that tradition is to point out the difference “birth order” would have made on parenting expectations “back then.”

    I’m not sure how much “real research” has been done on “birth order” and the results on the child’s personality/psychology. More responsibility being placed on older children would be normal, but that doesn’t translate into “birth order rules” – again, parents aren’t manufacturing a product, and children are individuals.

    In the course of “getting to know” someone – I tend to ask about siblings and birth order. No, I don’t draw any conclusions about someone based on their birth order – there is (probably) more telling information in how they talk about their family than the size of the family – but that isn’t important now 😉

    In 2021 pointing out that “two parent” households tend to do better, then “single parent” households can get you called names – but there it is.

    We (as in “humanity”) also tend to “parent” the way we were “parented.” Which means that dysfunctional families tend to create MORE dysfunctional families – e.g. children of alcoholics will often marry alcoholics (a therapist might say they are “working on resolving primary relationship issues” – but I ain’t a therapist 😉 )

    In any case there is a BIG difference between “good enough”/”average” parenting and “abusive”/”truly dysfunctional” parenting.

    Medea from Greek mythology comes to mind – did they murder their children? no? then they did SOMETHING right (did I mention I’m not judging anyone?)

    The cliche that the best gift you can give your children is to have a strong marriage – is still true – BUT again, that is a “general statement” not written in stone. Did I mention that parents are people too?

    I’m not judging just pointing out that if you want “better adults” then “stronger families” are probably a good place to start – and I’m moving on …

    Destiny

    The whole “free will” vs “fate”/destiny comes to mind at this point.

    The Judeo Christian tradition has splintered quite a bit on this subject – and I won’t try to summarize 500 years of “Protestantism” here. How about if I just say that a lot of smart people have thought/written a lot about the subject – and it is probably beyond human explanation – and moving on.

    This verse from the Book of Proverbs (22:6) summarizes “parenting 101” expectations – then Deuteronomy 24:16 tells us that “every man shall be put to death for his own sin”

    Taken out of context – this Shakespeare quote (from “Julius Caesar”) “the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves” sounds like a good summary of this almost 1,000 word ramble …

    (but “in context”, well, Brutus was an honorable man, they were ALL honorable men – which probably works even better – i.e. the line is used to convince Brutus that Julius Caesar must be assassinated for the “common good”)

  • Capitalism, unions, THINK

    Capitalism
    “Capital” is simply “money and goods” used to produce more “money and goods.” Merriam-Webster tells me the first known use of the term “capitalism” goes back to 1833.

    It is slightly interesting that “Banking” goes back to 1660. Then the parable of the “minas” also comes to mind (where earning “interest” is mentioned in passing – not as the central message).

    If you want to be slightly cynical you might argue that humans are “economic animals” (the first occurrence of “economic” popping up in 1599 with an archaic meaning of “of or relating to a household or its management” – thank you Merriam-Webster).

    If I have a point – it is simply that human beings are capable of creating goods and services and then exchanging those goods and services for “something else” (“money” is a convenient concept – the word first appeared in English in the 14th Century).

    Behaviorism
    If you are a student of human development – you might recognize the “behaviorist” theory of human motivation that tries to boil down all human actions to “reactions to stimuli” of some form – e.g. incentives, rewards, punishments of various forms.

    This always sounds plausible – i.e. why does anyone do anything? they want “something” in exchange?

    It isn’t as bad as it may sound – the “something” doesn’t have to be “money.” Someone donating their time to help those in need might be receiving a non-tangible benefit – something like “sense of purpose”, “self-worth”, or the REALLY hard to nail down “happiness.”

    Human beings are also complex emotional beings – so saying that someone did something for a SINGLE purpose is always hard. We can get an understanding of someone by observing what they “do” AND how they “do it.” The amount of “character information” in a single action is limited – the more “behavior data” available, the more accurate the “character profile.”

    Fictional Characters
    When you are reading a novel or watching a movie – one of two lines of dialogue or a few actions may be there to “say something important” about the character.

    e.g. In a “cute” movie from 1993 “Amos & Andrew” Nicolas Cage plays a petty thief with a terrible “sense of direction” – which becomes “character information” as well as “running joke” (warning: this movie makes fun of a LOT of “self righteous” authority stereotypes – so it isn’t exactly “politically correct” in 2021 – but it is “fun”)

    I also have a terrible “sense of direction” – which if I was a fictional character might be important – but in the real world doesn’t mean anything in particular except that I shouldn’t be the first choice to drive if “navigation without Google” is required.

