The phenomenon of shared information dates back as far as communication. But the problem is that the dawn of time involved humans who A) Had something to say. B) Had already determined the value of their information because there was no one to share it with for months or years.
Today is an era of instant information and that has several drawbacks, the chief one being that the information has not been tested and has no follow-up and has no spirit of scientific approach attached to it. The second big drawback is that everyone wants something that will increase their quality of life but there is no such thing and they already know it. Nicaraguan coffee country involves a mud house with mud walls and a cotton hammock and no light, Cows, fireflies, chickens, pigs, corn, beans, milk. Their quality of life was fucking fantastic. Nothing could improve their quality of life beside some medicine for fever. No DIY video would make any sense to them because it was all additional complications and effort to create something that would require more maintenance and resources. A poor person needs a truck, right? Well, give a poor person a truck and they will eventually sell it to pay for the gasoline. Then they are left with gasoline and no truck. No, humanity needs less, fewer, simpler things. You want a hot shower? You want air conditioning on your aircraft carrier? You want 3D movies with buttered popcorn and self-serve soda fountains and reclining chairs? These things are not designed to make you happy. I have seen the alternative and I've seen the path of materialism and I know the results. We're deluding ourselves with excessive inventions, complicating our lives with digital eco-spheres, digi-spheres, to maintain, investing time in virtual creations that increase our quality of life for about 20 seconds before the same dull discontent returns. DDIY should stand for Don't Do It Yourself. As in, Stop! Don't invent any more shit. We have invented some crazy crap and none of it helps anything we're only burying ourselves in our own waste and destroying defenseless nations for their resources to fuel our useless contraptions. Don't Do It Yourself. GBOLYDF. Get By On Less, You Discontented Fuck.
For more lecturing, read on.
For example, I applied a generic white 'Elastomeric Rubberized Compound' to my asphalt/mineral surface roof today. I could've made a video of how I clumsily rolled it on over the seams of the rolled roofing. And that video would be useless, in my opinion, because in the time since I applied it and posted the video...THE ROOF HAS NOT BEEN RAIN TESTED. And even if I hosed it down with water, that does not simulate months of sun exposure and months of hard rains. So, what value is there in the video if my 'method' has not been proven? It has no value. None. My specific product and specific application on a specific material is all part of the experiment...so if those conditions aren't replicated then what possible use could there be to another person? All I'm doing is sharing a method that has been unproven and only applies to a specific set of conditions that no one can ever reproduce and even if they could reproduce them they don't know if my approach worked since no time has passed since I applied the coating.
Yes, I viewed some videos because some visual examples of this process might help, but I accept the videos were not my roof in my conditions with my product applied by me with my tools so I can't expect any kind of results. The coating may fail or not. Since the videos I watched, without exception, showed zero time-tested footage there is absolutely no way to determine if the video projects themselves were a success. Did the person decide not to video the lawsuit that happened when the roof failed after they were paid to do the project? Would anyone post video footage of a totally botched job? No, they would not, but the failures and the follow-up footage are more important than the initial application.
In short, all the videos are the wrong approach because even if the method is exactly perfect, there is no confirmation of the rate of success since they only capture a few hours in time. If I make a DIY video of myself assembling a piece of lawn furniture or gym equipment then, hey, that video is probably going to be nearly complete. But it still doesn't show the furniture or equipment after a month of use so it's of negligible value. The viewer simply doesn't know if the end result works.
The best thing to do is to post only videos after the project has been tested by a month or a season or a year. Then describe what it looked like before, what was done, and what it looks like after a period of time has passed. That is a video with value even if the specific conditions can never be replicated. At least the viewer, and the DIY tutor, will have learned something about the process and had time to reflect on it.
I want to revisit this roof in a few seasons and discuss my approach and my results. It is not a 'result' to say that I applied rubberized coating to the roof. No, that's as easy as painting a floor. The only result can be discussed after seasons of weather and time have proven the method one way or another. Everyone wants to show videos of them doing it right, but more valuable videos would be demonstrating the wrong way to do it. The problem is that these tradesmen are actually working at the time they make the video so they can not do anything intentionally wrong because they would lose time and money and material. So, they only do it right and make a video that captures a few brief moments in time that are supposed to mean the results will be good, but no conclusions can be reached since the video only captures a small period of time. Many comments simply ask, "Did it work?" and a tutor might reply, "Yes." But what does that mean? I'm going to trust that word for my own approach? The tutor made a video of step 1 but then said step 2 and 3 worked out 'fine'. Bullshit. Don't trust anyone on the internet.
Maybe I'm talking about the basic argument against reinventing the wheel. Maybe I recommend reinventing the wheel and that's a bigger topic. I've examined society and civilization and arcade games and trades and professions and politics and humanity in general for 40 years and I'm not so sure the wheel doesn't need reinventing. I'm not so sure we got it right the first time. I'm not so sure that scrapping everything we have learned from the bible to measles vaccines wouldn't be great for humanity in the long run. A person might argue, "Oggy, we can't go back in time. We can't unlearn something." Maybe we can't but I am unconvinced that an army of DIY tutors has the answer in 11 minute videos that take the scientific method and flush it down the toilet. I believe in results and when I see media that incites hysteria, politicians that divide, videos that never discuss results, atmosphere clogged with CO2....then I see the conclusions that all suggest we got it completely wrong, we fucked up and it's all in peril of total disaster but we're too invested in our pride to admit it, so we'd rather destroy the atmosphere than admit fossil fuels are not an energy solution, rather they are a way to destroy a planet.
So, reinventing the wheel is exactly what is needed when the wheel is about to run over your spine. As long as someone ELSE'S spine is being crushed beneath the wheel then of course we're all against such backward talk. But the results are staring us in the face every day and still we cling to the failed design. The scientific method is cold....simply tell me what you see. But the modern world is being misled in myriad ways and it's not all intentional. We're putting on a happy face, bragging about future success, we want to be winners even when we're losing. This is natural. I want to be a winner, but not so much that I will try to protect my roof from water infiltration but never admit my method was a failure.
Again, this blog is not a demonstration of home improvement tips, it is a musing on the philosophy of home ownership and humanity. I'm not a tradesman. I am a philosopher with a bag of maxims instead of nails. And a hammer of wisdom.
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