I wasn't sure what you meant so...I looked it up.
Main Entry: wishy-washy
Pronunciation: 'wi-shE-"wo-shE, -"wä-
Function: adjective
Etymology: reduplication of washy
1 : lacking in character or determination : INEFFECTUAL <wishy-washy leadership>
2 : lacking in strength or flavor : WEAK <wishy-washy wines>
- wishy-wash·i·ness noun
Nope...still don't know what you mean. Thanks just the same for the complement about "fitting right in" though.
Oh Can-ada
da dee da da da da...
I'm working on it...eh?
Main Entry: wishy-washy
Pronunciation: 'wi-shE-"wo-shE, -"wä-
Function: adjective
Etymology: reduplication of washy
1 : lacking in character or determination : INEFFECTUAL <wishy-washy leadership>
2 : lacking in strength or flavor : WEAK <wishy-washy wines>
- wishy-wash·i·ness noun
Nope...still don't know what you mean. Thanks just the same for the complement about "fitting right in" though.
Oh Can-ada
da dee da da da da...
I'm working on it...eh?
:-)
- Redler
Joe Street
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hey Redler;
You're all wishy washy. Despite your engineering degrees! You should move to Canada. You'd fit right in.
J ;)
Michael Redler wrote:Martin,Necessity can be broadly defined by what is popularly needed in a civilization. Since "Necessity is the Mother of invention", it stands to reason that the path to any invention is paved by the civilization from which it came.The civilizations you mentioned were content with technical developments that required only what was immediately available to them from their environment. In my opinion that's something which our ambitious culture hasn't yet been able to appreciate.As E. F. Schuhmacher explained so effectively in his writing, the so called "modern world" and it's technology has often taken us in directions which does more harm than good.It's presumptuous to quantify the progress of civilization by a hand full of great inventors and assume that they have made the world a better place. I say this as someone who has two engineering degrees, a patent of my own and a wife who is a research scientist and a PhD. in Chemistry.I admire all the people mentioned in this thread plus many who have yet to be mentioned. However, to put things in perspective, one needs to ask if the work of particular inventors are a measure of progress in a civilization (irrespective of politics):Could any of these people have been able to do what they did without the work of their predecessors and the civilization from which they came? Should we be thankful for a passion which was beyond their control and grew from their own natural curiosity?Tesla and Edison represent two fundamental ideologies and a broad range of innovative thinking. Tesla, a theorist, would have not made the progress he did, without the work of people born (as much as four hundred years) before him like Newton, Pascal, Fourier, etc. Edison's assets surrounded him every hour of every day. He was inspired by and built upon every technology to which he was exposed, representative of every inventor which came before him.I think it's also important to mention that technology evolves with the priorities of our civilization. By that, I mean you can't judge people like Jonas Salk, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Wright Brothers or Richard Gatling until you've also judged those who used their inventions and examined the inventor's justification for it's development.If I boiled all this down to a single question, it would be:If we were able to measure the "success","progress",etc. of "the modern world", who would get the credit?Similar questions include:How high is up?How dark is gray?-Redler
Martin Kemple <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Question:
Why didn't most Native Americans, for example, master the wheel for
transportation on their own?
Why didn't the Chinese, for starters, invent internal combustion much
earlier than the opportunists who did?
And why didn't the Arabs, for instance, harness electricity much sooner
than the nitwits who stumbled onto it?
In other words: Why did it all take so dang long, and then all happen
seemingly at once?
-Martin K.[snip]
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