IMA 1: Elephants – when & why do they become white?
Presentations at the 2007 Irish Museums Association’s Annual Conference beg the question!
As do observations of UK’s National Health Scheme, prostituted Virgin, etc.,
_______________________
NOTE: Manythanx to Independent TD Finian McGrath for personally funding the writer’s attendance to the IMA 2007 Annual Conference. (TD is the Irish equivalent of MP)
(UPDATE 2015: McGrath was instrumental in covering-up Pension Fraud questions in the Dail)
Irish Museums Association (IMA), 2007 Annual Conference - Dublin National Gallery Lecture Theatre - Friday March 2 to Sunday March 4, 2007 inclusive.
This conference marked the 150th Anniversary of Dublin’s Natural History Museum.
The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern launched the formal conference on the Saturday.
Presenters & Keynote speakers included international as well as local specialists.
The focus of this year’s conference was Science, Technology and Society – the role for the (Irish) museums.
What was evident from the conference was that all persons were highly motivated to progress the role of museums in Ireland, and within Irish Society, and as a reference point for visitors.
However, whilst high motivation is to be commended and encouraged what was also evident, and confirmable by the programme, was that there was a marked absence of skills. Science & technology was presented solely by scientists or persons with a high interest but with no formal science qualification.
What was clearly absent was ‘engineering’ skills from both the ‘exact’ sciences as well as the ‘inexact’ sciences (social/economy/business/finance/legal – SEBFL environments).
That presentations were, unintentionally but nonetheless, skewed & deficient was abundantly clear.
The writer had requested of the IMA Board prior permission to make a short (10-15 minute) presentation at the conference; this was denied; therefore the writer had to limit contributions to very brief and concise statements.
The statements that were made challenged the validity of the framework of various presenters; not to be destructive, but to encourage constructive rethinking. Whilst certain persons extended quiet thanks it was clear that many others were not too happy, and many were clearly not too keen to discuss extensively.
In short, the IMA are in danger of being misled by high-gloss techie hype, with the high probability of a real white-elephant being created - unless serious rethinking kicks into gear.
A proposal was extended to the board for engagement of engineering into their SEBFL environments; but in truth it is for the government to fund private & competent skills to assist the IMA, as with all other public enterprises & functions.
(To understand the background to engineering within the SEBFL environments you would need to get up to speed with Business Engineering, the deficiencies with prevailing ‘economy structures & controls’, unstable finance environments, etc. – see Overview of CDADD’s research papers on HOME PAGE, www.cdadd.com;
Simply stated:- Scientists deal with academic theory, Engineering is about the holistic design, development & construction of optimally engineered tangible systems & controls taking into account parameters within the technical (exact sciences) as well as SEBFL (inexact sciences) environments.
Engineers test & prove/disprove scientific theories in the real, practical, tangible, world.
It is important to understand that:
- Science is NOT Engineering.
- a gap, a massive chasm, of understanding exists between the engineering world and the commercial world.
Unfortunately corrupt global finances/forces have diminished the integrity of both the science & engineering environments.
Scientists and Engineers are both ENDANGERED SPECIES
Simply visit the Engineering Council websites for SA & UK and it is plain to see that engineering is being distorted by scientists & commercialists.)
oOo
What is a white-elephant?; and when, & why, does an elephant become white?
In simple terms a white-elephant is a relatively expensive entity that serves no practical purpose, or it’s purpose is a necessity but the use of which comes with inherent dangers.
Examples of white-elephants are UK’s Millennium Dome, Titanic;
Examples of elephants in danger of turning white are; Network Rail (cf recent Virgin train crash in Cumbria), Irish Museums Association, SA’s exploding SASOL plants, SA’s Eskom, etc.,
The common factor as to why elephants begin turning white, and why some are doomed to being white at outset, is quite simply because engineering is absent from the SEBFL environments.
Recap:
– ‘exact’ scientists (physics, science, etc.) have their theories tested in the real world by engineers, engineers provide the testing & feedback so as to verify or correct theories.
