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Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

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Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#141

Post by madenine »

The maintainers! I know a couple people connected to this group - heard great things about their 2nd conference last month.

The premise is great. From Russel's article on Aeon:

"We organised a conference to bring the work of the maintainers into clearer focus. More than 40 scholars answered a call for papers asking, ‘What is at stake if we move scholarship away from innovation and toward maintenance?’ Historians, social scientists, economists, business scholars, artists, and activists responded. They all want to talk about technology outside of innovation’s shadow."

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#142

Post by zxcmx »

kobeya wrote: post #131
Kluny wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, for people with kids, at least half of their motivation for showing up to work is getting away from the kids for a couple hours. (Exaggerating, but still).

As someone with kids, I never understood why people say this. Oh what I'd give to spend every waking moment with them as they discover the world.

Not all parents, children and situations are made alike, I suppose.

Personally I enjoy spending a portion of my day not interacting with humans, let alone my children.

Some days I even enjoy my commute, because even though I'm on a busy line and we're all jammed into each others armpits, my mind is my own and nobody wants anything in particular from me.

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#143

Post by Qwertious »

wjke2i9 wrote: post #140

> I’ve actually felt slightly uncomfortable at TED for the last two days, because there’s a lot of vision going on, right? And I am not a visionary. I do not have a five-year plan. I’m an engineer. And I think it’s really – I mean – I’m perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds and looking at the stars and saying, “I want to go there.” But I’m looking at the ground, and…

Also:

>"WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE!"

In response to the notion that we need to break userspace in the name of progress/innovation.

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#144

Post by varjag »

justicezyx wrote: post #97
whack wrote: post #50

You could say the same thing about any non-glamorous/lucrative position. "Garbagemen make the world go round. Without them, we would drown in our own filth" "Nannies make the world go round. Without them, half the workforce would be stuck at home" "Auto mechanics make the world go round. Without them, we would have no way of getting places" Ultimately, all such arguments are inane and pointless because every single j…

I think there is a major flaw in the analogy. Basically, maintenance of complex systems or assets, are intellectually demanding tasks. All your examples, however, are completely the opposite. I am not saying that the jobs do not require skills, it's just that these skills are not that valuable. Also maintainer adds value in the positive way. Where all your example is to prevent value loss. The 2 are fundamentally dif…

> Basically, maintenance of complex systems or assets, are intellectually demanding tasks.

Not as hard as making those systems in the first place.

> I am not saying that the jobs do not require skills, it's just that these skills are not that valuable.

I'm not convinced that an average network engineer does a more challenging (or valuable) job than an average car mechanic.

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#145

Post by maxerickson »

rusk wrote: post #130
maxerickson wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. How do you get from there to a city without any innovation? How do you even get to a sharp stick without innovation?

>How do you get from there to a city Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure Basically peasants, once kicked off the land end up herded into cities. Presumably the thinking at the time (beyond "lets make ourselves rich" ) was that agricultural production is more efficient when undertaken as a large-scale concern rather than by scattered small community holdings.

So how is the step of consolidating the land not an innovation then?

Or the invention of the various tools to actually make the agriculture viable and progressively more efficient.

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#146

Post by rusk »

maxerickson wrote: post #145
rusk wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How do you get from there to a city Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure Basically peasants, once kicked off the land end up herded into cities. Presumably the thinking at the time (beyond "lets make ourselves rich" ) was that agricultural production is more efficient when undertaken as a large-scale concern rather than by scattered small community holdings.

So how is the step of consolidating the land not an innovation then? Or the invention of the various tools to actually make the agriculture viable and progressively more efficient.

It is an innovation. I was presenting this as an alternative antecedent to the development of cities.

Also provides an interesting corollary on the consequences of innovation.

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#147

Post by pjc50 »

varjag wrote: post #144
justicezyx wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a major flaw in the analogy. Basically, maintenance of complex systems or assets, are intellectually demanding tasks. All your examples, however, are completely the opposite. I am not saying that the jobs do not require skills, it's just that these skills are not that valuable. Also maintainer adds value in the positive way. Where all your example is to prevent value loss. The 2 are fundamentally dif…

> Basically, maintenance of complex systems or assets, are intellectually demanding tasks. Not as hard as making those systems in the first place. > I am not saying that the jobs do not require skills, it's just that these skills are not that valuable. I'm not convinced that an average network engineer does a more challenging (or valuable) job than an average car mechanic.

It's often easier to build a system than it is to maintain it, because you have a free choice across the solution space and you don't have to maintain any existing commitments.

Maintenance (physical or virtual) can often be made extremely difficult or expensive because of the need to avoid disrupting working systems, and the need to integrate with what's already there.

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#148

Post by pjc50 »

avn2109 wrote: post #68
euske wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty laughable. To me, almost every Western country is half-broken. When I lived in the US, I was surprised how frequent power faults were there. Streets are full of bumps and corroded pipes were everywhere. And in Europe. Do they have any concept of a decent public bathroom over there? Oh, and don't get me started on how badly their trains are operating. I bet that many train accidents are due to the poor…

The GP quote contrasts "the West" to Russia, which is itself overwhelmingly White. It's hard to see a white supremacist angle on a comparison between two majority-white blocs.

In the taxonomy of white supremacists, Russians are "slavic". This was literally part of Hitler's justification for invading eastwards.

("Whiteness" is not simply about skin colour. There's a fascinating/ugly history of how various immigrant groups to America became "white")

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#149

Post by somecallitblues »

varjag wrote: post #144
justicezyx wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a major flaw in the analogy. Basically, maintenance of complex systems or assets, are intellectually demanding tasks. All your examples, however, are completely the opposite. I am not saying that the jobs do not require skills, it's just that these skills are not that valuable. Also maintainer adds value in the positive way. Where all your example is to prevent value loss. The 2 are fundamentally dif…

> Basically, maintenance of complex systems or assets, are intellectually demanding tasks. Not as hard as making those systems in the first place. > I am not saying that the jobs do not require skills, it's just that these skills are not that valuable. I'm not convinced that an average network engineer does a more challenging (or valuable) job than an average car mechanic.

You've never had to add a new small feature to a highly customized Wordpress site someone else built I think.

Re: Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology

#150

Post by kk_cz »

jansho wrote: post #125
whack wrote: post #50

You could say the same thing about any non-glamorous/lucrative position. "Garbagemen make the world go round. Without them, we would drown in our own filth" "Nannies make the world go round. Without them, half the workforce would be stuck at home" "Auto mechanics make the world go round. Without them, we would have no way of getting places" Ultimately, all such arguments are inane and pointless because every single j…

Yes all roles are important. If elephants get wiped out, there will be some consequences. If insects or algae gets wiped out, the world is apocalyptically screwed.

yet you are comparing the impact of wiping out two species of mammals with possible impact of all insects or algae being gone...
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