Principia Discordia

Principia Discordia => Two vast and trunkless legs of stone => Topic started by: The Good Reverend Roger on July 26, 2017, 01:56:13 AM

Title: The Dataist Manifesto, part II
Post by: The Good Reverend Roger on July 26, 2017, 01:56:13 AM
Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
- some wiseguy


The thing about problem solving is that it's hard fucking work.  It isn't over when you peel away all the bullshit and find the answer...Because then you have to prove it, and if you're particularly unlucky, you have to impliment it.  Act on it.

And this is really the point at which you can sort your basic ivory tower bullshit from genuinely useful information.  An unworkable answer is no answer at all, and all you've done is waste everyone's irreplaceable time on this planet.  This handy tip lets you discard communism, libertarianism, anarchism, supply side economics, and every damn clickbait "science" page ever inflicted on the internet.  If you want to sit around coming up with "solutions" that can't work, great.  Just do it in private and maybe wash your hands afterward.

Now, this doesn't mean you can't bring experts in.  Hell, you probably should, if it's anything technical.  But if you're just an "idea man", then no amount of experts can help you.  Nor can they help you if you hire them and then don't listen to them.  You might be the best engineer in the damn world, but don't try to explain porosity to a welder, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do.

Which brings me to my next point.

You might be smart, but you're not the only one that is smart.

You MIGHT be an iconoclastic thinker.  Everyone else MIGHT be doing things wrong just because "that's how we've done it for 20 years" (and this DOES happen), but you can spare yourself a ton of misery, wasted effort, and the mockery of your peers if you just SHUT YOUR DAMN PIE HOLE and LISTEN when someone brings up an objection to your beautiful idea.  Especially if they've been doing it for 20 years.  Experience is a painful teacher, and why not learn something the EASY way, by which I mean "listening to what the other person has to say" rather than by signing up for what might be an unreasonable amount of said painful learning?

The future isn't just brought on by revolutionary speakers.  No.  Mostly, in fact, it is brought on by lifetimess of accumulated knowledge, of one generation after another learning from the mistakes of the people who came before them.  So when the blue collar dude who has been running that machine since before you were born tells you your idea is flawed, at least hear the guy out.  He might just save your reputation; in some cases, he might just save your life.

Which in fact leads to...

You are useless by yourself.

Humans are a cooperative species.  If you can't cooperate to achieve results, you have failed at "human".  If you discourage or punish cooperation, just throw yourself off the nearest bridge, because you are in fact directly harming the species by your very presence.  The world will not miss your "alpha" ass, and neither will the people around you.  You are not a leader or lone wolf, you are an impediment to everyone around you.

This also implies that you might have to share the credit for your beautiful idea's translation into real-world application.  How awful.  How terribly unfair.  Scream to me your anger at the very notion...But don't expect any sympathy from me, because almost all the great things in the world you live in came from humans being the insanely inventive, *cooperative* species that it is.

To be continued.




Title: Re: The Dataist Manifesto, part II
Post by: The Wizard Joseph on July 26, 2017, 12:06:20 PM
I'm loving this series Roger! I've always preferred practical application to abstract thought and collaboration to the ego games in the workplace. Finding both can be.. rare, but they are beautiful when you find them together.

Title: Re: The Dataist Manifesto, part II
Post by: LMNO on July 26, 2017, 12:57:54 PM
Hell yeah.

I'm working on developing this massive software work management project, and the amount of senior-level people blindly directing the production side to do whatever their latest "business guru" book tells them to do, regardless of the context, is predictable, and yet also disheartening.
Title: Re: The Dataist Manifesto, part II
Post by: Ziegejunge on July 26, 2017, 06:20:26 PM
 :mittens:

If I could send messages back in time to my past self, this would be one of them.
Title: Re: The Dataist Manifesto, part II
Post by: Vanadium Gryllz on July 26, 2017, 08:55:07 PM
Seconded  :mittens:
Title: Re: The Dataist Manifesto, part II
Post by: Hagtard Celine Dion Mustard on August 23, 2017, 11:23:54 PM
Quote from: Ziegejunge on July 26, 2017, 06:20:26 PM
:mittens:

If I could send messages back in time to my past self, this would be one of them.

Someone once asked me if I came back from the future to right now and I could tell myself one thing, what would it be? I said, "Go back earlier."