[Themaintainers] Why Do People Neglect Maintenance?

Thu Aug 1 07:56:09 EDT 2019

“Who wants to spend their lives doing  maintenance repairing problems that shouldn't exist in the first place?”

Good question!

From: themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu <themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> On Behalf Of Ishi Crew
Sent: Thursday, August 1, 2019 12:57 PM
To: lee vinsel <lee at themaintainers.org>
Cc: Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
Subject: Re: [Themaintainers] Why Do People Neglect Maintenance?

I commented on the blog post.  While i am sympathetic to views such as 'socialism', 'anti-capitalism' , 'degrowth', 'peace not war', 'democracy' , 'green new deal',  'bs jobs', 'unconditional  basic income',  and even 'environmentalism', and I know these are popular terms or  'brand names' or slogans people can rally behind, I think they are a bit too too vague to   be very useful apart from  some short term protest or social movement.

  (The comment about the  US Chamber of Commerce I fully agree with ---not a good group, with a long track record  of bad behavior--e.g. Arch Coal in WV.)

The one thing lacking in discussions about 'maintenance' is 'exactly what should be maintained?', and also who should do it, how do you decide?  There was a mention of Russ Roberts and a cleaning woman at a conference;  I've been to many conferences, and cleaning staff---a form of maintenance---are rarely invited to the conference.   Usually cleaning staff do one form of maintenance, while students, professors, and people in think tanks or NGOs are seen to do another form of 'maintenance' --eg write papers about how to optimally organize the world.  Often they leave out of their analyses things like cleaning, and maintenance workers such as cleaning staff.  And this is discussed in point 8 of the blog post.

I'm all for empirical and analytical study of these issues---which I view as part of 'system science' or 'complexity theory'.   But these are not just theoretical issues; they are practical ones as well.  And you have to 'cross the t's and dot the i's'.  Deal with every issue--not just organizing conferences, funding NGOs,  and publishing papers.

 My area is riddled with problems of violence, poverty, addiction, inequality, intolerance, pollution, consumerism, and health---and its where the maintainers conference is scheduled to be if i recall (Trinity college).
    (I haven't really decided whether to attend although its local--it may be unaffordable for me, and I'm not part of the 'in crowd' who goes to these conferences.  I'm more a part of the 'out crowd' who are discussed at the conferences--the social problems outside on the street, who are rarely asked what might be relevant to solve their problems--which they will often acknowledge they have, but feel they are powerless to do  anything  about-and are often labelled as mentally ill or unstable, psychopathic, antisocial, irresponsible, uneducated and unintelligent, incompetent, non-empathetic, pathetic etc.  )

People in 'out crowds' (just like the 'in crowd' ) just 'maintain' --try to keep their sanity and their lives, and most try to avoid causing harm and stay out of trouble.   (Alot of 'maintenance' goes into things like prisons, criminal justice system, police and health care---all of which deal with problems which are likely mostly preventible. Who wants to spend their lives doing  maintenance repairing problems that shouldn't exist in the first place? )

On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 10:10 AM lee vinsel <lee at themaintainers.org<mailto:lee at themaintainers.org>> wrote:
Hey, everybody.

The three Maintainers co-directors - Andy Russell, Jess Meyerson, and I - pulled together a blog post laying out the factors/explanations we often hear about why maintenance is neglected.<http://themaintainers.org/blog/2019/7/30/why-do-people-neglect-maintenance> As is often the case these days, this post attempts to echo back what we've been hearing from others - including all the folks on this list!

And as always, we are especially keen to hear feedback from you all. We're hoping this post kickstarts discussion about how to think and theorize about and empirically study these issues. Please give us feedback in anyway you see fit - in the blog comments, on Twitter, via private/direct messages, such as email, and ESPECIALLY on this list!!! :-)

Hope everyone is doing well.

Lee

--
Co-Director
The Maintainers
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