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Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Death of "Accident"

(Side Note: This series of posts is dedicated to those who are still interested in learning from their own actions.  Who want to be able to do this without criminal consequences.


Sure the actions below look dumb - but there's real physics that goes along with what you see.


Society has taken away the ability of young men to learn from their mistakes - in fact it does not all them any mistakes at all - because today "mistakes" makes you a criminal.


This series of posts is dedicated to showing that the world we live in today is a better place because of the kind of things depicted in the videos below.)

When I see this kind of thing there is only one question in my mind?
How bad will the ending be?

But the real question in today's world is if someone get's hurt will this be an "accident"?

Wikipedia defines accident as "a specific, unpredictable, unusual and unintended external action which occurs in a particular time and place, with no apparent and deliberate cause but with marked effects."

Unless you've watched both videos by this point can you predict exactly what's going to happen?

The merri-go-round might come off its mounting, somebody might fly out, the motor bike might catch the ground and take off, virtually anything could happen...

So after you watch these videos you see what is the presumed "unintended external action" - a guy flies off the merri-go-round - usually with spectacular results.

Forty years ago as a kid we used to see this kind of thing all the time - not this specific activity - but ones like it: a car full of what my grandfather used to call "snotfessers" (a word which until right now Google has no record of) would pull up along side you on your bicycle and give you a push, M-80's in a mail box, drag racing, and so on.

Sixty years ago in my father's generation similar things were done - motorized bicycles that could do sixty, "riding the rails", etc.

All of these things had "unintended external action" but rarely were they crimes.

In researching this I purchased a series of books containing reprints form a magazine called Popular Electronics.

This magazine, out of print now, was the direct cause for me being involved in computers and software over the last forty or so years (I've employed a lot of people because of this magazine).  My grandfather had a subscription and he would give me the old magazines when he was finished with them - this was in the mid to late 1960's.

One of my favorite features of the magazine was something called "Carl and Jerry" by John T. Frye  (I bought reprints of these stories as research for this blog).  Carl and Jerry are two fictional boys in the 1950's (were the series starts).  Both have a love of electronics, ham radio, building electronic projects, and getting into a bit of trouble.

Though not exactly the kind of trouble pictured in the videos above.  More like the "geek" version.  Waking up neighbors at night with loud noise, altering local weather, all kinds of things.  These two often have "accidents" with their attendant "unintended external action."

In the case of Carl and Jerry the results of these actions are for the purpose of education.  (Like the link to physics above they used their experiments to gain knowledge.)

As in "Why?" do the "unintended external actions" happen and what can be learned from them.

Today there are no longer "accidents" - only crimes.

Launch a homemade rocket and the FAA, FBI and black heliocopters will come to your door.

Build a radio transmitter with a bit too much power and pretty much the same will happen.

So, if you're a young male with a penchant of this sort of stuff what happens to you?

You stay home and play "Black Ops" or "Call of Duty".  Mom stays off your back and you don't end up with a police record.

In the 1960's my cousin and I did a lot of "Carl and Jerry" type stuff - often with explosives and electronics or combinations thereof.

We would be convicted terrorists today - and I mean that quite seriously - and we never got involved with really interesting projects...

But those same skills and passions helped me to employ hundreds of people over the last few decades.

And so the real question is why does society no longer value experimentation and innovation as it did fifty years ago?

Why is "safety" overriding virtually all aspects of life?

While Carl and Jerry may have triggered more than a few police visits during their fictional exploits no one saw their actions as criminal.  Ditto with my cousin and I.  Sometimes our parents used to watch what we did.

Safety has consequences just as recklessness.

Safety prevents you from gaining knowledge about what happens at the "limits" of some activity.

Safety limits the thrill - which may be the point of the activity.

Safety teaches that stepping "outside the box" should be avoided.

So our society is cutting off the very innovative actions that made it great.

The "Carl and Jerry's" of the world are retired today - and no one is taking their place.

Why?  Because when the police come to your home and see "Scientific Paraphernalia" from the front door (say a 1960's chemistry set) they can burst in, arrest you and take your science away.  Why?  Because you might be making meth or something dangerous.

Government bureaucrats are filling the void like little Dutch boys sticking their fingers in the dike of ideas: no, no that's not an accident, that's a crime.

No more rocket science (unless your a billionaire).

You see, "Carl and Jerry" always knew right from wrong, they had a mom upstairs from their basement lab that would beat the shit out of them if they really did something wrong.

And they knew this.

At the same time this "mom" also knew that her boys in the lab were learning what they could learn no where else - and with that knowledge came at least some objective danger.

She knew that they would grow up to apply this knowledge for the good of all.

Today's mom has traded away all of this so little Jr. can sit in front of a video game, probably created by a Carl or Jerry, eating processed cheese doddles and becoming obese.

I think today's kids got the bad end of this deal...

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