[Themaintainers] Fwd: Seth's Blog : Maintainers
Ishi Crew
mediaentropy at gmail.com
Mon Nov 11 05:10:14 EST 2019
Comments:
1. I have seen but don't read that blog---marketing is not my thing
(advertizing, management, etc.)
But that post and your reply both make sense to me.
Seth does give 'wiggle room' to switch back and forth between
'disrupting', innovating, exploring, practicing, experimenting, and taking
care of business---maintaining.
He does say its hard so most people choose one role.
For example, a mother and father may maintain a house, raise children,
have jobs as maintainers--drive a bus, do construction, be a beurocrat at
the IRS or census, be a librarian---while their children many turn out to
be 'disruptors' --Einstein, Ramanujan, Zuckerberg, Gates, Mick Jagger,
Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X...even famous criminals (who later serve as
inspirations for creative novelists and filmmakers--who are disruptors of
things like ;'traditional cultural values'--but who employ alot of
maintainers as well in places like Hollywood.)
(Harriet Tubman was both a maintainer and a disruptor---she served in US
military in civil war---'maintained the USA as a country '--- and also
'disrupted' the institution of slavery (eg worked with John Brown).
You sort of need both---the internet wouldn't exist without einstein and
Ramanujan--who had hard times finding jobs, often were judged as 'cranks',
lazy, and incompetent (especially Ramanujan) by professional math and
science people .
And it wouldn't exist wtihout the people such as their parents, and those
who did the internet work or manufacturing, maintaining, and non-disruptive
technical work like programming.
(Alot of programming as math or computer language looks on the surface
similar to what einstein and Ramanujan did ---but its
different---programmers' are following the rules made up by the
disruptors, and those new rules essentially built on previous rules--but
broke them.
Both Ramanujan and Einstein's work 'danced with infinity' and made up
new rules for infinity. Einstein borke Newtons rule and said light could
not travel at infinite speed.
Ramanujan dealt alot with infinite series, including some involving
proving things like
1+2+3+4+....+infinfity = -1/12.
(Who would have guessed that if you keep adding all the numbers you get
a negative number--billionaires might want to keep that in mind.)
It can also be noted that disruptors usuallly are to some extent
maintainers--einstein did have a 'regular job' for awhile, and people like
Ramanujan who 'don't seem to do anything' except sit on their mom's porch
and scribble, do 'maintain the peace' a bit .
My area has quite a few poor and semi-homeless people who seem not to do
anything, but in general they don't require alot of maintainers working as
police, courts, and prisons .
(I read it costs $75,000/yr to keep someone in jail in California, which
is more than tuition at Harvard. That doesn't include other costs like
transporting them to prison, or any side effects if they caused a social
problem --some crimes do not cause many --eg someone drinking a 2$ beer on
the street or selling single cigarettes, as opposed to going to a bar and
getting a beer for 6$ , or going through the beurocracy of getting a sales
liscense for cigarettes. .
Of course liscense offices and bars employ lots of maintainers, and some
people object to people drinking outside--seen as 'disruptive ' of social
order.
In my area, some people even view people who don't attend church as
disruptors; same is true for people who don't vote).
I know unemployed people who basically maintain their family property
--which can be alot of work (eg on an old house). But they are often seen
as shiftless, on the dole, non -contributors to society.
There are many paid in this area doing the same sort of work---fixing up or
maiantaining old properties. Most of those jobs are essentially reserved
for immigrants, who are willing to work for a lower wage, and also will
work very hard and have skills. Some of the native born people refuse to
take these 'maintenance jobs'--some would rather sell illegal drugs or live
off handouts.
One can add some 'maintenance work' is essentially serving as a
'gatekeeper' ---people decide who gets in, and who doesn't. There are
entire academic and other buerocracies devoted to this (college admissions
offices, standardized test makers , etc. ) not to mention secuirty guards
etc. (I've heard the amount of GDP spent on 'security' (which now includes
cybersecurity) is is the 100s of billions$. Probably 15% of houses in my
area have sings on the lawn saying something like 'protected by
surveillance camera'. (The local governemnt will actually pay for these
--give them out for free---in certain areas.)
2. To me the big question is what should be the proportion of maintainers
versus innovators/disruptors, and also to what extent or whether everybody
should do a bit of both. (As noted, many maintainers also do some
disrupting-- they may be family people, a few are even employed in
'secular' churches like unitarians, but on the side they may go somewhere
and get arrested in a 'disruptive protest'. (eg people worried about
climate change who block roads, etc.)
I'm into music, and some fields of math and science. I'm not very
competent at either , and also my approaches to music and math/sciences are
what would be called 'disruptive'.
I break or bend every rule in music, and the same is true for my
math/science.
Because i realize both my limitations, and also that my own 'disruptive' or
'innovative' stuff is somewhat far from the mainstream, i have done many
temporary maintenance jobs (construction, repair, security, cleaning, elder
care, child care, tutoring ...). I've also lived off of social services
and handouts.
The 'gatekeepers or 'maintainers' who maintain places which allow music to
be bought and sold, and science/math papers to be published and hence with
a chance to be read and even awarded with some sort of monetary reward (eg
a research grant , teaching job, or student scholarship) , basically in my
experience have kept me 'outside the gate'.
