Don’t fix the symptoms, fix the disease

I’ve had someone denying a specific set of symptoms to me (actually, asserting a state opposite to symptomatic) while the tone & pace of their voice were in fact symptomatic.

This is as silly as complaining about a virus or random crashing while running MS-Windows on a machine: these are symptoms, the disease is a system with an inherently unstable, insecure design.

Ditto pouring turps into your fuel tank, then complaining that the engine is all rough.

CQ DX CQ DX the engine will run roughly at least as long as you continue to feed it junk. The system will crash as long as the design continues to suck. The symptoms will always echo the presence of disease.

To cure the symptoms, trying to convince your subject to deny them is worse than futile, it trains said subject into pointlessness & into acting out a lie to please one person at the expense of another (& doesn’t it practically always?).

Identify (don’t merely guess at or wish about) & remove the cause of the disease — then, viola! No more symptoms.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Quite true. I'm wondering, though; what's with the CQ DX? I see no mention of radios elsewhere in the post. :P

21 March, 2008 10:30

Leon RJ Brooks said…

It’s a short-hand & potentially interesting way of signifying an attention-getting broadcast. Another way of saying “listen up!”

23 March, 2008 14:13

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Plantagenet Penguinista

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