[ExI] need a new word/suffix

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 9:23 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes
>
>
>
> >…"All we have to fear is phobiphobia."
>
>
>
> Controls engineers love the Roosevelt quote “…all we have to feah is feah
> itself…” for it is the classic unstable system, pole in the right half
> plane.  It practically invites a Monte Python parody as the president
> confidently makes the statement.  The broadcast ends, he sits back.  Starts
> to look around nervously, which make him nervous which causes him to break
> out into a cold sweat, which causes him to jump with a startle, which
> causes him to exclaim OH DEAH, which causes him to shriek in terror…
>

You cite that as humor, but there is a real lesson to be read there,
perhaps the one he meant.  Fear can feed on itself in exactly that fashion,
leading to ever more extreme reactions that are ultimately traceable back
to small or completely absent (perhaps mistaken) original stimuli.

In my career as an engineer, I have lost count of the number of times I
have had to perform some complex technical task, not easily explicable to
management (who often did not have time for such explanations anyway),
which all proceeded as smoothly as possible when one understood the details
but management got worried, and decided to blame me for doing what they had
asked.  I do try to give them a basic explanation, but too many times all
they are willing to understand is, "ignore the warnings that are about to
show up, because they'll be false alarms".
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