(My area has alot of 'far right', ''fundamentalist protestant and
catholic religious' , 'chinese, russian, and US government (NPR)
subsidized' radio stations.
Lots of 'maintainers' keep those radio stations on the air.
I can turn on the radio and hear stories about terrible things like
how mainland china is invading hong kong , and the next station tells
terrible stories about how the 'freedom fighters' of hong kong are standing
up to a chinese invasion, or the upcoming gun shows featuring people from
the NRA held in spotless convention centers and selling 1000s of different
kinds of guns, shows about hate crimes against gays and trans people,
others about discrimination against gays and trans people, one about how
the 'gay agenda' and pro-abortion people are destroying western
civilization, ones about racism and 'reverse-racism' by supporters of
everyone from L Farrakhan to the 'proud boys/alt right'.
Maintainers help keep all these talk radio stations up and running--which
are platforms for talk show hosts, who also have often lavish and expensive
conferences and trips to large resorts, or convention centers. or
universities. (i've been to a few academic ones on science topics. Lots of
maintenance--spotless floors, excellent sound and video systems , sometimes
very good free food (with lots of fruit and vegetables --since i'm not into
meat).
I view the content of many of these radio stations as not worth
maintaining except in the dustbin of history---keep it in the Llibrary of
Congress, or digitize it.
Alot people in my area are employed in 'street and park cleaning'---pick
up trash---this is also a kind of employment for people with 'petty
criminal offences'. They get a community service sentence rather than jail
term. Half of this work would be unnecesary if people just used the many
trash cans in this area, rather than throw trash on the ground. Some of
them basically dont care possibly because they feel noone cares about
them--possibly for good reasons and possibly not.)
Many of these maintainers/gatekeepers in music and math/science in my view
actually to an extent 'don't do anything'----they just look at things like
dress code, whether a paper is properly formatted,and uses a standardized
form for things like references and equations, whether your musical
instrument is 'tuned correctly' and is a high end (expensive ) brand.
They 'judge the book by its cover'. They don't read books past the cover,
or if they don't understand a book (or music) then they decide its not a
book or music.
(The same is true for some police --- they decide who to charge as a
criminal, and who to let go---even if the people involved are doing the
same thing. Some say they 'judge a book by its color')
2.
1. I'm neither a maintainerm or a disr
On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 8:01 PM Mike Roy <roymichaeldonald at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Fellow Maintainers,
>
> I'm not sure if many of you follow the blogging of Seth Godin. He is a
> marketing/internet kind of guy who writes about the new economy and how to
> get ahead in it. When I read his writings, I often think of what Kant had
> to say about Hume: "He awakened me from my dogmatic slumbers." I disagree
> with nearly everything Godin has to say, but I find it helpful to confront
> these ideas on a regular basis, and to grapple with exactly why it is that
> I find his suggestions so toxic.
>
> With that as preamble, below is his latest posting, where he encourages us
> to be disruptors, not maintainers.
>
> My response to this:
>
> Dear Seth, I got your blog post. It arrived in my inbox just like it does
> every day. How did it make it there? Via the work of maintainers. The folks
> who keep the operating system on your computer working. The folks at your
> ISP who keep the internet running. The folks running the servers where you
> store your blog posts.Ditto for the system you use to send out these email
> blasts. And of course the same is true as your thoughts made their way to
> me via my ISP and onto my phone. All of this incredible infrastructure only
> works because people show up day in and day out and keep it working. The
> folks doing this work probably aren't "dancing with infinity" on a daily
> basis, but I assure you that the binary you've set up between maintainers
> and disruptors is WAY more complicated than your post suggests. Check out
> http://themaintainers.org/ to learn more.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Seth Godin <notify at sethgodin.com>
> Date: Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 4:47 AM
> Subject: Seth's Blog : Maintainers
> To: roymichaeldonald <roymichaeldonald at gmail.com>
>
>
> School trains people to work as maintainers. “The sculptures are all here
> in the gallery, make sure they are still here at the end of the shift… The
> floor is clean when you start, make sure it's clean when you finish… The
> policy manual has seven ...
>
> Maintainers
> <https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/609077766/0/sethsblog/posts~Maintainers/>
>
> School trains people to work as maintainers. “The sculptures are all here
> in the gallery, make sure they are still here at the end of the shift… The
> floor is clean when you start, make sure it’s clean when you finish… The
> policy manual has seven rules in it, please don’t break them… The next ten
> patients are going to need allergy tests…” There are customers to be
> served, standards to be maintained, work to be done. Important work, no
> doubt, but not thrilling.
>
> A few people somehow avoid these lessons and become instigators,
> impresarios and disruptors instead. They’re not only dancing with infinity
> but completely unsure what’s going to work, and yet they are hooked on
> leaping forward.
>
> I think it’s possible to switch from one posture to the other. I know that
> it’s incredibly difficult, though.
>
> Choose wisely.
> <https://feeds.feedblitz.com/_/2/609077766/sethsblog/posts>
> <https://feeds.feedblitz.com/_/16/609077766/sethsblog/posts>
> <https://feeds.feedblitz.com/_/24/609077766/sethsblog/posts>
>
> …
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