I don't love him, but he had a way with words.

[thebitterguy]

While visiting some friends recently, this quote came to my mind:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

I was half tempted to pick up The Notebooks of Lazarus Long while book shopping.

Comments

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and you often get people who get someone else to change a diaper, think they can plan an invasion, believe they could butcher a hog, think they can conn a ship or design a building, write a spectacularly bad sonnet, balance accounts with grevious errors, build a shoddy wall, set a bone poorly, comfort the dying inanely, take orders badly, give orders flippantly, cooperate sullenly, act alone incompetently, solve equations incorrectly, superficially analyze a new problem to arrive at the wrong solution, pitch manure for five minutes before getting winded, program a computer with bug-ridden unmaintainable code, cook a tasty meal for the dogs to enjoy, fight efficiently and get beaten up, and die shitting one's pants and begging for mercy. :)

[thebitterguy]

Hopefully not all at once, though. And hopefully they could do at least one of them correctly.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

But who can do those well?

[thebitterguy]

Most people probably couldn't. Remember, it's written from the POV of an immortal libertarian, so he's somewhat insane.

[kinra.livejournal.com]

A specialist!

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Sorry Bob, we are the bugs.

Now put on your exoskeleton and go die for the military-industrial hive. I mean, complex.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

DO those Notebooks actually exist to be bought?

Off to find out...

And as for the virtue of competent generalization...it's just that: a virtue.

[thebitterguy]

I saw a copy in the bookstore the other day, so I know it's been out there, at least.

And it's really easy to be a generalist when you live forever, as is the case with Mr. Long.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

True enough.

I guess it's time to check chapters.ca again...

[thebitterguy]

Chapters shows it out of stock/print, but Amazon.ca has it listed as available.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

Hey, I can do most of that! I'll submit that doing anything on a ship isn't much of a useful skill in Ohio. :)

[thebitterguy]

I'll submit that doing anything on a ship isn't much of a useful skill in Ohio.

There is that. Probably he'd substitute something to do with laying railroad track or something.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

It's Lazarus Long. When he says "ship", he means something with rockets.

[thebitterguy]

And fins!

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Isn't Ohio a Great Lake State? (My command of US geography isn't stellar, but I thought it bordered on either Lake Michigan or Ontario, no?)

[thebitterguy]

Actually, yeah, Erie. It caught fire once.

Fire it up, etc, etc.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was the Cuyahoga River that caught fire, but The Crow was set in Detroit, not Cleveland.

But northern Ohio does indeed border Lake Erie, and both Toledo and Cleveland (my hometown and my current residence) are on the lake. So, yeah.

But I still say that shipping isn't as useful now as in the past, so "change the oil on one's car" might be a better substitute. I know how to do that. "Take car to Jiffy Lube, etc." :)

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Or, indeed, Lake Erie. Told you I wasn't much for US geography... 8)

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I wonder how many of those things Mr Heinlein could, himself, do.
In short -- was he doing his part?

[thebitterguy]

Oh, I sincerely doubt he could do all of them; it would probably be lots of work to be able to do all of them, much less do them well.

[thebitterguy]

And, as I remembered later, it was written from the POV of an immortal Libertarian, so it's not exactly feasible.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to quote back David Tudor: "Where is the should?" :D