No, not so that we can "relate" or "keep the peace", but so that we know what problem is being solved. In order to delegate, you have to know *something* about why you're delegating, right? As Steve tried to point out with the "form leads/follows function" and his talk about a well-stated problem, in order to delegate, say, "fix my car", I have to know that the car is the problem. If, for example, the real problem is that I don't know how to drive the car, there's nothing the mechanic will be able to do to "fix it" because the car's not the problem. (My mom once drove her Tbird until it completely ran out of oil. 8^O)
So, we have to have some practical understanding of the skills needed in order to a) choose who to delegate to and b) to even know that delegation of something is needed. Of course, if I read you empathetically, I can admit that a lot of rhetorical weight sits in the word "practical". What does it mean to have a practical understanding of, say, welding or brain surgery? But I'd counter argue that a practical understanding of welding can stop at, say, an inventory of the tools needed and some of the safety practices ... just enough to prevent your motorcycle from exploding and to recognize whether you're being ripped off by the welder. That's a "practical" understanding of welding, to some extent. You don't have to be able to weld to have a practical understanding of welding. But to be clear, that's what this thread is all about: can we (should we) characterize an individual by circumscribing what they do? Is such circumscription even *possible*? And to what extent do we damage their personhood by abstracting and idealizing away all the gory detail into some characteristic equation of that person? ... is a person roughly spherical in problem space? Or are they a super complicated, high dimensional, unsimplifiable foam? On 3/6/19 7:23 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > If person with skill 1 delegates to individuals with distinct skills 2 and 3 > and person with skill 3 delegates to individuals with skills 4 and 5 the kind > of overlap of the kind you mention still can occur. If developing any > these skills takes decades, why is it important that everyone have some > practical understanding of the other skills? More importantly, why should > we ever want to decrease the total number of skills? So that we can > `relate' to one another and keep the peace (be luddites)?
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