In my Monolith O' Tools™, I have thousands of different tools. Some are pretty specific in how they are used. An impact screwdriver, for example, is used specifically to loosen screws with damaged heads, and occasionally to supertighten screws...It is a very specialized tool. A standard screwdriver, on the other hand, is a screwdriver, a prybar, a chisel, a gasket-remover, and a bunch of other things for which it was not actually designed. It is not a specialized tool.
Some people become specialized, too. This is not an inherently bad thing; modern civilization cannot survive without specialists, a truth that grows more and more true with each gain in technology. However, specializing to the point of being unwilling or even unable to discuss anything outside of one's speciality is an indication that a person has become a "speciality" tool. Great for one thing, but useless anywhere else.
It doesn't matter if your topic is drugs or science or kiyaking or politics or how zany you are, or whatever. Eventually, it gets boring...The only proof of which I need offer is Capitol Grilling, where they've been having the exact same discussion since 2002. The only fun there is in taking the piss, and if I really want to know what's going on in the world, I'm sure as fuck not going there; I'll just ask Cain.
This doesn't mean someone shouldn't discuss their specialty. On the contrary, I love reading Cain's political stuff and Kai's scientific news/articles/rants. RWHN's drug stuff, not so much, as it's been driven into the ground, and seems to mostly be opinion, which I can get any damn place.
But what it DOES mean is that it would be nice if people posted things outside of their specialty on occasion. We are bipeds, and that means being a little more than our chosen fields.
Not that talking about work is bad, of course, but that's why we have Nigel's fluff thread. I bitch about work there, ECH bitches about work there, etc. But what you didn't know is that ECH is the recognized US authority on Northern Maine stigmatic clog-dancing...But does he post thread after thread about it, to the exclusion of everything else? Does Nigel talk about beads all day? Does Luna explain to us in detail the way payroll is done?
Sometimes. But what they mostly do is take part in other conversations, ones that have nothing to do with their jobs/personal interests. Because they aren't an impact screwdriver. Neither are any of you, to be honest. So why imitate one? You've always been a creative pack of bastards, and I'd hate to see you get reabsorbed into The Machine™ as precision components. Components are a dime-a-dozen, and actual people are rare, and I'd rather have you as people.
But if you tell anyone I said that, I'll call you a liar and send you my annual shearings.
Or Kill Me.
Hell yeah. Specialization is a fucking curse on humanity. Sure I can cook like a mad bastard, but I can also sail a boat, write and play a song, dance like nobody's looking, build a house, survive in the wilderness with few or no tools, seduce a courtesan, argue with a lawyer, etc. I see this shit all the time with the scientists we take out on the ship. These guys are all REALLY REALLY SMART, many of them hold multiple degrees from MIT, CalTech, etc., and many of them are geniuses in their field....but they mostly have the common sense of an eggplant and personalities to match. So what good is their SUPER DUPER GENIUS if they can't get an invite to Saturday Night?
As for me, I'm a plasma torch, in that I'm primarily useful for all sorts of fun things that aren't condoned by decent people and frequently leave a trail of smoldering melted destruction in my path. That's what kind of tool I am.
Sometimes I think I'm just a tool.
I know what I like to do and I know what I'm good at (stage sound/lighting/sfx)... but somehow I always end up doing the work that makes the most money (data security). I know what I LIKE to talk about on PD.com (psychology, philosophy, poetry etc) but I end up writing pages and pages in a thread that I KNOW isn't gonna go anywhere. The discussions I end up investing the most in are generally the ones I find least interesting.
Like I said in the poem I posted a little bit ago, maybe its just the monkey mind... the shot circuit somewhere that keeps me on a tower shouting at the other side. Its not even a specialization, as much as a mud hole that leaves my tires spinning.
I agree the shit out of this, with regards myself but I can't help thinking that, more and more we need the other kind too. Like ECH says - some people geek out on the some shit or other to the point where they have no grasp of anything else but, without that level of attention, is is even possible to keep up with the levels of specialisation required to do certain things nowadays?
Not sure I know the answer to this but, given that it "grows more and more true with each gain in technology" are we approaching a place where some new technology will require infants with aptitude to be plugged into the fucking machine before they're even taught to speak? Is what we're seeing here, at this point in time, the emergence of the ultra-specialist as a divergent organism, unadapted to anything else, as a half way stage?
I'm all kinds of things. There is the part of me that is well known and noted, but there is also the musician, the poet, the Pun King, the Dad, the husband, the lover, among others.
I probably posted about cards here about three times, ever. There's all kinds of other places where I can do that and have the added satisfaction of making fun of pagans. :lol:
PD is primarily a social board. You may be many, many things...But if we only see one facet of a person, how are we to know what else that person is? And why would we care given that only that side is seen?