On fixing things

Howard Wallace

Howard Wallace

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I ran across this apparently ridiculous quote.

It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so.
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How silly! If something is broken or headed in a bad direction, it is only common sense that we should try to fix it.

The only thing that gives me pause is the guy who said it. J.Robert Oppenheimer was the head of Los Alamos National Labs during the Manhattan Project. He is known as the father of the atomic bomb. He has several advances in fundamental physics to his name, including quantum tunneling upon which many modern electronic components are based. His security clearance was revoked in the 50s because of suspected communist associations, but later President Kennedy politically rehabilitated him.

So was he just a communist sympathizer trying to confuse us and set us all on the wrong path, or is there some valuable meaning in his paradoxical words?
 
Seems like a false dichotomy. I don't see how his political sympathies would be relevant to the above quote.
 
"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do..." -Will Durant
 
Berkley said:
"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do..." -Will Durant
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Dont get no better than that! Words to live by:thumbup:

Ever try to push a worm back down its hole? Some things just arent meant to be undone.
 
In General I usually believe that MOST things should be fixed. But I do have to agree that sometimes all it does is make it worse and you would be better off leaving it be. The challenge comes in how to determine which things are which. That takes wisdom to identify. Perhaps if I live another 100 years I might have enough to wisdom to identify the minor things that should be done or not done.
 
Oppenheimer was always ambivalent about the achievement of the Manhattan project and its implications for the future of humanity. He became an ardent crusader for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, though he never actually rejected them. He opposed the development of the Hydrogen Bomb, but mainly because he thought it was impractical. He recognized the danger of putting that much power in the hands of the governments of the world (the U.S. was first, but soon followed by Stalin's USSR, then other major countries, and now Pakistan, India, North Korea, Israel ....), but he also believed that no limits could be put on scientific or technological development.

Oppenheimer's ambivalence about nuclear weapons can be seen, for example, in these two quotations (and many others):

"I am become death, The Shatterer of Worlds." [Quoting from the 2,000-year-old Bhagavad Gita of India at the instant the first test atomic device exploded.]

"If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people must unite, or they will perish."

The atomic bomb was seen as the key to victory over fascism (the world going to hell), and yet it gave humanity for the first time the ability to destroy all of civilization through nuclear war. I think this explains what Oppenheimer might have had in mind by the statement that Howard quotes. It's a somewhat convoluted way of saying that in the long run the cure might be worse than the disease.
 
To be honest our planet isn't really benefitting from our existence so far.
Maybe in the future we can save it from destruction by an asteroid or something. Then it'll ow us big time. Until then I think our fixing things caused more harm overall than good.
Sure it's nice to heat your house drive a car fixing the issues of comfort mobility health care military safety and so on they all benefit humanity but the planet as a whole doesn't get fixed. Actually the opposite is true. It gets its ozone layer destroyed many species extinct rivers and ocean polluted 1000 year old trees chopped away and so on.
Still no excuse to give up. Reversing the Ozone layer destruction and combating acid rain worked out well and it seems renewable energy is taking off too. Now let's each adopt a polar bear. Might need a more powerful AC though.
 
Howard Wallace said:
I ran across this apparently ridiculous quote.



How silly! If something is broken or headed in a bad direction, it is only common sense that we should try to fix it.

The only thing that gives me pause is the guy who said it. J.Robert Oppenheimer was the head of Los Alamos National Labs during the Manhattan Project. He is known as the father of the atomic bomb. He has several advances in fundamental physics to his name, including quantum tunneling upon which many modern electronic components are based. His security clearance was revoked in the 50s because of suspected communist associations, but later President Kennedy politically rehabilitated him.

So was he just a communist sympathizer trying to confuse us and set us all on the wrong path, or is there some valuable meaning in his paradoxical words?
Click to expand...

There are other possibilities. He might be a brilliant physicist with next to no knowledge about history, political "science," or sociology.

Others are equally gloomy.

Thousands of years ago, where I am sitting was covered with a mile of ice. The seas rose 100 meters in the global warming that followed - before the Bronze Age. Damned metals!
 
Insipid Moniker said:
Seems like a false dichotomy. I don't see how his political sympathies would be relevant to the above quote.
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Thomas Linton said:
There are other possibilities. He might be a brilliant physicist with next to no knowledge about history, political "science," or sociology.
...
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Indeed, it is not an either/or, but an or ..., or ..., or ...

