The how-tos and the why-nots

"Mark Tucker" (markbt73) 10/02/2020 at 10:53 • Filed to: None

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!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! about EV conversions has really got me thinking... and not just about stuffing one of those EV conversions into an old Plymouth Fury. The comments also got me thinking about how advancements are made, and why they’re sometimes not.

Many years ago, I worked for a guy named Reuven. Reuven was an Israeli-born immigrant, sharp as a tack, full of energy and ideas. He spoke four languages, was a gifted engineer, and he was also a talented salesman with a flair for the dramatic; he was one of those people who could show you a sketch and then paint the picture in your mind of how it was going to be once he figured out the kinks.

( My great-grandfather, Joseph Tucker, was similarly-minded; he devised and orchestrated one of the most successful home-front projects of World War II: the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .)

My job with Reuven involved figuring out the kinks. We fell into an unofficial working relationship that kind of worked like this: he’d come up with an idea, I’d try to come up with reasons why it wouldn’t work, and if I couldn’t then we’d try the idea. (And more than once, we’d try the idea anyway, and I’d be proven wrong.) Reuven was always coming up with a new way to do something, a new approach, something better, faster, more efficient. He was a “how-to” guy, and I ended up in the role of “why-not” guy. It was frustrating at times, head-butting over something he just knew would work, while I saw only the roadblocks involved.

And in the comments on the EV article, I saw those two camps emerge: how to make it work, and why it never would. Those who could envision all sorts of car being adapted to electric power, and those who pointed out the minutiae of every drawback: weight, placement, complexity, cost.

It has been my experience that success requires both mindsets working together. If you don’t have a “how-to” person, you never advance anything, because nothing ever changes. But if you don’t have a “why-not” person, then nothing ever gets done, because they keep the “how-to” people on task, and whittle their grand ideas down to something that actually works.

And, remarkably, since that time, I have changed camps, and now come down on the “how-to” side more often than not, especially when it comes to environmental issues. And I can see the other side more clearly now because of it. Too often, the “why-nots” shoot down an idea because it isn’t a panacea; if you can’t solve the whole problem, why bother with the idea at all? But the technical challenges of our environmental woes aren’t going to be solved by a panacea. They’re going to be solved by making one thing a little better, then another, then another. It’s not going to be one giant “how-to” idea; it’s going to be thousands, tens of thousands, each one solving a small part of the problem. But if those little ideas keep getting shot down because they don’t go far enough, we’ll never get anywhere at all.

Reuven is gone, victim of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! long after I left. But I’m grateful for the five years I spent working for him, because watching a “how-to” person in action taught me a lot.

Be a “why-not” if you want; sometimes ideas need to be stopped before they take up too much time or effort. But don’t immediately dismiss every idea coming from the “how-to” side. Some of those ideas area going to change the world; we just need to figure out which ones.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Mark Tucker 10/02/2020 at 12:23

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Nice.  Thoughtful essay.  Glad you posted it.

Mark Tucker > VincentMalamute-Kim 10/02/2020 at 12:40

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Thanks!

VincentMalamute-Kim > Mark Tucker 10/02/2020 at 12:58

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I think your point applies to people who don’t vote. I’ve heard a few interviews and they’ve said “why bother? My vote doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything. My state is solid red (or blue) and my vote doesn’t count. The Electoral College will make the decision anyway. etc etc”.

I like the ideas you brought up but the labels of “why-not” and “how-to” types need work. They lack immediate ear-appeal for your essay to be widely spread. No, I don’t have any better suggestions though.

Captain of the Enterprise > Mark Tucker 10/02/2020 at 13:09

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Thank you for sharing, it’s a very interesting post and I have found myself on both sides as well. I think you’re right especially about this going to take a bit of change at a time but if we don’t do that we won’t get anywhere. We have to chip away at this. I’m also very sorry for your loss. 

MiniGTI - now with XJ6 > Mark Tucker 10/02/2020 at 13:52

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This is good OPPO, the reason I come here. 

BaconSandwich is tasty. > Mark Tucker 10/02/2020 at 15:45

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I really appreciated this post. I love having those sorts of discussions - bantering ideas back and forth, and trying to figure out why they would, or wouldn’t work. That’s one of the things I liked the best about doing a master’s. There were so many neat discussions that happened, even in the hallway. You’d go to do something, and end up stopping to chat in the hallway with someone, and before you knew it, it was an hour and a half later, and you were both filled with enthusiasm to go do something crazy.

Like anything else, it seems like the truth with EV conversions lies somewhere in the middle. I think part of the “can’t do” crowd is coming from fear. Fear of the unknown. People have been tuning carburetors for the last 100 years.  We’ve managed to stuff a small block Chevy into almost everything imaginable.  But we don’t yet have the experience of doing that with the equivalent electric components.  There’s some shops, like EV West, that are getting that experience now.  As time moves on, the process will become easier as the knowledge will spread on what (or what not) to do, and how to do it.

Mark Tucker > BaconSandwich is tasty. 10/02/2020 at 15:54

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I think you’re on to something with fear being a big part of it. I guess I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not afraid of taking something apart, and sometimes not knowing how it works makes me want to take it apart more . I don’t always succeed, but I always learn something.

There are really only 3 things I’m afraid of when it comes to fixing/modifying stuff: risk of physical injury, incurring unexpected costs to get the thing finished, and making my wife mad...

Taylor Martin > Mark Tucker 10/02/2020 at 18:08

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I, like you, tend to find myself in the “why-not” position (though on a less technical scale). I’m currently editing a book for a pal of mine, and I tend to shoot down sentences that are poor or complex in execution, but it’s important to try and solve the problem with them (even if you don’t know what that solution is).

As for EV conversions, I really hope they come to fruition, but they are going to be ludicrously expensive since every car ever made could potentially be reworked from the ground up to fit all this techno gizmo stuff under the hood... or in the trunk... or under the seats... or some other 4th place... But just because that one problem seems tricky to get around shouldn’t mean the whole idea is bad (I’ve been called a “black and white” thinker more often than I’d like, but sometimes I get caught up with how badly one thing won’t work, and then scrap the whole idea or project because of it... bad mentality, I’m working on it)

Technology is complicated. This write up was swell!

BaconSandwich is tasty. > Mark Tucker 10/02/2020 at 23:36

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I think you’ve definitely nailed it. I fear failure for a number of reasons. I get frustrated when things don’t work out as well as I think they should. Cost definitely comes into play as well. I feel bad if I wasted resources not doing something right the first time. I need to learn to accept failure, learn from it, and push on to the next thing.

Thankfully my wife is pretty understanding. When I pitched a crazy idea to her tonight (buying a Spark EV on co-part, and turning it into a tiny pickup truck), her response was "I'm not sure if I should encourage you to do it or not!"

Urambo Tauro > Mark Tucker 10/03/2020 at 09:41

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This is great. I like how you narrowed it down to “how- to” and “why- not”. I definitely find myself bouncing back and forth between the two, but y our last point really resonates with me. I t’s extremely helpful to identify “why-not” dealbre akers and dead ends as soon as possible so that you can make   move on to a different idea if there really is no “how-to” around it.