PhiLOLsophy and jets.

Many people love shitting on philosophy because it has the tendency to come across as a luxury, especially in a bad economy, when focus turns toward efficiency and utilitarianism. I think a lot about that, because I firmly believe in the usefulness of philosophy as, not an impracticality, but an essential. I was having a conversation about why I care, an excerpt of which is below. (Note how grammatically lazy I get when I'm IM'ing. My blog readers are lucky they get full sentences, you spoiled tiny group of people, you.) After that I went off on a teeny bit of a tangent and came up with an extraordinarily flawed allegory that doesn't have much to do with phil specifically, though I think I picked up on the stupid idea that one major is more valuable than another, as well as why it's still important to understand the Why's--a huge reason I'm studying what I am.

"me: people form countries with certain ideological purposes and not matter how honest those are, they come into play. in everything. it runs from the top down so a lot of times it gets confusing to identify the sources but the sources do exist. we need systems behind our systems to make things run smoothly and explain why we're doing things, and most people have their own personal philosophies to fill that role. but personal philosophies can't run nations or drive cultures unless they're expanded upon. and if you don't know the ideology, the reasoning, behind the systems, you don't know enough about the systems to make them function like they should. so...I'm in the science of reasons?"

I'm not an aerospace engineer. I do, however, fly in airplanes. I see them as a safe form of transportation and I'm willing to put my trust in them even though I don't understand exactly how one is built, or all the physics that goes into designing or operating one. Why? Someone else does. We don't all need to be engineers because all we really need is to know that the people that are engineers understand and study what's going on. Now, I could decide that engineering shouldn't be a priority because I think that city government is more of a pressing issue. City government could be what gives or takes away my paycheck (yay taxes!), or provides my protection, and I certainly deal with my city government more than I deal with airplanes. In that case, why bother being an aerospace engineer when I could specialize in city law? It would have a more immediate effect. And besides, the airplanes are already built, all aerospace engineers would be doing for a good long while is debating what to add on to them or how to change their designs. We already have the engineers' blueprints for airplanes. We're all set.

Fast forward a few decades. City government has been made a priority, and a specialty in city law is utilitarian and attractive. With such an influx of minds, government on the city level has made huge advances and is a huge achievement for our community. Aerospace engineering, however, has dwindled in its comparative importance. Fewer and fewer people studied engineering until there were no engineers left. Why would they? We have planes. City government is what's really progressing. However, people still fly. For decades they've been using planes that are structurally sound and well-maintained according to previous instructions, but the world the planes are flying through has changed very much, whether because of fuel constraints or changing weather or vastly different customer demands. Much of it has stayed the same, though; people still want to fly to the same sorts of places and will always need bathroom access after that second bottle of Coke. The laws of physics don't change, but countless other variables do. Do you feel comfortable stepping into that plane? Do you think it is acceptable to put your faith in its ability to perform all its functions, knowing that there is no one--no one--who still studies the physics of it and understands the choices that have been made when building it? That plane may have been top of the line and very effective before, but now, decades later, its passengers are essentially stepping into an unknown, because they are trusting the understanding of dead men who based their reasoning on a set of requirements that may no longer exist. Would I get on the plane? I don't know. Most people probably would. I think, though, that I would want to be an engineer.

Update:

Cigars are delicious. Those are exempt, especially enjoyed once a month or so with a friend. Cigarettes are pretty filthy, though.