- ‘inexact’ scientists (social/economy/business/finance/legal) DO NOT have engineers testing their theories hence they do not get sound testing nor, consequently, sound feedback; the nett result is that “inexact” science theories are GROSSLY DEFECTIVE. It explains why economies go boom/crash, boom/crash, endlessly; and why nations are impoverished & enslaved
.
The IMA is in real danger of becoming a white-elephant exactly because they are not engaging engineering within their SEBFL environments. The reason that the IMA are not engaging with engineering is because they were not previously aware of it, and because Ireland’s government & Taoiseach have refused to transparently & honestly engage with engineering within Ireland’s macro SEBFL environments.
Reiterate: There is absolutely no intent to detract from the motivation & sincerity of ALL persons that were presenting or officiating at the conference. BUT, if an accountant were to overhaul your car engine then it is highly probable that your engine would fail.
For EXACTLY the same reason, economies, businesses, are failing – because engineering is absent from the SEBFL environments.
The hyped-thrust of the IMA conference was predominantly on techie interaction and with a slant on science to assist in enhancing the museums of Ireland.
The reality, within the presentations, was that VIRTUAL REALITY (UNREALITY) was creeping in to replace REALITY from the museums environment, & its ‘science’ aspects. BUT, with engineering entirely absent.
VIRTUAL REALITY (UNREALITY) BEGINS WHERE TANGIBLE REALITY ENDS.
A further significant gap, that the writer sought to close had a presentation slot been offered, is of ‘history repeating itself’.
In what ways can museums be an effective tool to prevent mistakes of the past being made again in present circumstances, and into the future.
No thought has been given to this critical issue.
This point is particularly critical to Ireland because of the fact that Ireland has inadvertently re-enslaved itself through being misled by gloss-hyped Euroland stars, with illusions (false) of quick prosperity out of the impoverished freedom in which it had been languishing for some 75 years.
Nothing comes for free or cheaply – and Ireland’s recent ‘prosperity’ has come at the expense of its children being financially enslaved, jobs being destroyed on an ongoing basis (another 500 losses announced yesterday), infrastructure supported by debt consumption, etc. It requires sound engineered solutions to solve this.
How can museums, and in particular the IMA, help to avoid this kind of trap that Ireland (& SA) has fallen into?
As pointed out at the start of the conference, technology is important in increasing the effectiveness of ‘discovering & understanding” history, but, there are no initiatives to penetrate understanding to develop wisdom so as to minimise ‘history repeating itself’.
- KNOWLEDGE is a raw material,
- UNDERSTANDING gives knowledge perspective,
- WISDOM is the optimal application of understanding which gives knowledge & understanding a feedback correction & its real value.
It is more appropriate to understand how & why a conflict war arose, rather than simply following the intricate detail of a particular battle of a conflict war, so as to enable this understanding to be applied into the future = wisdom.
Of the many presenters, only one presenter courageously stood for the position of maintaining the well-established & proven practice of working directly with the relevant artefacts.
In short:- one voice, alone, stood-up for the proven, even if ‘dusty & crusty, historical approach of museums against the many voices for techie-hype. The position of the presenters was:
REALITY (in singular minority) versus UNREALITY (in majority)
oOo
In particular, two sincere Keynote presentations were good examples of how hyped-gloss can mistakenly steer people & initiatives in the wrong direction - one was by a US delegate from ‘Institute for Learning Innovation’, Annapolis in Maryland; and the other by a Director of UK’s Darwin Centre (Natural History Museum).
(To put matters another way:
What caused London’s Millennium Dome to become a white-elephant?
- alternatively -
Knowing what we know now what would you do differently, if you could rewind the clock, to prevent the MD becoming a white-elephant?
Thought to the second question should not preclude the real possibility that the MDome was purposefully created to be a white-elephant for manipulative, fraudulent, reasons – and that there was too much hyped-up momentum for anyone to have reversed it, even if proof of concerns were raised.
Compare this proposed scenario to the real covering-up of pension fund losses as researched & proven by the writer. QED!)
