Thread: is technique the core of a society?

Intriguing, I found most people educated in modern technique atmosphere seems to treasure technique as the very core of a society, such as most people in this forum and fewer child in my country(China).
Of cause, the technique here I referred is not only physics, chemical, mathematics and so on..., it is also including social technique, such as economy system, social system, military policy.
I don't know whether you ever found it yourselves, when you found a problem, in my eyes you will always try to modify the corresponding technique to re-constrain people and deeply believe the new technique can also fit other society when they face the similar problems. This makes great importance of the new technique, and meanwhile lower down the importance of other possible technique. The examples like democracy problems, terrorists problems, international trading problems.........
And it made me to consider you treasure the technique more than your aims.

I tell you what I see the technique, it is just some tools like knife and pen. We use some technique when it is suitable. Technique itself do not have any properties like good or bad, advance or fall behind. The only criterion is suitable.
So without very detailed circumstance, all technique means nothing to me., especially in social techniques.

What you think?

I really have no idea what you mean by "modern technique."

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

I really have no idea what you mean by "modern technique."

Well, I mean the technique system established after Renaissance, by the west world.
I thought it is common sense.
Maybe it is not necessary to mention 'modern' to you....
So you know...'modern' is to compared with the techniques in ancient China and Arab and that in Maya, Black Africa.... Techniques in all these cultures are somehow not compatible with the 'modern technique' such as physics, chemical, mathematics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics ...and so on. They are not modern.

I'm not sure we are all that different as we perhaps think we are. For example you mentioned military policy--we certainly didn't apply a lot of empirical evidence to the last reason the US went to war for example. And once we went we certainly didn't go under prepared to beat the Iraqi army in the type of calculus of force that probably resembled that of deploying Roman legions. Other than having more information and computational power are we all that different?

Perhaps some examples?

Originally Posted by wangwy13

This makes great importance of the new technique, and meanwhile lower down the importance of other possible technique. The examples like democracy problems, terrorists problems, international trading problems.........
And it made me to consider you treasure the technique more than your aims.

I agree with you that this is true, but I think you must understand that "technique" as you call it, is like a factory. For example, in the automobile industry it is better to focus on improving the quality of your automobile factories than it is to focus on improving the cars themselves, because improving the factory naturally improves the cars that are produced from it.

Americans like to focus on improving our methods because that solves the problems of the future just as much as it solves the problems of the present. And... for Americans... the future is the only thing that is important.

I tell you what I see the technique, it is just some tools like knife and pen. We use some technique when it is suitable. Technique itself do not have any properties like good or bad, advance or fall behind. The only criterion is suitable.
So without very detailed circumstance, all technique means nothing to me., especially in social techniques.

What you think?

The problem with this is that the quality of your knives and pens will never improve if you keep discarding them when you no longer want them. Instead it is better to stick with one tool and perfect it, or at least stick with one set of tools and take good care of them. Guard them well.

It is very short-sighted to focus only on the task at hand.

Lynx_Fox,

Sorry, examples here:
Take Iraq War you mentioned. The Iraq war break nearly all the restrict on how to fight a war, just like the Poland Lightning War. As Rumsfeld believes, when faced with a so weak gov and its army(Saddam), full conflict is not necessary and precision strike can effectively end the war. So Rumsfeld modified the conventional war theory, and developed the concept of precision strike as the core technique to finish Iraq War. The US army in Iraq and Afghanistan carried out this theory very carefully.
But as we all know, these two wars are not so perfect. The new technique defeat the regular army, while it can't bring peace. You can defeat enemies and get control of one country on horses, but you can't govern the country on horses, it was said thousand years ago in China. "Precision Strike" is quite good a technique, but if stick to it to bring Iraq peace, that is not wisdom. The true problems in Iraq should be noticed, that is poverty, little education and strong religious emotion. "Precision Strike" is only suitable to Republican Guard. As we see, at least in this example, the technique oriented solution changed little.


Kojax,
'Factory' is quite interesting, to some degree I agree with you. Although, I still have questions, 'improving the factory' is quite wide, you mean the manufacture technics, the production conditions or salary or maybe the combination of all these?
As I see, manufacture technics seems to be the most important to most USA operating enterprise. While that can't stop so many recalls, a lot of which are coursed by careless and lack of test.
And what is a 'good' car? Faster, safer, smaller or better looking?
I don't think a best car will be good to Black African, simply too expensive.

'Stick with one tool and perfect it' is important, but more important is to know why using this tool not others. Methodology should be more precious than methods itself. Also aim-oriented view(I think the other view we talked can be named this) is not 'focus only on the task at hand'. It's only more flexible, meanwhile maybe a little less effective for the 'stick' problem do exist more or less.



I do not want to compare things to get a strict answer which is better which is worse. I just want say something never come to our minds, and maybe they are important. In some examples, ignore that things may do harm. And right now, I think the western politics and economics do lack some of flexibility.

Originally Posted by wangwy13

Lynx_Fox,

Sorry, examples here:
Take Iraq War you mentioned. The Iraq war break nearly all the restrict on how to fight a war, just like the Poland Lightning War. As Rumsfeld believes, when faced with a so weak gov and its army(Saddam), full conflict is not necessary and precision strike can effectively end the war. So Rumsfeld modified the conventional war theory, and developed the concept of precision strike as the core technique to finish Iraq War. The US army in Iraq and Afghanistan carried out this theory very carefully.
But as we all know, these two wars are not so perfect. The new technique defeat the regular army, while it can't bring peace. You can defeat enemies and get control of one country on horses, but you can't govern the country on horses, it was said thousand years ago in China. "Precision Strike" is quite good a technique, but if stick to it to bring Iraq peace, that is not wisdom. The true problems in Iraq should be noticed, that is poverty, little education and strong religious emotion. "Precision Strike" is only suitable to Republican Guard. As we see, at least in this example, the technique oriented solution changed little.

Yeah. America doesn't know how to deal with anarchist cultures very well. Historically, our most effective method has been to simply wipe them out entirely and then either settle in the area ourselves, or bring another law abiding culture in to settle for us.

The people of a culture like Afghanistan expect you to stand over them with a gun and tell them what to do like you're their mother. But, Americans are good at obeying the law even if nobody points a gun at them. That's why the western expansion during the 1800's was such a success. The USA perfected the art of self government, and now we want to share it with others. But...maybe it isn't even possible to share it with them. Maybe we're wasting our time even trying?

Kojax,
'Factory' is quite interesting, to some degree I agree with you. Although, I still have questions, 'improving the factory' is quite wide, you mean the manufacture technics, the production conditions or salary or maybe the combination of all these?
As I see, manufacture technics seems to be the most important to most USA operating enterprise. While that can't stop so many recalls, a lot of which are coursed by careless and lack of test.
And what is a 'good' car? Faster, safer, smaller or better looking?
I don't think a best car will be good to Black African, simply too expensive.

The technique is the big deal. The specific kind of car is irrelevant. Once you've optimized your assembly procedure, any kind of car you choose to build will be inexpensive and have a high quality.

'Stick with one tool and perfect it' is important, but more important is to know why using this tool not others. Methodology should be more precious than methods itself. Also aim-oriented view(I think the other view we talked can be named this) is not 'focus only on the task at hand'. It's only more flexible, meanwhile maybe a little less effective for the 'stick' problem do exist more or less.

You think maybe America's problem is that we have too narrow a selection of tools at our disposal? A good carpenter, or mechanic, or plumber has many tools in their toolbox, not just one. Maybe America is trying to solve everything with just a wrench, and no screw drivers or hammers. That could be a serious problem with us.