The engineer masters the world?

Through all my education I’ve thought that people with good technical and intellectual abilities are in an enviable situation when it comes to utilizing the world and influencing it.

That’s one of the reasons why I invested here. The result: a guy with a relatively broad range of education in computer hardware, software, programming, Internet technology, technical communication in German and English, publication technology (incl. photography, typography etc.), some mechanical engineering, some vehicle technology, craftsmanship in metal and plastics. Yea, and some other stuff.

Now, during the last two years, I learned, and during the last few days I recognized, that the whole idea of mastering the world through technology is crap. Why? As a technician, you think thus: the world is a technical system, quite complex, but if you look deeply into it it will be manageable. Because technology is basically logical. Now, the error is here: the world is basically not a technical but a social system. Bummer.

And social systems are not logical. So that the highly qualified technician with all his logic simply has not the tools to successfully interact with the social system. He’s left in a dark corner with all his technology, tampering around with that and having some fun, but without money and with just a few friends. I mean, real friends, not those with just technical needs or technical abilities. Because, both money and community are acquired through social means, not technical.

I’m now gonna detail out the profile of some of the “real masters of the world”. Which does not mean that I would want to acquire all of these abilities. It’s basically a sad thing that the world is not logical, as this means basically that you’ve gotta be an actor of one or another kind, to be successful. (As for me: yes, I’m gonna learn some social stuff to live out better community, but I don’t care for monetary success. My technical answer to the latter has been in the making for a decade now, which is about self-sufficient technology. Zero need. Full stop.)

But, regarding the socially successful qualifications that I wanted to detail out:

• The charismatic person. A person who triggers to be trusted and followed. As it has nothing to do with logic, charisma can be used for any purpose whatsoever, not just for the correct purposes. Hitler was a charismatic person who used his charisma for the wrong ends. Barack Obama is a charismatic person who’ll use his charisma for the right ends, I hope.
• The beautiful person. How different would the world look today if Cleopatras nose had been one or two centimeters longer (said C.S. Lewis).
• The affable person. Here, I don’t mean being nice, patient and friendly towards people. This is no social ability that would grant any success in this world. The affable person is one who can contact foreigners without any problems, and quickly makes new friends among them. And as most business between companies is arranged on the basis of personal connections (German Kontakte / Kontax, Chinese quanxi), having many friends in the business world normally means to have many customers. You don’t even need to be high-qualified in your profession to have monetary success … .