Tag: cunning plans

It is not uncommon for people to get out of their depth very quickly. Especially when they encounter a situation with which they are unfamiliar, full of bravado they can steam ahead convinced that they “know-it-all”. There is no point giving people who are already “omniscient” advice. They need to find out the boundaries of their knowledge for themselves, they may only do this in retrospect long after they have left the sanctuary of what they actually know.

—–

People learn better by mistake than advice. This is true.

I can recall numerous occasions when I have given advice, sometimes solicited and sometimes not. In some cases when the advice has been ignored {usually because it required effort} people have landed up deep in the brown stuff of their own making. It is a bit silly but I cannot force anyone to listen to me. I have warned people when they have been getting out of their depth with their “cunning plans” but often if they are already in a hole, they simply continue to dig. Rarely do they actually end up in Australia.

To assume that detailed knowledge in one system, one society, is transferrable to another is the approach of a fool. To experiment with an open mind is a tad more wise. People can be arrogant, cocky and ignorant, they may be very unaware.

We like to watch the TV programme Dragons’ Den. There is a very large back catalogue. Yet when people come into pitch they have not done their homework concerning valuation, or P&L, profit and loss. The dragons go through roughly the same iteration show after show, with minor variations. It is formulaic. This should be bleeding obvious. Despite all the evidence available from previous shows people still enter the den ill prepared and unrealistic. They end up in deep water and out of their depth.  

Don’t people do their homework?

Do they simple cross their fingers as they fly across the sky on their unicorns?

People can think all sorts of things are good ideas, like AI and robots. It seems wise, but down the line there may be unseen consequences. Humanity will learn by its mistakes, it may not be advised by the “warnings” of science fiction. The ideas are way too groovy, let’s forget about the downside.

—-

If in a hole like the climate crisis, humanity will try every possible avenue, no matter how ridiculous so that it does not have to change its ways. There is the idea of “permanent” carbon capture and storage to offset air miles. There is plenty of money to spend on various research in the hope of keeping on doing exactly what we are doing.  The inventions may get ever more inventive and perhaps desperate. There is only one planet there is no planet B in the goldilocks range, close by.

There is much less research on societal overhaul and change!!

People rarely stand still and truly take stock. You never know who might be reading this blog. Perhaps they have tried to advise others to no avail.  

—-

When people are in “deep water” as a group, there is a tendency to have a conflab within the group and seek a solution from within the consciousness, mind, and mores of said group. Although no such solution can be found within these pre-set boundary conditions people can iterate ad infinitum, so long as the status quo is not threatened.

The dog rarely catches its own tail.

A frog trapped at the bottom of a well may be an expert on the well, its social order and the flora and fauna of the well. It has never seen the ocean and it is probably unaware that there is even such a thing.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results has been defined as insanity I am led to believe.