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From John at TexasBestGrok (who's blog turned 2 the other day - yay!):
Context: Insects are specialists (drone, workers, queens, etc), where humans are generalists.
The original Heinlein:
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.
Items I've done are in bold, notes and explanations follow.
* Change a diaper - cloth for the first child, disposable for the third, a mix for the middle kid.
* Plan an invasion - in real life a security exercise designed to steal nuclear weapons, on a gameboard for entire continents and galaxies.
* Butcher a hog - deer, pheasant and fish.
* Conn a ship - my Uncle's sailboat, which he sometimes sailed to Hawaii.
* Design a building - the largest that ever made it past the paper stage was a shed.
* Write a sonnet - I've written some pretty bad poetry, but no sonnets of any quality
* Balance accounts - enough to get by.
* Build a wall - wood, brick, and maybe stone next summer.
* Set a bone - a friend's broken finger, although I never want to have to do it again.
* Comfort the dying - I've been fortunate in my life.
* Take orders - thirteen years in the Air Force.
* Give orders - ditto.
* Cooperate
* Act alone
* Solve equations - it's not math... it's not math...
* Analyze a new problem - welcome to computer programming
* Pitch manure - and hay and ground oats (?), family with dairy farms
* Program a computer - my job.
* Cook a tasty meal - check.
* Fight efficiently - fight? yeah. won? yeah. lost? oh yeah.
* Die gallantly - more than once in a simulated fashion while doing security exercises for the Strategic Air Command.
Hey, that's more than I expected!
Posted by Ted at October 4, 2005 05:21 PM | TrackBack