agile minds not factfarting number jugglers

In this week's New Scientist there is a plea for 'agile minds' rather than yet more science graduates to solve the so called 'STEM crisis'. Michael Brooks, curator of the Waterloo Global Science Initiative Learning 2030 summit (wgsi.org) states that the surprising thing is that theoretical physicists and even the CEO of Lockheed said that more science graduates is not the answer. While it is true that low level positions can be filled by numerate graduates- there is actually not a problem here. Wages haven't risen in this area for a good reason- there isn't a real shortage here. The probem is higher up. The conventional science graduate seems to lack organisational, communication and management skills. So a gap opens up where the real creative work needs to be done. Brooks suggests a big change in the way people are recruited into university is required. What is required are people who can think creatively, broadly and communicate clearly. In other words- they need people skilled in polymathics- multiple mastery.

Is friendmaking a good strategy?

The first rule of strategy is that there should be unity of command. As Napoleon said, “better a bad general than two good ones.” You cannot have two plans- there can only one.  Therefore, if strategy means acting according to a preconceived plan rather than the ad hoc optimising of what works and minimising of what doesn’t, then a single commander and a highly effective chain of command is required. In effect, a tyranny.

Yet equally effective (especially in a world where air and sea can be crossed with relative ease) is having friends and allies. But the ability to make friends is not usually compatible with being a tyrant. Big men are usually lonely men. One substitute for friend-making ability is sharing a common powerful ideology- Stalin didn’t like Mao but he helped him a great deal.

To change the focus a little, you can observe the tension between tyranny and friend making at something as ordinary as a dinner party. Sometimes a brilliant guest will hold the floor and everyone is mesmerised. Then one tricky customer will start gathering the scattered resistance to such an attention getting performance. The great speaker will be isolated- he had an audience but no friends. Gradually the tricky customer will coordinate a sort of passive resistance, even mockery of the great man, who finally, beaten, wonders again like a wounded Napoleon at the idiocy of lesser men…

who do you want to look after you?

People want to be looked after.

It's a right and proper thing in kids, but not in adults.

People on the dole want to be looked after by the state.

People in jobs want to be looked after by the company they work for.

People working for Fuck You money want to be looked after by money.

Academics want to be looked after by the university system.

Writers want to be looked after by their publishers.

Of course this isn't ALL people in these professions. Not you or me of course...

rename, reframe

As an ex-member of a cult put it: "The last thing you want to tell someone who is brainwashed is that they are brainwashed." And this applies to any attempt to 'convert' someone to your point of view. I find I'm always out there trying to make converts to some new idea I happen to be interested in. And I'm very alert to people trying to convert me. The one area where I'm open- something I haven't heard about before- the weird practices of a newly contacted tribe or a piece of cutting edge brain research. If people think they've heard it before they switch off straightaway- one reason for avoiding familiar ground or giving old dogs new names....

big

Most people are much bigger than their everyday life allows them to be. Playing with a toy train set can assuage this- you become Gulliver for a while. Or amateur acting. Or talking with a really loud voice. Or being alone in the wilderness. Or running your own company. There are probably quite a few other ways that stop short of megalomania too. Less useful is latching on to someone, or thing, who is already big and becoming a supporter, a number one fan, a coat-tail rider...reflected glory has none of the nutrition of earned glory.

tricky

"If your teacher isn't also a trickster you may have been had."

Cho Sensei

3 sayings recently recollected

“I like to get started first thing because if I leave it too late I find I’ve gone off the idea.” Susie, marketstall holder

“Persisting in the wrong way is a form of giving up. One sign that it is the wrong way is that you won’t want to give up. Wanting to give up is usually a sign that you shouldn’t.” Cho Sensei.

“For every ten Japanese that hate a black guy there’s one who LOVES him.” Hi-Tide Harris, Afro-American International Blues Guitarist.