Corporate Problem Solving -- the sixth minute

This morning I was listening to the BBC on NPR radio, and a new book on problem solving in difficult situations was presented.  They used the analogy of a battle plan, which only lasts the first five minutes of the battle. Then, people have to explore the unknown, to solve the new problems being presented.  They discussed the strategies that must be employed to deal with the unknown, how a corporation should be set up to deal with these unknown uncertainties that must be quickly regulated and controlled.  They said that the human element must be employed, using the example of a specific person knowing a specific repairman who could quickly repair an essential machine on demand.  They said that it was very important for everyone to know that they were not alone, and that the corporation would be behind them in their decisions, and would work with them, and respect them. Notably, they used the example of Apollo 13, and now NASA managed to bring home three astronauts despite the fact that an explosion had rendered the spacecraft largely untenable, and forced them to abort the primary mission of landing on the Moon.  They observed that the average age of the NASA engineers involved in solving this problem was only 26, so, immense actual life experience was not required. Now, the example of Apollo 13 is very interesting, and is often cited as an illustration of how victory can be seized from the jaws of defeat.  Ron Howards's excellent film with Tom Hanks from 1995 is a prime example of how this particular space mission has been interpreted by a great many people.  A triumph of American engineering excellence. Let me explain how I perceived Apollo 13 at the time of the event, as an eleven year old boy, very enthusiastic about science, the space program and NASA.  I was absolutely stunned by their incompetence.  I couldn't believe how anyone could possibly take any of this seriously anymore. They were building multi-billion dollar exploding tin cans that weren't good for anything, certainly not conquering or exploring outer space.  And, of course, Apollo 13 did curtail the Apollo program itself by several missions, we haven't be back to the Moon since Apollo 17, and there's no indication that we will be there again anytime soon, NASA fantasies like the Artemis program, or the ambitions of the CCP space program notwithstanding.  It's too expensive and dangerous, we spent the equivalent of hundreds of billions of dollars in today's money, for nothing whatsoever, in terms of actual human progress.  Fundamentally new technological approaches to space travel will have to be developed, approaches we simply do not understand yet, and have not attempted yet, before manned space travel becomes a viable commercial possibility. Now, all of this is, I believe, perfectly obvious.  So, given that, why do people see the Apollo 13 mission as having been a great success, and use it as an ideal model for how corporations should function to deal with practical, real world problems?   I think, if anything, Apollo 13 was an effort in damage control, and, certainly, corporations deal with a lot of damage control.  Corporations make mistakes, terrible, disastrous mistakes, but, they want the corporation itself to survive.  Corporations are like living organisms, they seek to survive and grow and expand, to replicate themselves and their control structures, over, and over again.  If an employee is unwilling to accept this, they cannot function as an employee within the structure of the corporation.  Corporations do not concern themselves with human beings as individuals, except insofar as it is necessary to do so, in order to use them effectively to expand the power and size of the corporation itself.  Corporations do not care about the desires, aspirations, goals or imagination of individuals.  Corporations do not care about humanity itself, except as humanity serves to maintain the corporation itself, and increase its power.  Apollo 13 represented an absolute failure in terms of the goal of human beings conquering outer space, but, the fact that the three astronauts did survive, may well have helped NASA to survive as a government agency, or corporation.  And, fundamentally, survival is what corporations are all about.  Indeed, NASA desperately tried to pitch the failure of Apollo 13 as a success, for this specific purpose -- their institutional survival.  This is something that all corporations can relate to.   The observations of the BBC program about these ideal strategies emphasized that inexperience was no obstacle, an average age of 26 worked fine.  Indeed, inexperienced people are much easier to control and program, so, actually, experience is by no means desirable in assisting a corporation to survive.  The "human element" is reduced to merely knowing the name of a repairman -- no insight, imagination, inspiration are required ever, at all.  This aligns well with Thomas Edison's truly bizarre claim that "genius" is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration.  We don't want you to think, we want you to do what you're told, of course, to serve the corporation!   Actually, genius is 90% inspiration, 10% perspiration, and, I'm quite sure Thomas Edison was well aware of this, he was a very shrewd man.  However, Edison didn't really want other people to believe this, it might reduce his control over them!  Edison was a corporation man, of course. The BBC program stated that the support of other people in the corporation was essential for optimum performance.  But, true insight is always individualistic and intuitive.  What do we need the support of other people for, to promote ideas and intuition?  We don't! What this BBC program was really about, was the desire of corporations to control other people, and the desire of corporations to survive and increase their power, at all costs.  "Efficient performance" simply means serving the corporation, as an end in itself.  And, this highlights the fundamental conflict and confrontation between the individual and all corporate systems and units, throughout all of human history. #economics #business #corporations #capitalism #economictheory #philosophy #edison #thomasedison #invention #engineering #ai #apollo13 #nasa #philosophyofhistory #spacetravel #problemsolving #metaphysics #psychology #psychoanalysis #individualism #conflict #humanconflict