On Doing

I haven’t found the proper word for what we in spanish call “criterio”. The most close to it seems to be “discretion”, but since it is the first time I ever listen it, I’m still hesitant about it.

What we mean by “criterio” is the ability to make the right choices, and to act properly everywhere and anytime. It includes social events, work, family issues, etc. But, when considering only it’s work, it is the plain skill to make the right choices.

Today, together with the usual need of discretion for teamwork and every social activity, there is a new challenge for us: if you think coldly about: what do we do better than digital machines?, it is hard to find an answer. A friend of mine told me a very ingenious one: digital machines, that’s what we do better than them. It’s funny and witty, but it doesn’t work to think forward.

The truth is that I’m not sure but in one point in what do we do better than them: they calculate faster and more accurately, they don’t complain, etc. But we decide better. Thay have more power, memory. But we have more discretion.

Since it is not the time to raise a luddite movement, and development has proven a good thing for us all in the long time, we must look for what to do, what’s our main advantage; in the forthcoming world.

So we, at least us who teach; should switch the focus from technical knowledge to universal discretion. It is far more easier to teach technical stuff, but it is like giving a student the ability to make fire out of rocks. Besides, discretion is always hand in hand with culture and wisdom: if we don’t actually know how to make fire out of rocks, at least we must prefectly understand the concept behind it.

The main problem about this switch is, if we don’t learn how to actually make things; is, what will happen if we don’t longer have machines to do these things? What happens when the electricity or any power turns off? Well, since ages we, us a community, have always trusted in fragile balance: the forthcoming apocalypse, the cold war nuclear menace, etc. Today we must trust machines and their inherent probability of failure.