Something For Nothing

For all things philosophical.

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RCSaunders
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Re: Something For Nothing

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simplicity wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:18 am
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:04 pm Unless you have a very hard head, you'll probably die. Most deadly, "accidents," are the result of people being where they shouldn't be and not paying attention. There are no guarantees, except if you do not do your best you will fail.
I am not sure about that but it would be nice if it were true. Again, thinking that you have control over things in general is a pretty optimistic view. OTOH, being highly productive and doing good things certainly doesn't hurt one's chances for a positive outcome.
simplicity wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 7:49 pm There are many things that occur that are out of our control [pretty much everything]. The only thing we can do is react [or be proactive] with the greatest skill possible.
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:04 pmIt's actually not a, "we," thing. Though I'm not sure exactly what you mean by things out of our control, unless you mean things like weather, climate, other natural events, or the behavior of governments (like wars or printing money and causing inflation). Most things do not happen in a instant and preparation can be made for them, as you suggest.
You've probably heard this one, "You want to make God laugh, make a plan!"
Of course I've heard that insipid aphorism. Bonny Bobby Burns said it better:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley
[The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray]

In business and industry that same negative view is often called, "Murphy's law:"
If anything can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time.
Personally I've never understood that defeatest view.

There is only one way to be certain no plan will ever fail--never make one.

Of course unexpected things can happen and no one is omniscient or infallible, but all of life depends on making choices and every choice is about the future, whether that future is the next minute, the next day, the next year, or the rest of one's life.

No one can know the future and all one's choices must be made in the context of what one does know, including planning for the possible unexpected.

This idea that the unexpected can happen is a non-essential. The essential is that most things can be predicted. Just because some unexpected things can happen does not mean everything is unexpected and every plan will fail. Just because no one can know everything does not mean they know nothing.

Everything one does in life depends on the fact that one can make plans that will succeed, from preparing a meal to performing a heart bypass. Everything that you use every day testifies to the success of planning from your home to your clothing, all the food you eat and medicine you take. Every successful industry is only possible because plans, some extremely complex and very long-term elaborate plans, are not only possible but totally successful.

Failure is the exception and almost always because the plans were not well made.

Whatever the excuse, most of the failures in life are because individuals do not make plans, do not take the long view of life, but live from moment to moment (from pay check to pay check). They live for the day, without any consideration for next week, or next year, or what any of the long term consequences of what they choose will be--what the future consequences of their refusal to learn all they can, to develop their abilities and skills will be, what deprivations they will suffer because they spend all their money (or other resources) now and save nothing for the future. Then act as though all the bad things that happen to them are not their fault but the result of some inexplicable evil world.
simplicity
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Re: Something For Nothing

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RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:50 pm
Failure is the exception and almost always because the plans were not well made.

Whatever the excuse, most of the failures in life are because individuals do not make plans, do not take the long view of life, but live from moment to moment (from pay check to pay check). They live for the day, without any consideration for next week, or next year, or what any of the long term consequences of what they choose will be--what the future consequences of their refusal to learn all they can, to develop their abilities and skills will be, what deprivations they will suffer because they spend all their money (or other resources) now and save nothing for the future. Then act as though all the bad things that happen to them are not their fault but the result of some inexplicable evil world.
I understand what you are saying as I am a high achieving, highly successful person, as well, but one of the most interesting interviews I've ever seen was with the CEO of Sony Corp. when both that company and Japan, Inc. were at their apogee [it might have been a "60 Minutes" type of interview] in the late 80's. The interviewer asked this thoughtful looking gentleman [and I paraphrase], "It seems that everything Sony touches turns to gold. How do you get everything right?"

Smiling and very humbly, he responds, "We get 99% of everything wrong. We just never give up."

I don't disagree with you vis a vis planning, but much more important is being able to see clearly, that is, accurately discriminate. This is truly the key to success in any arena.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Something For Nothing

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simplicity wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:22 pm I don't disagree with you vis a vis planning, but much more important is being able to see clearly, that is, accurately discriminate. This is truly the key to success in any arena.
I agree that analysis and careful attention are important, if that's what you mean by discriminate. I prefer the term discernment, especially when it pertains to subtleties, (and which is sorely lacking), but I'd rather see someone make a rash decision than deliberate an issue to death and never do anything, a method I have actually observed destroy companies.

