To create noblemen and kings While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. Henry David Thoreau, Walden societycivilization
Can maintenance save civilisation? An Article by Tim Harford timharford.com Maintenance is a low-status affair: you can confess to being unable to change a tyre in a way that you would never confess to being unable to name a play by Shakespeare. …We understand the expertise of janitors, plumbers and mechanics, and we suffer mightily in their absence, yet somehow we take them for granted. We take for granted, too, the most basic maintenance of all — preparing food, washing clothes, changing dirty nappies. Nobody would boast at a dinner party or on a first date about doing any of this, yet it is essential. …This is about more than breaking bridges and breaking bike chains. There is a missed opportunity here to find something rather wonderful in maintenance. repaircivilization
Serendipity This was not meant to be like Bell Labs; there were no expectations that the clerical workers would run into their managers in a “serendipitous encounter” and produce a new innovation. The ideas was rather to create a workplace in which status barriers seemed to dissolve, in which participation and friendliness all around made the work environment look less like the white-collar factory it was. Nikil Saval, Cubed The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn teamworkcommunication