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This reply brings to mind the well-known Heinlein quote: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, des
by ryandrake 2y ago
This reply brings to mind the well-known Heinlein quote:
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.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- DrillShopper 2y agoThis is a fantastic and underrated quote, despite all of the problems I have with Heinlein's fascism-glorifying work.
- margalabargala 2y agoThe quote is more reasonable in context.
- marcosdumay 2y agoThe sheer amount of activities that he left out because he couldn't even remember they existed would turn this paragraph into a book.
- crooked-v 2y agoThat's a quote that sounds great until, say, that self-built building by somebody who's neither engineer nor architect at best turns out to have some intractible design flaw and at worst collapses and kills people. It's also a quote from a character who's literally immortal and so has all the time in the world to learn things, which really undermines the premise.
- elcritch 2y agoI sort of view that list as table stakes for a well rounded capable person.. Well barring the invasion bit. Then again, being familiar with guns and or other forms of self defense is valuable. I think most farmers would be somewhat capable on most of that list. Equations for farm production. Programming tractor equipment. Setting bones. Giving and taking orders. Building houses and barns. Building a single story building isn’t that difficult, but time consuming. Especially nowadays with YouTube videos and pre-planned plans.
- lisper 2y ago> pre-planned plans Isn't that cheating? Shouldn't a properly self-reliant human be able to come up with the plans too?
- diroussel 2y agoLearning from others doesn’t mean you are not learning.
- salomonk_mur 2y agoAsk the LLM to create plans and step by step guides then!
- sethammons 2y agoTo bake a cake from scratch, first, you must create the universe
- codedokode 2y ago> self-built building by somebody who's neither engineer nor architect That is exactly how our ancestors built houses. Also a traditional wooden house doesn't look complicated.
- dullcrisp 2y agoAnd what happened to them, I wonder?
- antasvara 2y agoI'm not saying that our ancestors were wrong. Hell, I live in a house that was originally built under similar conditions. That being said, buildings collapse a lot less frequently these days. House fires happen at a lower rate. Insulation was either nonexistent or present in much lower quantities. I guess the point I'm making is that the lesson here shouldn't be "we used to make our houses, why don't we go back to that?" It also shouldn't be "we should leave every task to a specialist." Know how to maintain and fix the things around your house that are broken. You don't need a plumber to replace the flush valve on your toilet. But maybe don't try to replace a load-bearing joist in your house unless you know what you're doing? The people building their own homes weren't engineers, but they had a lot more carpentry experience than (I assume) you and I.
- motorest 2y ago> That is exactly how our ancestors built houses. Also a traditional wooden house doesn't look complicated. The only homes built by our ancestors that you see are those that didn't collapsed and killed whoever was inside, burned down, were too unstable to live in, were too much of a burden to maintain and keep around, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- CalRobert 2y agoHonestly having gone through the self build process for a house it’s not that hard if you keep it simple. Habitat for humanity has some good learning material
- lukan 2y agoI would like to replay with another quote by another immortal(or long lived) character, Professor „Reg“ Chronotis from Douglas Adams: "That I lived so much longer, just means, that I forgot much more, not that I know much more." Memory might have a limited capacity, but of course, I doubt most humans use that capacity, or well, for useful things. I know I have plenty of useless knowledge ..
- Mawr 2y agoWhat an awful quote. Literally all progress we've made is due to ever increasing specialization.
- Jedd 2y agoThat is literally not true.
- flir 2y agoI'd be interested in counter-examples?
- kazinator 2y agoCounter-examples are not really their area, evidently.
- nicbou 2y agoA lot of discoveries come from someone applying their scientific knowledge to a curious thing happening in their hobby or private life. A lot of successful businesses apply software engineering to a specific business problem that is invisible to all other engineers.
- Jedd 2y agoGiven the original, ludicrous, claim was: > Literally all progress we've made is due to ever increasing specialization. Then we don't really need plural examples, right? Anyway - language, wheel, fire, tool-making, social constructs like reciprocity principle - I think gave us some progress as a species and a society.
- akimbostrawman 2y agoAll of these examples are done by specialist because I don't see many cars being build by dentists. Even in mankind's beginning specialization existed in the form of hunter and gatherer. This specialization in combination with team work brought us to the top of the food chain to a point where we can strive beyond basic survival. The people making space crafts (designing and building, another example of specialization) don't need to know how to repair or build a microwave to heat there for food. Of course everybody still needs to know basic knowledge (how to turn on microwave) to get by.
- djhn 2y agoIt’s a quote from a character in Heinlein’s fiction. A human character with a lifespan of over a thousand years. I too liked that quote and found it inspiring. Until I read the book, that is.
- wombatpm 2y agoI know the character is Lazarus Long. Which book was this quote in?
- vasco 2y agoThis is one of the cases where you should indeed rely on Google.
- charlieflowers 2y agoYou just created a modern take on LMGTFY
- gnarlynarwhal42 2y agoSeems to be from the book "Time Enough for Love"
- moron4hire 2y agoI haven't butchered a hog or died yet.