    Wait, where are we going?
    Most “-isms” aren’t inherently good or bad. It is always the implementation of the “system” that becomes problematic.

    So pick you favorite “-ism” – on paper it probably looks perfect/pure/”good.” Implement it with human beings, and things get messy.

    Consider “capitalism” – how can anyone object to the idea of people using “money and goods” to make MORE “money and goods.” In an efficient “market economy” we would see natural division of labor – e.g. not everyone needs to make their own bread every day, the baker can specialize in “baking bread” – the butcher can specialize in “meat production” – and the candlestick maker can specialize in whatever candlestick makers did 😉

    The baker/butcher/candlestick maker will probably produce better quality products at a lower price – so even when they add a small amount to the price of their product to make a “profit”, the consumer is better off than if they had to do it all themselves.

    Then the wise craftsman would set aside part of their profits and invest it in expanding/improving their craft, or hiring/training workers to produce more quality goods and services.

    Assuming everything goes well, eventually the craftsman has “money and goods” to invest in other enterprises – so our baker/butcher/candlestick maker has suddenly become a “capitalist.”

    Historically I can say that “community ovens” where common 1500 years ago, then folks would bring there bread to the baker and pay to have it baked, eventually got to the point where (in the U.S. at least) we have “walls of bread” at the supermarket – all due to individuals acting in their own best interest and providing a needed service.

    A modern version of that story is told in “The Donut King” – and also the negative side of human nature. i.e. Ted Ngoy built a “donut empire” by helping others and then greed and lust destroyed that empire.

    Banking
    Explaining the modern “banking system” probably requires its own class – but at a basic level it is still just a “business” that holds peoples money and lends out that money to other people in exchange for “interest.”

    That “money” stuff also has a “time-value” – which is really not important at the moment.

    ANYWAY – when our wise baker wants to “invest” his profits he would start by putting some of his money in a bank/financial institution of some kind.

    If the bank pays our baker “2% interest” on deposits and then is able to lend that money at 4% to the butcher (who wants to expand his business) – then once again, everyone wins.

    Once again, “banking” isn’t good or bad – just a business. Once again the real problem becomes “greed” not financial institutions/capitalism.

    Our imaginary banker might be making a living off of that 2% difference between loans and deposits. Even if our banker is completely honest – there is always the risk of “moral hazard” – e.g. what happens if the Donut King takes out a big loan to “expand the business” and then runs off to Las Vegas and loses it all on blackjack?

    Well, in the real world financial institutions are heavily regulated and have to keep a certain amount of “reserve capital” for “bad loans.”

    Again, once normal people get involved and not “theoretical models on paper” – things get messy.

    Frank Capra
    Frank Capra was one of the great movie makers of early Hollywood. Many of his movies get interpreted as “communist sympathizing” by biased modern audiences.

    Since it tends to get shown every Christmas season “It’s a Wonderful Life” is probably Mr Capra’s most familiar movie to “modern audiences.”

    If you watch the movie – it is a small – and easy to miss – plot point that Mr Potter (the movie’s villain) buys the local bank during an economic downturn. Mr Potter is guilty of both bitterness and greed – and uses the bank for those purposes.

    The “true capitalist” in the movie is George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart). Mr Bailey runs the “Building and Loan” – which in 2021 terms would probably be considered a “credit union.”

    I suppose there is someone that hasn’t seen the movie – so I won’t give away the ending. I’ll just point out that “people working together for common benefit” is not unique to ANY “-ism” –

    George Bailey is (probably) exceptionally generous, while Mr Potter is exceptionally greedy – so if anything the movie is a morality tale about the superiority of generosity over greed – BUT certainly not an endorsement of communism.

    Looking at Frank Capra’s movies as a whole – you see a common thread of “individual liberty over authoritarianism.” Of course he was making movies in and around the Great Depression – but if his movies are concerned with a particular “-ism” then it is “individualism.”

    Remember the command is to “love your neighbor as yourself” – so individuals within a society have obligations to other members of that society as well as privileges within that society. BUT society does not “own” the individual and society does not “owe” the individual anything – we are all free moral and economic agents with responsibilities

    Have I mentioned these things get “real world” messy very fast …

    Who makes the decisions
    Look at all of the “-isms” from 10,000 feet and they kind of look the same. The key differentiator in “real world economic systems” usually centers around who makes the decisions.

