The Paradox of Control

I can sort of see what the author is getting at. Learning to “let go” is hard is a learned skill. That said, “Control” has become a loaded term IMHO. If you believe that humans have some level of free will and agency, then it stands to reason that maximising control may be achieved thru proper risk management. To use the author’s example (and at the risk of sounding crass), don’t get on a helicopter and you won’t die in a helicopter crash! Science, reason and technology can be leveraged to optimise for locus of control. Dan Dennett makes a good case for this.<p>P.S. Site’s DDOS’ed, so here’s a snapshot. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;9bikG" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;9bikG</a>

We shouldn&#x27;t control because fear could be our primary motivator??<p>There&#x27;s a fine, fine line between changing philosophies because of an experience and changing your philosophy to manage an experience.<p>Sounds like word salad, I guess? But it is absolutely the truth and deadly if you get it wrong.<p>A philosophy <i>can</i> validate an experience of nature&#x2F;feelings. An experience of nature&#x2F;feelings <i>cannot</i> validate a philosophy.<p>Getting that mixed up is a quick way dowwwwn.<p>Fear can also be grief, aprehension, anxiousness, bordeom, ennui, ect.<p>Also the cognitive response intending to control, inspired by fear, is often a cognitive response that fails to identify what feeling it is even reacting against.<p>The philosophy of letting go of control <i>because of fear</i>, is basically impossible to logicaly validate, as irrational fear is seen as the core problem, and not something else that can be logically related to and discussed.<p>These things being true, it makes it very difficult to takes these articles seriously, even though I agree with the majority of their points. It misses the broader scope.

In general I think there are good lessons here, but I feel like tech is the chief villian of the show. Rarely is it user agency that is the prime directive; increasingly the actual decision making of tech is happening in far off data centers, data keeps, safe from public view and meddling.<p>Even with our various impressive applications, most computing happens in isolation, within the confines of a single app, with maybe a couple loose inputs here or there.<p>Rather than make us feel out of control, I&#x27;d love a tech scene that actually empowered &amp; embraced the human spirit. That tried to equip individuals well, in with broad holistic interconnected computing workflows.

This resonates with the UK discussion about backdooring&#x2F;golden keying&#x2F;breaking&#x2F;prohibiting encryption, to <i>save the children</i>.<p>Yes, unbreakable encryption is potentially a perfect weapon for terrorists and threatens safety of children in when the hand of child predators. Which lead to the urge of governments to &quot;do something&quot;. But it&#x27;s probably better to accept that it simply cannot be controlled at the technical level; the math to do so responsibly simply isn&#x27;t there.

&quot;How hard can it be, I can do it in a weekend.&quot;<p>Human is good at judging what they know, but terribly bad at judging what they don&#x27;t know.<p>How do we know:<p>- teammates know more than us on a domain<p>- we know more than teammates on a domain<p>- no one knows anymore than their teammates<p>- there are more domains<p>We have to overcome our mount of stupid [1] to both have people to trust us and trust people.<p>Let the right people do the their job and get out of their way, how hard can it be? Or maybe it is<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rationalwiki.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rationalwiki.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect</a><p>p.s. I&#x27;m so glad there are people got flying over Mach 2 figured out. I am not flying a plane and I&#x27;m not going to let go of control just to try &quot;if it works&quot;

I think the ability to distinguish when to step in and when to step aside is a crucial management skill, which is made harder due to the fact that even if you think it’s time to step aside, higher-ups still might try to push you to stepping in and start control things.

Two observations.<p>There&#x27;s a quote I&#x27;ve repeated on HN a few times regarding ship handling and navigation:<p>&quot;The Art of ship handling involves the effective use of forces under control to overcome the effect of forces not under control.&quot;<p>-- Charles H. Cotter<p>I ran across this as the end-quote of a YouTube video showing sea pilot training using scaled-down ships in a physical environment, though I&#x27;ve been unable to find that specific video again. It almost certainly featured Port Revel, in France, and was posted prior to 2017-12-19, when I first noted that quote in a Google+ post. I&#x27;ve just re-searched YouTube trying to find the video in question without joy. My earliest mention on HN is from 2018: &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=16485451">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=16485451</a>&gt;. FastGPT keeps pointing me either directly or indirectly at my own HN references.<p>Google Books finds a quote in print in <i>Technical Basis for Maneuvering Performance Standards</i> (1982): &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;edition&#x2F;Technical_Basis_for_Maneuvering_Performa&#x2F;OhqkOxTyqicC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=0&amp;bsq=%22The%20Art%20of%20ship%20handling%20involves%20the%20effective%20use%20of%20forces%20under%20control%20to%20overcome%20the%20effect%20of%20forces%20not%20under%20control.%22" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;edition&#x2F;Technical_Basis_for_Man...</a>&gt;<p>Worldcat: &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;9026016" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;9026016</a>&gt;<p>That <i>should</i> be public domain as it&#x27;s a publication of the US Department of Transportation.<p>Ah, and source! A slightly different variant is in <i>The Apprentice and His Ship</i>, by Charles H. Cotter, 1963, p. 297. Google&#x27;s preview gives only a partial quote:<p>&quot;The art of ship handling involves the use of forces that come under the pilot&#x27;s direct control in order to neutralize, if necessary, the...&quot;<p>Worldcat: &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;4763481?oclcNum=4763481" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;4763481?oclcNum=4763481</a>&gt;<p>(No copies on IA or LibGen.)<p>(The deep-dive search is mostly a favour to Future Me who will doubtless seek references yet again.)<p>Amongst the better videos on Port Revel and its 1:25 scale models is this from NatGeo in 2016, lacking my quote:<p>&lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yewtu.be&#x2F;watch?v=tEDrFiQq1_k" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yewtu.be&#x2F;watch?v=tEDrFiQq1_k</a>&gt;<p>Regarding flight, I&#x27;ve learnt that pilots launching from aircraft carriers <i>do so with their hands off the control stick</i> until the craft is airborne. You can see this distinctly in the following video (launch commences at 42s): &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yewtu.be&#x2F;watch?v=HBYzzkiEVVs" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yewtu.be&#x2F;watch?v=HBYzzkiEVVs</a>&gt;<p>That&#x27;s explained in this article, with the practice adopted to avoid pilot-induced oscillation on take-off:<p>&lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theaviationgeekclub.com&#x2F;us-navy-f-a-18-pilot-explains-why-hornet-drivers-have-to-keep-their-right-hand-up-off-the-controls-during-cat-launch&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theaviationgeekclub.com&#x2F;us-navy-f-a-18-pilot-explain...</a>&gt;<p>The notion of &quot;going with the flow* is central to many physical, and nonphysical, activities. Cyclists, surfers, skiers, race-car drivers, and others know that there are times you simply allow the environment to direct you, whilst exerting a minimum amount of control. Rigidity in such cases means disaster. Similar concepts exist in business, law, government, and aging.