Opening the black box... I have mentioned before the loss that is occurring as processes and relationships are increasingly hidden from view. Go to your local Toyota dealership and pop a hood on a new car or truck to see what I mean. You will find the motor hidden behind a shroud, helping you to avoid a sense of fear from the complication of the mechanism, and making absolutely certain you will return to the Toyota dealership rather than trying to service or repair it yourself.

Today in wood shop we played with my old eggbeater drills, exploring the relationship between the gears and their ratios. On one we found that every turn of the crank led to four turns of the chuck. Others were less precise ratios with the numbers of inter-meshing teeth designed to minimize wear. The most interesting thing was that in these old tools everything was clearly revealed. No mysteries involved.

It is in seeing the processes of things that our curiosity is aroused. And it is in understanding the relationships between things that we are empowered to create. Can you see what we are doing to ourselves and our children? Perhaps it is OK that we are becoming a nation dependent of the skills of other nations, and in which we are passively entertained without contributing to the welfare of all. Right?

The drills, clockwise from the top are: Craftsman two-speed shoulder drill, Mohawk, and Millers Falls. If they were making these drills today, the gears would be shrouded in plastic to protect you from injuries that would result from intentionally putting your fingers in places that reasonable common sense would tell you to avoid, and also denying you an understanding of how they work. Can you see how our products can be effectively designed to make us dumb and then dumber? An interesting note is that these drills still work as new and are well over 50 years old, but I am having to dispose of the 5 year old drill at school because batteries are no longer available except at unreasonable cost. That is real stupidity.