IluvABbeef
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I got a new book for Christmas by Temple Grandin called "Animals in Translation" and while reading it, I came across something that is so obvious today (it's probably been talked about before on here, but what the heck), yet it was interesting to read but maddening at the same time.
She mentioned about the fact that normal people are too "abstractified" or too cerebral. Goverments have gone that way nowadays, as well as other industries like the meatpacking industry, and she mentions that she constantly has to fight against it. "A big part of my job now is trying to make sure all food animals are given a humane slaughter, but even though there's a lot of support for animal welfare it's getting harder to make good reforms instead of easier. It's harder because today government regulatory agencies are all run by people who've been to college, but who in some cases have never been inside a meatpacking plant, let alone worked in one. It's terrible. I keep telling them, 'You have got to go out there and visit a plant.'"
Then she goes on to say about how things were different in the '60s, how the USDA handled the screwworm infestation without a hitch (some of you probably remember that, btw), and saved thousands of livestock with their plan using those little white boxes that contained the infertile screwworm flies that screwed up the whole screwworm lifecycle and rid of them thataway. "They just did it; they didn't get everyone's permission."
And that was without having anybody breaking in to oppose the plan, like they have today:
"Today the government could never get a program like that off the ground. Some environmental activist would say, 'We have to protect these flies,' and you'd have people who'd never seen a screwworm in their lives advocating to save them from extinction. The whole thing would be about ideology, not reality. The USDA would be required to file environmental impact statements and the enviromental impact statements would be challenged in court, and it would never get done.
"Even worse, the government might not even get to the point of having advocates block their efforts. To put this type of project together you need a really good feild staff that is in charge of things. But today the abstracts are incharge, and the abstract thinkers are in charge, and the abstract thinkers get locked into absract debates and arguments that aren't based in reality. I think this is one of the reasons there is so much partisan fighting inside government. In my experience, people become more radical when they're thinking abstractly. They bog down in permanent bickering where they've lost touch with what's actually happening in the real world. The only way anything can get done is when there's an emergency. Then all of a sudden everyone has to move."
(Note to Mods and Macon: Hope this didn't get too political (doesn't seem like it did, to me), 'cause I'm making no intentions of making it that way. Really.)
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This is a really good book, worth the time to take off and read it, and if and when I find some more interesting things worth discussing and sharing with you on here, be warned ( ;-) ) that I might post about them. :nod:
There's some other things I just want to add that she mentions after this about the "zero-tolerance" approach to the meatpacking plants that animal-welfare regulators who've never worked in that industry go for if a plant messed up in something minor like violating one or two agency rules. But that's another thread in itself.
She mentioned about the fact that normal people are too "abstractified" or too cerebral. Goverments have gone that way nowadays, as well as other industries like the meatpacking industry, and she mentions that she constantly has to fight against it. "A big part of my job now is trying to make sure all food animals are given a humane slaughter, but even though there's a lot of support for animal welfare it's getting harder to make good reforms instead of easier. It's harder because today government regulatory agencies are all run by people who've been to college, but who in some cases have never been inside a meatpacking plant, let alone worked in one. It's terrible. I keep telling them, 'You have got to go out there and visit a plant.'"
Then she goes on to say about how things were different in the '60s, how the USDA handled the screwworm infestation without a hitch (some of you probably remember that, btw), and saved thousands of livestock with their plan using those little white boxes that contained the infertile screwworm flies that screwed up the whole screwworm lifecycle and rid of them thataway. "They just did it; they didn't get everyone's permission."
And that was without having anybody breaking in to oppose the plan, like they have today:
"Today the government could never get a program like that off the ground. Some environmental activist would say, 'We have to protect these flies,' and you'd have people who'd never seen a screwworm in their lives advocating to save them from extinction. The whole thing would be about ideology, not reality. The USDA would be required to file environmental impact statements and the enviromental impact statements would be challenged in court, and it would never get done.
"Even worse, the government might not even get to the point of having advocates block their efforts. To put this type of project together you need a really good feild staff that is in charge of things. But today the abstracts are incharge, and the abstract thinkers are in charge, and the abstract thinkers get locked into absract debates and arguments that aren't based in reality. I think this is one of the reasons there is so much partisan fighting inside government. In my experience, people become more radical when they're thinking abstractly. They bog down in permanent bickering where they've lost touch with what's actually happening in the real world. The only way anything can get done is when there's an emergency. Then all of a sudden everyone has to move."
(Note to Mods and Macon: Hope this didn't get too political (doesn't seem like it did, to me), 'cause I'm making no intentions of making it that way. Really.)
------------------------****-------------------------------
This is a really good book, worth the time to take off and read it, and if and when I find some more interesting things worth discussing and sharing with you on here, be warned ( ;-) ) that I might post about them. :nod:
There's some other things I just want to add that she mentions after this about the "zero-tolerance" approach to the meatpacking plants that animal-welfare regulators who've never worked in that industry go for if a plant messed up in something minor like violating one or two agency rules. But that's another thread in itself.
