[Osmf-talk] Question to Board Members - Taking Responsibility

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 25.08.2012 16:25, Steve Coast wrote:
> Is it really necessary to compare having an osmf which hires people to voting for hitler?

No.

But the discussion was not just about hiring people, it was about 
"giving them trust" (read: power) "rather than having to gain consensus 
on every detail" (read: allow them to do unpopular things), and that 
this would "ruffle ... feathers" (read: they would be doing REALLY 
unpopular things). And it was justified by pointing at the (perceived) 
current inability to make decisions.

I'm sorry but if you go to school in Germany, which I have done, you are 
taught exactly this almost every year in some different curriculum. 
You're constantly told that yes, people do occasionally yearn for 
someone whom they could just hand the keys to the castle and then that 
person or persons would magically cut all the Gordian knots that have 
kept you from making decisions, that person or persons would magically 
do the best possible thing and not be bound by eternal squabbling in 
parliaments or other democratic institutions, that person or persons 
would somehow through their greatness or throgh the powers concentrated 
in their hands make everything better... and you are taught to spot this 
kind of thinking and connect it to the "Ermächtigungsgesetz". I can't 
help it - this education has worked on me, and I think 
"Ermächtigungsgesetz" whenever I hear some OSMer call for a tagging 
czar, for a "benevolent dictator", or whatever.

It is obvious that dictators can make swifter decisions than committees. 
But swifter decisions are not *all* we want.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"