Do something. You'll never be successful even one percent of the time if you quit before reaching the one percent because you've made 100 mistakes. Edison said of all his failed light filament experiments, "I didn't fail, I discovered 1000 things that didn't work." Good thing he didn't discriminate and quit after 999.

On the other hand, when I was running some system and board test departments, I discovered there is a kind discrimination that just cannot be taught. Out of a hundred technicians, there would be one or two who had the kind of insight required to know just how to go about discovering why a system was failing, and others, no matter how much training they received, just never had it. The only difference I could actually ever see between those with that insight and those without it, was those who had it also had an attitude about everything that there we always some way to understand what was going on and nothing was a total mystery, because nothing happened without a reason. It was almost a kind to tenaciousness.
Last edited by RCSaunders on Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
simplicity
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Re: Something For Nothing

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:40 pmI'll give you an example. I regard life as a great adventure--hard, dangerous, but infinitely rewarding. My wife and I were bikers (Harley Davidsons both) for many years. They were very expensive customized bikes, and earning the money for them required a great deal of productive effort. The pleasure and adventures we had on those motocycles over the years, all the places we've been, people we've met, the dangers we faced and overcame, and sheer joy of having all that power in your hands to take you almost anywhere, were worth a hundred times what those motocycles cost.

I've enjoyed a plethera of occupations in my lifetime. A large chunk of that was in electronics, IT, and telephony involved in everything from software and hardware design to running publication departments. Years ago, working for Northern Telecom (which became Nortel--the second largest telephone company in the world at one time, but now defunct) a Japanese company ordered a full documentation set for the Nortel digital switching hardware and software. That documentation did not exist at the time. I volunteered to take the project to create the documentation, hired a team of ten writers and in six months created a 15000 page, ten volume set of documents, which became a company, "best seller." For six months, I ate, slept, and drank that gruelling project, which I was assured by upper management could not be done. The reward of completing that project was worth ten times the hours and effort that it cost me.
If the above was correct, then you would have discovered the "fountain of something for nothing." Perhaps you just don't realize how effort translates in to positive feelings.

Nobody understands how any of this works, but if I had to bet the farm on it, I would go with cause and effect having a direct and proportional relationship [but what the hell do I know?].

I have also worked quite hard and still do [although I am mostly retired] and completely agree with you that the best chance one has in this life is to work hard, be honest, and help others when you can.
simplicity
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Re: Something For Nothing

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RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:42 pm
simplicity wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:22 pm I don't disagree with you vis a vis planning, but much more important is being able to see clearly, that is, accurately discriminate. This is truly the key to success in any arena.
I agree that analysis and careful attention are important, if that's what you mean by discriminate. I prefer the term discernment, especially when it pertains to subtleties, (and which is sorely lacking), but I'd rather see someone make a rash decision than deliberate an issue to death and never do anything, a method I have actually observed destroy companies.

Do something. You'll never be successful even one percent of the time if you quit before reaching the one percent because you've made 100 mistakes. Edison said of all failed light filament experiments, "I didn't fail, I discovered 1000 things that didn't work." Good thing he didn't discriminate and quit after 999.
Unfortunately, this culture is incredibly risk adverse. This is particularly apparent with the system's reaction to COVID. It's all about keeping people incapacitated through fear of every damn thing, especially death.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Something For Nothing

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simplicity wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:50 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:42 pm
simplicity wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:22 pm I don't disagree with you vis a vis planning, but much more important is being able to see clearly, that is, accurately discriminate. This is truly the key to success in any arena.
I agree that analysis and careful attention are important, if that's what you mean by discriminate. I prefer the term discernment, especially when it pertains to subtleties, (and which is sorely lacking), but I'd rather see someone make a rash decision than deliberate an issue to death and never do anything, a method I have actually observed destroy companies.

Do something. You'll never be successful even one percent of the time if you quit before reaching the one percent because you've made 100 mistakes. Edison said of all failed light filament experiments, "I didn't fail, I discovered 1000 things that didn't work." Good thing he didn't discriminate and quit after 999.
Unfortunately, this culture is incredibly risk adverse. This is particularly apparent with the system's reaction to COVID. It's all about keeping people incapacitated through fear of every damn thing, especially death.
It's not new.
Civilization, in fact, grows more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
--H.L. Mencken
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