________________
The US representative started his presentation by giving a brief overview of how financial value within America (by Fortune 500) had shifted from historicals of land/labour/capital at 100% to 15%, i.e. a shift of 85% of financial value now being on branding/IP, etc.; and all this within a 20 year span
This shift, he argued, justified a change in museum values that are presented into the future, if museums wanted to remain relevant to society.
i.e. his position was finance driving science, not science deserving financing.
From this point he then went into further analysis based upon his premise.
The problem with his analyses is that his very departure point is defective.
As you will now know, if you have been following R&D developments at this website, global financial markets are grossly distorted due to massive manipulations stemming from (partly) a grossly saturated money supply, and (partly) from malicious manipulations, and various other hidden forces.
What this means is that ‘value’ is impossible to determine, because there is no stability within the markets, no certainty of, or confidence, in the auditing of markets, no adequate protections of markets.
Recap: Money is both Tangible and Intangible, both Real & Imaginary; with all components being manipulated by a financially-powerful-few for self/narrow interests, and to the detriment of societies.
Mindless hype of “Globalisation” has created a gargantuan monster which is devouring anything it freely chooses.
(see paper: Economist’s inexact models exactly defective)
Although the Maryland presenter is sincere & highly motivated in his field of expertise the reality is that his lack of knowledge & understanding of global economy issues, and SEBFL issues, has caused him to misinterpret ‘global data’ (which is itself defective) and to misuse that data within his analyses, all with the resultant effect of misdirecting the audience.
In short: misinterpreted & defective data, coupled with techie-hype, is the foundation of this presenter’s view that technology should be at the forefront of any museum -> i.e. Virtual Reality (Unreality) replacing Tangible Reality.
_________
The Darwin Centre representative also supported the techie-hype.
Three critically defective points were made by this presenter early in his presentation and which proved the fundamental errors in the foundation of his presentation.
He argued (1) that interfacing of scientists with the public had produced remarkable results; (2) that they had engaged Corporate Strategy in their Darwin project; and (3) the Darwin’s Director had categorically stated that “we will NEVER be …”
During Q&A the writer challenged this presenter. The points the writer raised were:
- that the interfacing of technical persons with the public (through commercial entities) had never worked successfully in private companies BECAUSE engineering within SEBFL was absent; therefore public enterprises had even less chance of implementing such an interface initiative. Hence, the long term risk would be that scientists migrate elsewhere thus diminishing science skills, or the risk of a cross to commercialism, and again science loses skills = either way it is a nett loss to society - BECAUSE approach is incorrectly engineered.
- Corporate Strategy was a hyped-up buzz term that the presenter loosely used to give ‘credibility’ to the Darwin project:- the fact is that Corporate Strategy is a freely used term with little substance, and frequently used with regard mergers & acquisitions which produce no real value but markedly increases the risk of failure of both entities merged or acquired. M&As are primarily driven by auditing firms, and especially the big four (PWC, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Delloitte), all of whom have been, and still are, deeply involved in major fraud scams stemming from ‘corporate strategising’.
- a Director of a public enterprise that uses the phrase “we will NEVER be … (whatever)” is clearly an autocrat; and autocrats are the WORST offenders in creating white-elephants, or of driving an entity to same.
The presenter has limited understanding of the massive chasm (culture/skills/knowledge/understanding) that exists between engineering/science worlds and that of the commercial world through which the public invariably interact.
(An aside:-
- If we also consider the dire straits of UK’s wounded military (Iraq war) – reports show that these wounded are not receiving expected treatment.
Also look at the dire straits of the National Health Service. Media reports indicate that SA’s Netcare has been awarded a contract to solve the NHS’s problems.
BUT, the very same defective analytical process was used in the selection of Netcare as the UK & US presenters were giving at the IMA conference – i.e. effectively “ …. Look at the corporate strategy ….. look at the performance of the markets and select the high performers. …. Yay!!! … don’t these performance figures look amazing … these are the players we need!”
Is this a fair approach???? DEFINITELY NOT!!!
If one were to look at Netcare shares in SA one would certainly see amazing market performance – 700% in 5 years – AMAZING!!! – these guys MUST be the solution to UK’s NHS crisis!?!?!
