Random thoughts

I have been working a lot of hours the last couple of months, so I am having trouble with deep thoughts at the moment. So let's try some random ones.

Why are people surprised when something doomed to failure fails? Stock prices can't continue to go up, they must eventually fall - yet people are surprised when they do. Housing prices can't continue to go up, yet people were surprised when they fell. I have seen several companies try to implement software that their own tech people say can't work, yet they are shocked when it doesn't work. Sometimes I wonder what these people use for brains.

Speaking of failure why do people continue to build houses in flood plains? Why do the local governments let them? Sooner or later there will be a flood. Why set yourself up for a disaster?

Gun prices have become more than extravagant since Obama was elected. Everybody is expecting another assault weapons ban so they are stocking up. The price of ammunition is up too. It is indeed possible that there will be another weapons ban or restriction. Another silly piece of legislation. Even if the government went totally Hitleristic and banned all guns and ammunition people would still be able to have them smuggled in from other countries. It would just cost more. They outlawed cocaine and you can buy it on any street corner. If they outlaw guns it will be the same story. Every time we outlaw something people want we just make more opportunity for criminals to profit.

The Detroit Free Press will soon stop home delivery of papers every day. They will instead deliver on weekends and give subscribers access to an online version. Since I can get the same information from MSNBC or any of several other free sources I will be cancelling my paper soon. Which will of course mean they will cut back even further, which means even more people will cancel, and eventually they will either stabalize or go out of business. I expect some people will continue to get the paper just to line their bird cages.

I think I have run out of randomness for the moment. Maybe my next post will be more coherent. I have hopes that the frantic work pace will slow back to normal, while still keeping me employed.

Individuality

Having been in the workforce for 30 years I have been in and out of quite a few companies. One of the things that constantly amaze me is that all of these companies want people to think of new and innovative ways save money, solve problems, etc. and yet at the same time they punish individuality and independent thought. One of the more ironic things that I see is when companies celebrate their ethnic diversity, at the same time as they are trying to eliminate all intellectual diversity.

Part of the problem of course is that uniformity is easier to manage, so managers want uniformity even if that is at odds with the long term growth of the company. As I have said before, managers are paid for short term results and not long term.

Another part of the problem stems from the animal part of the human brain. In a herd/troup/gaggle of animals different often means diseased, so the different animal is kept apart from the group for the long term good of the group. So while the upper levels of our minds know that different is good the lower more animal parts still view the different individual with suspicion.

I have seen small but good companies fail because during the growth process they shed themselves of all of their harder to manage people. These were of course the very same people that had made the company a success. In most cases the company went on for another year or two then failed. One company did continue longer, but without its innovators it became yet another mediocor company, surviving but not growing.

I often hope to find some company that looks to the long term, one that recognizes the worth of individuals that are different. I haven't found it yet, but I keep hoping.

Ethics

I have been doing a lot of thinking about ethics lately, and haven't come to any solid conclusions. I think treating others fairly and as nicely as possible is the ideal, but it is also a concept that is at odds with the "natural order" of things (survival of the fittest and all that).

I need to do some more thinking, and will update this post when I can. I have been a bit busy surviving lately.

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Well after a great deal of thought on the subject I can't find any absolutes. It all comes back to do the best you can.

I had hoped to be able to find some universal way of looking at things, but the only way to know that you are doing the right thing requires perfect knowledge and that is impossible.

So I guess I will have to give up on this subject and move on to others.