    SO should you bake bread or make candlesticks? Maybe one, maybe the other, probably you want to do something completely different – should you make that decision or should someone else tell you what you are going to do?

    Well, almost everyone is going opt for “let me make my own decision.” Which is the fantasy that “true communism” tries to sell – maybe in an truly efficient optimal society where “everyone VOLUNTARILY contributes as required” AND “everything required for living is freely available” that might be possible.

    Meanwhile in the real world – “real work” tends to get neglected simply because, well, it is “work.”

    The oversimplified history lesson
    HISTORICALLY – most folks have been subsistence farmers. i.e. “choosing a career” (for the average person) was never really an option for MOST of human history.

    Then, well, “capitalism” happened – ok, from a “western civilization” point of few the “Black Death” wiped out enough people in Europe that “economic mobility” increased. Labor became scarce – and therefore more valuable.

    The old “middle school world history textbook” explanation of the divisions of Medieval Europe was that there were three groups – 1. those that “fought” (the upper class/nobility), 2. those that “prayed” (the Church), and 3. those that “worked” (everyone else – again, a lot of subsistence farmers).

    The rise of a skilled middle class/merchants kind of disrupted the status quo. Then the wealth accumulated by that skilled middle class/merchants combined with the “body count” from the Black Death allowed for “social mobility.”

    SO as a rule of thumb – we see “economic liberty” always precedes “civil liberty.”

    Unions
    Squeezed into that mess somewhere are “trade unions.” Once upon a time these were formal agreements between a “master” and an “apprentice” intended to provide labor for the “master” and training for the “apprentice.”

    In a world without “accreditations”/”licenses”/”certifications” the apprenticeship was a way to pass on skills and give some guarantee of “quality” to the consumer. e.g. paying for the “trade union approved” work might cost a little more – but you could expect quality work.

    The “modern labor union” probably dates back to the industrial revolution and the creation of “factories” and then the “assembly line.” The “union job” might still be skilled labor, but the trend was towards “unskilled commodity labor.”

    The “assembly line” broke the creation/assembly process into smaller processes – i.e. a single worker was easily replaced because the skills to perform the task could be easily taught/learned (no long drawn out master/apprentice process required).

    Unions Good
    There were a LOT of “abuses of labor” early in the industrial revolution. Child labor, long work days, no “job security” or “workman’s compensation” – early “labor unions” helped bring about needed reform.

    The real motivation for “management” to change how they treated “labor” probably revolved around productivity and worker efficiency.

    Henry Ford famously offered a $5 a day wage in 1914 (when the average daily wage was around $2). The improved wages cut down on employee turnover and improved Ford’s profitability – i.e. paying workers more made them stick around longer and the company actually made more money.

    In “modern times” organized labor is on the decline for any number of reasons – part of the problem is that “the Unions” got big and corrupt at worst/inefficient at best.

    Unions not so good
    Yes, the modern workplace owes “unions” a great deal – but the old “Animal Farm” story applies – i.e. if/when the “new masters” start acting like the “old masters” the ordinary worker pays the price.

    The decline of the American auto-industry serves as a good example – with the Unions illustrating that “greed” is a problem for “labor” as well as “management.”

    Yes, it is a complicated issue – but ideally the “union” should be a partner with “management.” If the relationship is adversarial then no one “wins.”

    e.g. For years “Southwest Airlines” treated their labor union as a partner – and had a long run of profitability (and appear to be coming out of the pandemic fueled downturn).

    ANYWAY – unions aren’t “good” or “bad.” If they serve their members by providing a common communication platform, then they are doing a great job. If all the “union” does is collect dues, make political contributions, and bitch about how management doesn’t want to pay more, then they are probably NOT doing a great job.

    Unions and Communism
    Another pet peeve is the idea that somehow “unions” and “communism” are dependent on each other when they are completely unrelated.

    Unions are not “communism”, communism is not “unions” – unions are about organization, “communism” (as it exists in the real world and not some academic fantasy) is about gov’ment control of the economy.

    I suppose a communist regime might require all workers join a union – but again, that is “management” (i.e. the gov’ment) communicating with “labor” (i.e. individual workers) en masse.

    Meanwhile in a “free market capitalist” system the decision to form a union or not would be left up to the workers – not coerced from above.