Posts

How social taboos perpetuate social problems.

If you are a technician of some kind your job is to troubleshoot problems, identify the source of those problems, and effect whatever repairs are necessary.  When your mechanic tells you your engine needs a particular component replaced and it'll take three days just to order it, you may object to the cost or inconvenience, but their is little chance that you or anyone else will forbid mentioning the real source of the problem and insist on blaming something else.  There are no social taboos involved in troubleshooting a mechanical problem. Social problems are another matter entirely.  Troubleshooting a social problem back to its source is a relatively simple technical exercise.  Applying a solution is often almost impossible.  Unlike the engine component that needs to be replaced, the person, persons, or institutions causing the social problem are usually gaining something by causing the problem and will do almost anything to perpetuate it.  This is why ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A letter to David Hogg

March 28, 2018 David Hogg Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School 5901 Pine Island Road Parkland, Florida   33076 Dear Mr. Hogg, You are currently in possession of a highly valuable but fungible commodity.   You have the attention of the media, a long list of politicians, and much of the American public. Thus far, media reports indicate that this attention is focused exclusively on how Nikolas Cruz and so many others like him were able to commit their crimes.   Entirely ignored is the question of why they even wanted to commit those crimes in the first place. I’ve been asking why since before Luke Woodham shot several of his classmates in Pearl, Mississippi on October 1, 1997 and most of the time I’ve encountered some combination of avoidance, ridicule, and hostility.   On those rare occasions when a discussion is begun, it tends to be dominated by those who display an almost pathological need for a simple minded, single point of failure e...
Post a Comment
Read more