WRONG!!! – because, SA’s markets are GROSSLY skewed, Netcare’s performance, as with all of SA, has been due to high-powered financial manipulations without appropriate value to support these performances. Netcare’s business operations have been skewed by distortions flowing from government interference, hence high premiums yielding high cash flows which is completely the opposite of UK’s NHS.
The engineering inputs required by UK’s NHS are not going to be provided by Netcare, because the commercialists within Netcare do not understand business engineering, and there are no business engineers in Netcare. Netcare is as precariously positioned as the rest of South Africa.)
How then is the Darwin Project justified within a nation that has become itself a white elephant?
How is the IMA justified in being (mis)guided by the Darwin project, or US projects?
The bind leading the blind!
_____________
A further point of concern was raised in a Q&A session during the Friday morning ‘members’ session, when the issues of Virtual Reality, high-tech, etc. were first aired. The writer raised the point about ‘freedoms’ in a tech world causing gross distortions, and gave Wikipedia (online editable ‘encyclopaedia’) as an example. A Trinity College Scientist argued that such website entities, and in particular Wikipedia, was ‘self-correcting’. The mind boggled that such a seriously deficient statement could be made by a scientist.
To test this scientist’s theory, on the Saturday morning the writer placed a truthful entry in ‘Wikipedia’ under ‘Richard Branson’ and briefly explained how part of Branson’s wealth was made by plundering Virgin employees pension funds and of his links into Organised Crime (Legal) with Donald Gordon (Liberty Life).
By Sunday the entry had been removed – thus proving that truth is overridden or hidden.
(This is a caution – second - to Tony Blewitt of SA’s Classicfm radio station NOT to use wikipedia information for his morning drive-time quizzes; wikipedia is unreliable because it is inaccurate, it is not truthful.)
The key point here is that the web and virtual reality cannot be relied upon as being truthful, because, primarily, it is not real.
BUT, more importantly, today’s young scientists & engineers are being wrongly influenced by gloss hype that is forcefully promoting such defectiveness. Science & Engineering is losing skills because scientists & engineers are not driven by truth but by emotive distortions which is diminishing the integrity of the science & engineering ‘worlds’, which is turning people away from an increasingly dishonest environment.
_____________
Another presenter gave a sincere outline of a proposal for developing Dublin’s existing Natural History Museum. But, because of the absence of engineering inputs it was clear that this proposal would ultimately lead to a white-elephant, and, more importantly, an increased risk of science skills being diminished.
But, the risk to a significant national monument is also a major issue.
_____________
It is also important to recognise that the Irish ‘gift of the gab’ is a highly destructive element that needs to be overcome if rational thinking is to emerge.
oOo
Put all of this into contrast.
- Ireland is a small nation next to UK, its economy is a fraction of the UK, the UK’s economy is a fraction of the USA’s – the reality is that Ireland does not really feature on the US’s radar screen, except when it is strategically useful for the US that Ireland should appear on their screen.
On what basis then does one compare a mini with a truck?
Are the elephants, white or otherwise, of these two much larger economies realistic comparatives for Ireland? Clearly NOT!
(Another aside:-
- Consider also, for example, UK’s Network Rail and the recent Virgin train crash in Cumbria – media reports indicated that Branson stated that his watch might have been responsible (even partly). This comment is indeed exactly true, but not for the reasons that Branson would have intimated.
The real reasons are that the UK (Britannia) has become grossly prostituted by corrupt business people, including Branson. Branson is deeply entrenched in Donald Gordon’s Organised Crime Network which is global.
Corrupt business people have clearly, & for long, bought off UK government and the media. Whether it is the Daily Telegraph, BBC, Sky, Times, Guardian, Economist, Washington Post, NY Times, Irish Times, Irish Tribune, or whatever other media entity; they have ALL remained silent about widespread, global, frauds BECAUSE the media employees are under the control of these corrupt business people.
This corruption distorts/skews business practices, it closes off feedback protections, it diminishes quality inputs into business/social/economy entities so that services are diminished, and eventually to below acceptable safety minimums.
