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To: damniseedemons who wrote (18220)	3/26/1998 5:44:00 PM
From: Thure Meyer	Respond to of 24154

"the saddest part is that most still haven't learned this lesson. After all these years...." Exactly what lesson is that? We shouldn't innovate? No more R&D. Forget about any exploratory endeavors whatsoever. No more risk taking because its not the smart thing to do? Please explain how it works if no one wants to build a better mousetrap. Thure

To: damniseedemons who wrote (18220)	3/26/1998 11:19:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

>>>OK. A sad lesson for all of us techs that thought building the better mousetrap was the way to go, and went down the other road. Chaz, the saddest part is that most still haven't learned this lesson. After all these years....<<< I think the saddest part is that it once was true that the best idea would win out(before your recent germination, perhaps, young sprout! After all these years, indeed. :-). Somebody invented electric generators, telephones, airplanes, cars, combines, trains, powered ships, gas stoves, refrigeration, central heating (... !) and the people would see that was good and would buy. And the original inventors would profit, just as the founders of the country imagined it happening. We went to the moon, we invented antibiotics, we flew, we stopped having to clean up horse muffins in the city streets. It was a happening place. That it doesn't happen any more doesn't indicate that all the idealists and creative inventors should pack it in and hand things over to a new generation of sold-out wussies. It means we need to change the system again, to revolutionize it in some serious way so that we can get this stalled ship that is the modern technological democratic state moving again and benefiting the individual citizen. It used to be taken for granted that the reason for the system was to benefit the average person. This notion is embraced by the Constitution and the writings of the founders. A part of the freedoms they sought was the right of the individual to benefit from his or her creativity and labor. If we don't do things that way again, there are likely to be serious, not to say violently catastrophic, consequences. In these days when individuals have access to technologies both simple and complex to cause disruption and death, it is a very good idea even from the point of view of the Machiavellian corporate leader or politician to make the general population feel that they are making some progress. In fact they are not making progress, they are going downhill (save for perhaps the last 2-3 years, an unfortunately temporary respite) and the reaction to that is already bursting out all over. There is a very good reason, you know, that 3/4 of the people avoid voting in the average local election now, and less than 1/2 for president. They know the system is not their system, and they refuse to cooperate. Eventually this passivity will turn into something far uglier, and those fringe individuals who now mistakenly target the IRS or some other ethnic group as the source of their frustrating downhill slide will eventually develop more focus. The corruption of the engineering and technology professions is just one result of the leadership vacuum that prevails. I happen to think it's important, though. Cheerleading for the beneficiaries of this unfortunate downhill social spiral is the wrong thing to do. Although it makes for comfortable small talk at the country club. One of the things about this is that if you don't believe in the scenario it doesn't work (like object programming, or getting religion.:) It used to be our egalitarian vision of opportunities for all that was our strength. We drew things from that which the cynical offspring of the older and 'wiser' parts of the globe could never have. You have to believe in the paradigm, and to start that process you have to be willing to fight for it, or at least to speak for it. If the prevalent view becomes that only suckers play it straight, that nobody wins that truly innovates, that the smart thing to do is hang back and let somebody else take the chances, what do you get, eventually? Marcos, Mao, Hitler - and Boss Daley. So does this have anything to do with Microsoft or Netscape? Transparently. Cheers, Chaz