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Yes, the idea and the debate is as old as history. I prefer the quote from Heinlein, "Specialization is for insects." Because actually, if you look at well run

Yes, the idea and the debate is as old as history. I prefer the quote from Heinlein, "Specialization is for insects." Because actually, if you look at well run organizations, everybody needs to be a generalist to some degree. You don't just work in a silo and ignore every other aspect of what your organization does, otherwise you produce deficient solutions that your colleagues in their own siloes need to work around. Eventually the only people that can thrive in such an organization are the generalists because everything fits together so poorly only the people willing to tackle novel things can solve any problem. People talk about force multipliers because you need to be generally aware of what a lot of different people are doing and help them align to be as productive as possible. > A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. He was a bit pro-military for my tastes, but I hope you get the idea. You'll make more money stepping up than drilling down. Of course, context and opportunity matters a lot. Success isn't dictated (possibly barely affected, given the debate) by this single dimension.

deleted 4y ago
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YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
It's an evocative quote, but it's also nonsense. The selection of skills is a bit scattershot, but let's look at some examples: "butchering a hog" takes a year to learn, well, butchery to a professional standard, because someone who can butcher hogs but not cows sounds awfully 'specialised', some places even say that a butchery apprenticeship takes 24 months. (And I personally wouldn't trust an unqualified butcher to process meat I'd be eating.) Building a wall is easier, you can get a bricklaying certification in 8 weeks. Learning to "Fight efficiently" and "take orders" takes US army recruits 22 weeks (and we can throw another 12 weeks of officer training for giving orders and generously allowing this to count as 'planning an invasion'). Computer programming, sonnet-writing, account balancing, cooking and solving equations are actually part of general education, so let's ignore those. Basic first aid only takes a few days, and pitching manure can be learnt in under an hour. But then we get to "design a building" and "conn a ship" (not a boat, a ship). Conning a ship is a bachelor's level qualification in of itself, and designing entire buildings is a job for a chartered engineer, which requires years of experience and another bachelor's degree, so we're taking probably ten years of full-time training for those two alone. And I would not want to be on a ship piloted by someone who'd been on a 3-day course or live in a tower block designed by someone who'd read a couple of Wikipedia articles. Then we'll throw in a 4-year degree in whatever they're actually doing, and you're looking at a society whose adults don't start entering the workforce until their mid-thirties, and a newbie doctor or research scientist or some other field which requires postgraduate qualifications is probably in their early forties. This isn't even remotely viable as a way to run a society. And it's also implied that that list isn't even exhaustive, so the real numbers are even worse if there's some other complex safety-critical thing that Heinlein also felt should be on the list, like 'fly an airliner' or 'manage a chemical plant'. Maybe with sci-fi anti-aging techniques that mean people can still be expected to be healthy and productive in their nineties, but in the real world, Heinlein's generalist utopia is pure fantasy.
- ajkjk 4y ago
  I think they're talking about butchering a hog at the skill level of a person who grew up near people who owned hogs, ie, definitely a "I did this with somebody at a barbecue a few times" and not "24 months of training". Giving and taking orders likewise doesn't remotely require army training, it just requires growing up around human beings and being part of anything -- theater, bands, church groups, service groups, clubs. Fight efficiently means, I believe, fistfight, aka, take some boxing lessons and you can check that one off. I think you've really misunderstood the quote. Or maybe I have.
  - zikduruqe 4y ago
    Well, Lazarus Long was supposedly over 2000 years old, so he had the time to learn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    I notice you ignored all the actually difficult items on the list there. You know, the ones where the Dunning-Kruger brigade are a liability and mistakes mean people die.
    - ajkjk 4y ago
      I didn't ignore all the difficult ones. But fine. Bricklaying is a few days to learn on the job, tops. Conning a ship almost certainly means captaining a boat which takes some experience for sure, probably a few months. Basic first aid, including setting a bone, is a week long course. Etc. I can't imagine why you went to the trouble of trying to make them all sound like complicated many-year projects, but it's a ridiculous take and I doubt anyone else will read it that way.
      - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
        Are you seriously suggesting that Robert A. Heinlein, former naval officer, wouldn't care about the distinction between a ship and a boat? And you still ignored the two most difficult ones.

deleted 4y ago

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YurgenJurgensen 4y ago

It's an evocative quote, but it's also nonsense. The selection of skills is a bit scattershot, but let's look at some examples: "butchering a hog" takes a year to learn, well, butchery to a professional standard, because someone who can butcher hogs but not cows sounds awfully 'specialised', some places even say that a butchery apprenticeship takes 24 months. (And I personally wouldn't trust an unqualified butcher to process meat I'd be eating.) Building a wall is easier, you can get a bricklaying certification in 8 weeks. Learning to "Fight efficiently" and "take orders" takes US army recruits 22 weeks (and we can throw another 12 weeks of officer training for giving orders and generously allowing this to count as 'planning an invasion'). Computer programming, sonnet-writing, account balancing, cooking and solving equations are actually part of general education, so let's ignore those. Basic first aid only takes a few days, and pitching manure can be learnt in under an hour. But then we get to "design a building" and "conn a ship" (not a boat, a ship). Conning a ship is a bachelor's level qualification in of itself, and designing entire buildings is a job for a chartered engineer, which requires years of experience and another bachelor's degree, so we're taking probably ten years of full-time training for those two alone. And I would not want to be on a ship piloted by someone who'd been on a 3-day course or live in a tower block designed by someone who'd read a couple of Wikipedia articles. Then we'll throw in a 4-year degree in whatever they're actually doing, and you're looking at a society whose adults don't start entering the workforce until their mid-thirties, and a newbie doctor or research scientist or some other field which requires postgraduate qualifications is probably in their early forties. This isn't even remotely viable as a way to run a society. And it's also implied that that list isn't even exhaustive, so the real numbers are even worse if there's some other complex safety-critical thing that Heinlein also felt should be on the list, like 'fly an airliner' or 'manage a chemical plant'. Maybe with sci-fi anti-aging techniques that mean people can still be expected to be healthy and productive in their nineties, but in the real world, Heinlein's generalist utopia is pure fantasy.

ajkjk 4y ago
I think they're talking about butchering a hog at the skill level of a person who grew up near people who owned hogs, ie, definitely a "I did this with somebody at a barbecue a few times" and not "24 months of training". Giving and taking orders likewise doesn't remotely require army training, it just requires growing up around human beings and being part of anything -- theater, bands, church groups, service groups, clubs. Fight efficiently means, I believe, fistfight, aka, take some boxing lessons and you can check that one off. I think you've really misunderstood the quote. Or maybe I have.
- zikduruqe 4y ago
  Well, Lazarus Long was supposedly over 2000 years old, so he had the time to learn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  I notice you ignored all the actually difficult items on the list there. You know, the ones where the Dunning-Kruger brigade are a liability and mistakes mean people die.
  - ajkjk 4y ago
    I didn't ignore all the difficult ones. But fine. Bricklaying is a few days to learn on the job, tops. Conning a ship almost certainly means captaining a boat which takes some experience for sure, probably a few months. Basic first aid, including setting a bone, is a week long course. Etc. I can't imagine why you went to the trouble of trying to make them all sound like complicated many-year projects, but it's a ridiculous take and I doubt anyone else will read it that way.
    - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
      Are you seriously suggesting that Robert A. Heinlein, former naval officer, wouldn't care about the distinction between a ship and a boat? And you still ignored the two most difficult ones.