Branson’s prostituted Virgin train crashed because of a cycle of corruption working its way back through a complex web, all of which abuses & demotivates engineering/technical people. These tech/eng people are disregarded in the massive euphoric wave of ‘corporate strategising’, ‘corporate profiteering’, corporate defrauding’, etc., all of which the likes of Branson are deeply entrenched along with the Donald Gordons of the world.
The rail track that failed, and which caused the Prostitute Virgin train to derail, had diminished engineering inputs in the technical environments BECAUSE engineering was absent from the SEBFL environments.)
To avoid Ireland becoming similarly derailed it would make a lot of sense if Ireland’s Taoiseach dissociated himself from Blair, from dishonest business, and made a complete cut with the history of government fraud, and focussed on honest & transparent government - which would free up constructive delivery within Ireland and increase real productivity without reliance upon blood-money.
This approach would accelerate real constructive reform that would surpass the artificial reform that Euroland has created.
___________
In addition, UK, Britannia, is in dire straits with Britannia being prostituted, by becoming the world’s financial melting-pot capital in which blood-money freely & destructively circulates. This blood-money, like blood diamonds, is a major cause of the financial enslavement & impoverishment of 80% of the world’s population.
In short, the Darwin Centre is built with blood-money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is strongly recommended that the IMA, indeed Ireland, does not continue down the blood-money route; it was severe oppression that had kept Ireland impoverished for centuries, even after freedom was achieved; it is entirely inappropriate that Ireland continues down a route that builds itself on blood-money or practices that is oppressively enslaving & impoverishing other nations.
___________
The Northern Ireland political ‘solution’ is another white elephant. The Billion Sterling that is estimated to fund the ‘solution’ will be wasted because the ‘solution’ is aimed at the prevailing political players and not the underlying causal issues that created the conflict, and that continues to fuel the instability. In other words: once the emotive euphoria of the ‘solution’ has worked out of people’s systems then the truth that nothing has really changed will re-emerge.
And that truth is that the people of Northern Ireland will find themselves again financially enslaved & impoverished, just as those in the south.
Frustration, anger, and no doubt violence, will re-emerge. This will be exacerbated by the fact that the intellect of northern Ireland is being drawn out by attractive offers elsewhere – i.e. a brain drain will impede any attempts to solve the underlying problems; which are the same problems that existed 40 – 50 years ago when the last round of violence flared up, which are the same problems that caused the uprising around 1916, and so on back into history.
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF - TIME & TIME & TIME AGAIN.
There is a need to garner the knowledge of the past into museums, to convert that into understanding, so that optimal application can produce wisdomic thinking – so as to prevent history repeating itself..
Government dishonesty (throughout the world) is blocking this!!!
_____________
The Irish Museums Association is simply just one of many victims of distorted/skewed thinking that has come about because of blatant dishonesty within corporate/government entities.
The Irish Museums Association needs to seriously rethink their position and what they are hoping to achieve, and HOW they intend to achieve it. Without appropriate engineering in their SEBFL environments they have little chance of maintaining a credible institution, nor credible leadership for Ireland.
A RETHINK is URGENTLY needed!!!!
The critical danger, at present, lies with the fact that IMA officials are being misled by defective glossed analyses from keepers of even larger white-elephants. BIG does not mean better!
BUT, the responsibility rests with government (not just Ireland, but throughout the world) to engage constructively, honestly, & transparently with private, independent, researchers & developers to develop ‘engineering’ within the SEBFL environments.
Both Ireland’s, & SA’s, governments have allocated research funding for this; but, certainly within SA, much of these funds have been siphoned off by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel via his lover; as yet Ireland has only recently allocated some E6.1 Billion (Euros) for same but Cabinet are dragging their heels over releasing to proven researchers & developers.
The danger is that these research funds are intended mainly for siphoning through bogus entities ‘fronting’ research skills as is happening in SA.
Casual visits to a number of museums confirmed that whilst a modernised look had been established that substance was missing.
The attendees at the IMA Conference were clearly highly motivated & sincere – however, they are being entirely misguided in their thinking.
Government needs to transparently & honestly fund a RETHINK
Elephants become white because engineering is absent, and from outset.
Chris Addington Pr.Eng.