Specialize or Generalize? Heinlein vs. Smith (Maybe)

[Fife]

Interesting question:

Specialize or Generalize? Heinlein vs. Smith (Maybe)

A lively discussion erupted at The Passive Voice about the validity of Heinlein’s famous passage from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” about generalization:

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

Which led to an intriguing rebuttal in the comments, pointing to Adam Smith’s emphasis on specialization in The Wealth of Nations and its importance to a healthy economy and efficient production. The discussion got a touch warm in the comments section.

[snip]

As I said over at PG’s place, I’m very, very lucky. I had the opportunities to learn a lot of things, and was forced at various times to make use of those skills. Today, few people seem to have those chances or teachers. Misplaced ideals encouraged schools to eliminated vocational training and everyone hammers “go to college! Get a STEM job,” even as they decry the lack of skilled trades. The dignity of skill and of having multiple baskets for one’s eggs has been devalued over the past 40 years or so.

I think it's always important to remember when reading that very familiar Heinlein quote that it was Lazarus Long who was speaking. Lazarus had a lot of time on his hands to learn new stuff, of course. :goteam:

I agree that it obviously takes a mix to get things right. I vehemently disagree that the proper mix is the subject of any central planning. Or any third-party planning at all, for that matter.

Comments?

[SuburbanFarmer]

It's more profitable to specialize, in an industrial system. Your work should be as specialized as possible. However, this is a perverse incentive to normal life, in which generalization is key to survival.

I think the best way to think about this would be Specialization > useful for large groups/projects. Generalization > useful for small groups/individuals.

[DrYouth]

It's more profitable to specialize, in an industrial system. Your work should be as specialized as possible. However, this is a perverse incentive to normal life, in which generalization is key to survival.

I think the best way to think about this would be Specialization > useful for large groups/projects. Generalization > useful for small groups/individuals.

Warrior, Cleric, Mage, Rogue...

We have been specializing since time immemorial... specialization with strong communication make the group greater than the sum of its parts.

It's at the level of super specializing and lack of inter-silo communication that we can and do go wrong...

Everyone being a generalist is an unnatural and impoverished ideal to aspire to.

[Martin Hash]

Since Lazarus Long is my role model, it's obvious which side I choose. From personal experience, our society only really allows you to be an expert in one or two things, after which they denigrate you. I am an EXPERT, by legal definition since I can testify as an "expert" in public court, in many things, but people treat me as if my expertise diminishes the more I add to it. This is irrational, obviously something psychological: people are envious & resentful of those who in comparison make them feel insignificant. ONE expertise you're allowed, but more than that, you're a self-centered dilettante who takes opportunities from other people who could do one job better.

[DrYouth]

Since Lazarus Long is my role model, it's obvious which side I choose. From personal experience, our society only really allows you to be an expert in one or two things, after which they denigrate you. I am an EXPERT, by legal definition since I can testify as an "expert" in public court, in many things, but people treat me as if my expertise diminishes the more I add to it. This is irrational, obviously something psychological: people are envious & resentful of those who in comparison make them feel insignificant. ONE expertise you're allowed, but more than that, you're a self-centered dilettante who takes opportunities from other people who could do one job better.

Mage/cleric/warrior/thief multiclass has always been a tough character to play....
Takes forever to level up.

[Martin Hash]

Mage/cleric/warrior/thief multiclass has always been a tough character to play....
Takes forever to level up.

Yeah, it does. An entire lifetime: "PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash, Wysest Myn in the Wyrld because the competition just ain't that tough."

[Speaker to Animals]

Specialization is human nature, but we need to encourage as much generalization as is feasible. Aside from the personal problems of over-specialization, over-specialization results in social and economic fragility, which is objectively a dangerous civilizational trait that should be minimized even if doing so is not the efficient or cost-effective practice, since over-fragility typically leads to civilizational collapse, historically.

[Fife]

Specialization is human nature, but we need to encourage as much generalization as is feasible. Aside from the personal problems of over-specialization, over-specialization results in social and economic fragility, which is objectively a dangerous civilizational trait that should be minimized even if doing so is not the efficient or cost-effective practice, since over-fragility typically leads to civilizational collapse, historically.

How is specialization human nature, though? Is it human nature, or a construct of the state?

I think I've asked you before in some discussion before, so if I'm repeating, sorry. Have you looked at https://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Thin ... 0812979680

I think you'd dig it the most.

[Speaker to Animals]

What Ido Portal says here about movement and fitness applies to academics as well.

[Speaker to Animals]

Specialization is human nature, but we need to encourage as much generalization as is feasible. Aside from the personal problems of over-specialization, over-specialization results in social and economic fragility, which is objectively a dangerous civilizational trait that should be minimized even if doing so is not the efficient or cost-effective practice, since over-fragility typically leads to civilizational collapse, historically.

How is specialization human nature, though? Is it human nature, or a construct of the state?

I think I've asked you before in some discussion before, so if I'm repeating, sorry. Have you looked at https://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Thin ... 0812979680

I think you'd dig it the most.

I missed this before. Specialization is human nature because we all excel at some tasks and suck at others. We tend to do what we are good at and avoid what we suck at. Furthermore, we get higher and more immediate rewards from specialization than we do from generalization. Over time, this makes for unbalanced people, both intellectually and (as Ido Portal pointed out in that video I posted previous to this post) physically.

Specialization should happen at the top of a pyramid, with lower-level skills and knowledge taking up a greater portion of who you are as a human being. But that's not what we do because we don't see the immediate rewards of building a balanced person. But it makes us vulnerable.

The issue of fragility is a much broader issue, however, but I do think over-specialization leads towards increased fragility in society. A more general human being can adapt faster and take new paths of learning when the old skills become less useful, for example. When this scales up to the social level, the entire society becomes more adaptable and robust. But when everybody is highly specialized, doesn't understand even the first principles of what everybody else is doing, then yeah, you have a fragile society.

Another way of looking at this is through the risk of compartmentalization. One of the famous examples of state-enforced compartmentalization occurred in Constantinople with the manufacture of Greek fire. Nobody after a generation of its invention knew how to make it. The process was divided up into separate tasks and people only learned specialized, compartmentalized tasks. This meant that, when the fragile system that was setup was disturbed through a sack of the city, Greek fire was lost to history. In a way, we have imposed that very fragility all across our society today. One disruption and all this can potentially fall apart, and we lost the ability to just get it back up and running once that happens.