Comment by rockmeamedee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rockmeamedee | Hacker News Reader

I'm interested in the topic, and the book cover looks great, so I'll probably read it.

But it seems a bit "Maintenance: For Boys". The items mentioned on this page are "the maintenance of sailboats, vehicles, and weapons", and "Soviet tanks, or tricked-out Model Ts".

No mention that for millenia we were mending our clothes, cleaning our houses, maintaining our food systems.

The reason this book sounds interesting is that maintenance is systematically undervalued, and basically in our human history pushed onto women and the lowest social classes. But the marketing material seems to highlight only the "sexy" stuff like weapons and vehicles. Where's the maintenance of washing our hands, washing our clothes, cleaning our streets?

There's this artist, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who was the "Artist in Residence" at NYC's department of sanitation in the 70s, and tried to use conceptual art as a way to highlight the work of the department and make "maintenance art" a thing. I'm interested in that kind of re-valuing of maintenance.

I bet this book will be interesting, I just don't like the framing as "Maintenance: Of Everything" since it's clearly not the whole story. Hopefully part 2 has a broader scope and mindset.

I don't disagree with your desire to see house/clothes/etc. maintenance covered, but this is such a perplexing comment.

As far as I understand, you take the book's title to be being false advertising, and seem to be upset that it leaves out some subjects.

How does one get upset that an author didn't include handwashing instructions in a book?

You could have made your (very true) point about the devaluation of some maintenance work as a general observation, without shaming the author for omitting some subjects of your choosing. What does it achieve to go into a culture war based on the description of a book you haven't read?

The book is basically one chapter according to the table of contents: Vehicles. On some bookshop, it's even shelved under the automotive category.

What review did you write to Hawking's Theory of everything?

I don't think you're being fair. You're turning "I don't like the framing" into "a culture war".

You might be right. I read the lyrical flourish of the multiple questions (What about hands? What about etc.?) and the "for boys" quip as unnecessarily aggressive and dismissive, but maybe that wasn't the intention.

What a terrible reply to an interesting and genuine comment.

> but this is such a perplexing comment.

There is nothing perplexing about the comment it's extremely straightforward.

> You... seem to be upset that it leaves out some subjects.

It doesn't leave out "some" subjects it leaves out a ton of subjects which OP rightly raises. Just about every subject on maintenance.

> without shaming the author for omitting some subjects of your choosing.

The books title contains the phrase "Maintenance: Of Everything"! These aren't a few specialty obscure subjects that were left out. It left out just about everything and OP lists some extremely notable ones. And also calls out important topics for society that have previously been undervalued and appear to be undervalued here.

> How does one get upset that an author didn't include handwashing instructions in a book?

Do you not realize the importance that maintaining of hygiene has played in shaping modern society. To post such an insultingly dismissive reply with a comment like "didn't include handwashing instructions" is absurd.

I'd genuinely want to understand why we have such a different understanding of that comment.

Surely the title can't be taken literally, otherwise the book would be the size of wikipedia, no?

I didn't say the topics left out were obscure, but arbitrarily chosen. Can some book titled "How the world works" that talks about economy be criticised for not talking about effective communication or table manners?

And re the undervaluing, I mentioned that myself, but surely we can't expect every book to include arbitrarily chosen topics that happen to be undervalued? Hawking's book doesn't mention wealth inequality for example.

Not wanting to argue, I just don't understand why I'd see the original comment as out of line while you see mine in the same way.

I didn't take the parent comment to be dismissive or false advertising or that the parent commenter is even that upset about anything. It's just constructive criticism. The original comment says they will "probably read it"! I think we should all be more generous of each others comments.

Of course the book can't talk about everything but it claims to be maintenance of everything, and in general, there is a tendency to overlook the role and impact of marginalised communities in the histories. It's fine that the author hasn't done it, it's their book, but it's important to mention here because it could help the author go deeper into their point. Do you not think exploring those topics would be interesting in this book given the blurb? I certainly think it's an interesting point.

> No mention that for millenia we were mending our clothes, cleaning our houses, maintaining our food systems.

The omissions that the parent comment mentioned aren't arbitrary by the definition that we have been doing them for thousands of year.

> What a terrible reply to an interesting and genuine comment.

The "interesting and genuine [GP] comment" was hardly that: While it might not have been the GP commenter's intent, to me the comment came across as evidencing a faint sense of entitlement and tunnel vision — as in, "why hasn't the author of the book — which I haven't read — covered what I think should have been in this first volume of the series?"

I'm listening to the Audible version of the book. It's fascinating — especially the early chapter(s) about the approaches of Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce (costly, near-bespoke manufacturing, by highly-skilled engineers and mechanics, of splendid automobiles meant for the wealthy) versus that of Henry Ford (precision engineering of assembly-line machinery to enable mass production of workhorse cars that working people could afford).

(I hadn't known that in his youth, Stewart Brand was an Airborne-qualified U.S. Army infantry officer for two years after graduating from Stanford — this was back in the days of the draft. https://sb.longnow.org/SB_homepage/Bio.html)

There should be a volume about maintenance of our bodies and minds (without depending on technologies that consume a lot of energy and resources).

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