Two Kinds Of People

By Kleinheider Posted on September 22, 2008 at 6:38 am

Rex Hammock is a glass half full kind of guy:

Some of us view the world as physical scientists: we see everything breaking, declining and dying. We see that even about ourselves (and for most of us, our bodies are breaking as we age). We see it about institutions like government and media. We see it about our cities and our economies and our churches and schools — and all social structures. And some of us view the world as engineers: we see all things — especially broken things — as something that needs improving or fixing — and that can be fixed. And we start looking for the right tools.

We need scientists and we need engineers.

I love them both but I was wired to be an engineer.

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Tags: civilization on the downslope, polishing the brass on the Titanic, The End of The World As We Know It  

Coop For Strongman

By Kleinheider Posted on May 27, 2008 at 3:12 pm

Sean Braisted, after listening to a presentation given by Congressman Jim Cooper, notes the correlation between our system of government and our economic problems:

Perhaps this is a problem inherent within a democratic republic. Politicians are making decisions based on the ‘feelings’ of their constituents rather than hard-headed statistical data. As an example, China wouldn’t dare think about mothballing a multi-billion dollar project like Yucca Mountain because a few local residents had irrational fears…yet in our system of government if enough people have irrational fears, they are then justified by political leaders who put re-election above the good of our nation as a whole.

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Tags: Budget, Democracy, Generation FUBAR, Jim Cooper, The End of The World As We Know It