Thought it might be worth a sideways glance at the possibility that considerations of this nature are not always well received.

Lao Tzu wrote some things similar to Openheimer's quote in his little book. He handed it to a gent on the outer frontiers of the empire, immediately before riding his donkey over the western pass into the mountains, and dissapearing from recorded history. Better than being run out of town on a rail.
 
Shavru said:
In General I usually believe that MOST things should be fixed. But I do have to agree that sometimes all it does is make it worse and you would be better off leaving it be. The challenge comes in how to determine which things are which. That takes wisdom to identify. Perhaps if I live another 100 years I might have enough to wisdom to identify the minor things that should be done or not done.
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ndoghouse said:
...Ever try to push a worm back down its hole? ...
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Aye, but there's the rub. How to sort out the difference?

If one of us were clearing brush in the back 40, and swung his beloved khukuri into a metal fence post, probably neither Oppenheimer nor Lao Zi (to use the accepted Pinyin) would object to taking out a chakma and straightening the edge.

Or, if a toddler were stumbling towards a busy street, does anyone imagine that one of those dead philosophers would object to a benevolent passerby stopping to correct the toddler's path?

When then, does nonaction make sense?

I don't have the answer. I have thought about it though. My timeline for having it all figured out is somewhere out beyond Shavri's. Below are some considerations that have crossed my mind though.

________________________

Certain organic systems have the ability to achieve their own objectives. I've never tried to push a worm back down into its hole. I can imagine the mess that would result though. I have seen a worm on the surface crawl back under ground of its own accord. There are similar stories on the Internet, of a person trying to help a butterfly emerge from its cocoon, or a person trying to help a young plant to grow by tugging upwards on it.

______________________

Some non-living systems have the ability to self organize. The marketplace is one example. Adam Smith described it as being guided by an invisible hand. Such systems may be able to gather vast amounts of input data and integrate it. They may also have calculational abilities that far exceed that of a human mind. For more insight beyond a mystical invisible hand consider reading Ludwig Von Mises' century old essay on the problem of calculation in the socialist commonwealth.

If you want to experience how dangerous some of these ideas are, try describing Lao Zi's philosophy as laissez-faire. The old Sage has become something of a cult hero in some circles. I've seen gentle and peaceful demeanors drop in an instant, and be replaced by disturbing aggression and hostility when the image of the old sage was threatened by an assertion he might have expressed comprehensible economic ideas of this sort.

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Other highly complex systems have evolved without the guidance of a single human mind. Languages are a great example. Cultures are another.
 
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I live by simple rules.

If it aint broke, don't fix it.
If it needs assistance, give it what it needs.
If/when it does break, decide to refurbish or replace.

I've seen too many things ultimately ruined by the well meaning by trying to fix things that were not broken but working at less than 100%. Conversely, I've seen thing ruined by not getting enough attention when it was needed.
 
There is one thing, that I could describe as my sole element of faith in the universe. I don't think it's faith, though, because it's based on observation.

The universe keeps going. And since the universe keeps going, I conclude that the universe is a self-leveling mechanism, that it works to stay in balance.

I hope this means that things work out, but my conclusions could always be wrong. It's happened before.
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I believe that man is a part of the Earth, as all Earth organisms, by definition, must be. Does mankind drive more climate change than the the life form that comprises the largest biomass on the Earth (insects)? I don't know. But we, too, are a part of the system.

John
 
I have often wondered if it is even in man's power to destroy the Earth. Personally, I doubt it, when nature's power is so much greater than our greatest trifling efforts.

12346426_924620064292894_1771433670645945021_n.jpg
 
Really good to see you posting, John.

Happy Holidays.



Be gentle with yourselves.
 
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Spectre said:
I have often wondered if it is even in man's power to destroy the Earth. Personally, I doubt it, when nature's power is so much greater than our greatest trifling efforts.

12346426_924620064292894_1771433670645945021_n.jpg
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Agreed. It's easily within our power to destroy our own species, and quite a lot of others as well, but the planet as a whole is pretty safe for now. We may not be able to live on it, but something probably will.
 
That one event in the picture supposedly released more CO2 than mankind has released in all his existence.

I doubt that it's even in our power to destroy our own species, and certainly not "easily".
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Thank you, Kis. I hope you're well.

John
 
fact: entropy increases

still, we should try to leave things a little better than we found them, you know, for the kids...
 
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