Tom Walker wrote:
>
> Brad McCormick wrote:
>
> >Our postmodernists have replaced
> >esthetic minimalism with ethical, cultural and political
> >minimalism: lower wages, less job security, less
> >"room for error", etc.
>
> As I read Brad's comment I recalled the term "fail safe". What ever happened
> to the fail safe? The short answer is that it has been downsized and
> re-engineered out of the system. With their "invisible hands" CEOs and
> shareholders pocketed the "savings".
[snip]
Many years ago, I once heard two industrial sociologists
lecture, Seymour Melman and Harley Shaiken. They were
"good guys". I forget which one of them said that there was
a rule of thumb (or maybe it was a "law"):
As the automation of a production process approaches 100%, the
downtime also approaches 100%.
They were in favor of human-mediated automation, where the worker
have the power to intervene at any point, and even in
the normal course of events would make fine adjustments.
It is fortunate that military avionic computers are immune from
software errors, since our most advanced military
aircraft (e.g., the F-117) are inherently unstable all the time in
all dimensions and therefore the only reason they
don't fall out of the sky each moment is that
the computer counteracts each problem before it gets too
big for the computer to correct. Not only does the pilot have no
mechanical linkage to the plane's control surfaces, but
if the pilot did have such a linkage it would
not help him. (Homework question: Is this a form of alienation in labor?)
--
If I may adduce a highly "overdetermined" phrase: "Ojala!"
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
