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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

>"The most important thing in life is to be free to do things. There are only two ways [...] or you can you reduce your needs to zero." (John Boyd) //

If you reduce your [other] needs to "zero" you still need money to be "free to do things". There are many activities that are free - but often you need to pay to get somewhere to do them.

For example we live on very modest means but are able to afford a holiday each year. We'd love to go abroad, the only prohibition to that is the cost of passports. We're entirely free to travel abroad and experience a different culture with our kids, we just don't have the money to do it.

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Boyd was a highly influential fighter pilot and military strategist. He himself took the latter path. He was known as the Ghetto Colonel because he hardly spent a dime of his income. His idea of "doing things" is probably vastly different from your idea. I doubt he would consider going abroad with no goal other than experiencing other cultures to be "doing things".

So, um, where does that leave us. Is that acceptance that it's just a nice quotable phrase with no real basis or what?

Why do you feel that teaching children about other cultures by direct experience is not "doing things". One can watch TV, read stories, meet people from all around the world but the only way to really understand your position as a global citizen and to appreciate the cultural wealth, the different challenges and the bond of humanity that we share on our small blue speck of earth is to travel - even just once. My ideal would be to sail as a family for a few months; but that again is not something we can aspire to without a vast change in wealth. As a child I felt I learnt a vast amount from my parents taking me abroad.

Tell me what things he did without finance?

It's a truism that we can't reduce our needs to _zero_ and live.

http://www.dnipogo.org/fcs/comments/c199.htm seems like it probably gives a good, though biased in Boyd's favour, review of his life. Notably:

>'John Boyd always said the choice facing us all is "To Be or To Do." Paradoxically, Genghis John did things — and still ended up being somebody.'

So he disproved his own maxim it seems.

His life seems to be rather defined by being involved in extreme expense of money - involved in development of fighter aircraft, part of the Pentagon. There is no mention of his personal life beyond that he smoked cigarillos until just before retirement - perhaps that was the only expense he allowed himself in the support of his 7-strong family? Maybe he grew his own tobacco? On land he acquired without money?

I would guess his definiton of "doing" has to do with producing instead of consuming. Travelling is basically a very active form of consuming culture. In terms of changing the world, it's no more useful than reading Wikipedia articles all day. (And note, further, that his definition of changing the world was also probably rooted in a military geopolitical sensibility. Travelling doesn't destroy dictatorships, etc.)

>In terms of changing the world, it's no more useful than reading Wikipedia articles all day. //

In and off itself, yes. But education is far from impotent in changing the world - would you consider someone to be properly educated if they had only stayed at home and only fed on data rather than experiencing the world outside?

>"The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act." (John Boyd, via Wikipedia)

My intention is to help my children to become rounded individuals who will as much as they are able make a positive impact on the world. Consumption is a necessity of life however.

>Travelling doesn't destroy dictatorships //

How many wars might we prevent in the future by fostering a sense of world citizenship rather than nationalism, by encouraging greater understanding of humanities shared nature and of the need for us all to work together to properly use the resources we have?

He was an odd, singular character and I think the quote describes his own philosophy - not necessarily what he thought others "should" do.

One of his points was that if he got a sweet Pentagon consulting gig after his military career, then he would be reluctant to bite the hand that fed him. He could not be objective: if a lousy idea came down the pipe from on high, he might have to rubber stamp it in order to keep cashing paychecks.

This form of integrity cost him a lot - prestige, financial success, family harmony and wellness. I don't know if most people would be able to make those decisions.

To my mind, he's sort of like rms - an extreme outlier who defines success in a very different way from most people, and yet is objectively successful by various measures.

If you want to understand John Boyd you should read one of the many good biographies about him, one of which was named in this thread already. I don't think just one Internet article will suffice to give you enough of a picture to be able to really grasp the significance of the things he said.

That too requires money ... but thanks for the tip.

There are these things called libraries. But at this point I'm going to assume you're trolling.

I don't see how it's trolling - the assertion is that one can be free to do things by reducing ones needs _to zero_. My assertion is that once free one needs resources (eg financial) to enable the doing of things. Boyd for example spent millions - through his job - on the development of fighter aircraft.

For me to get to the library costs ~£3 in bus fare, they don't have the book and so there is a stocking fee. They have an online order system which is also charged for which of course I need to own a computer. These things cost money to do.

My assertion is that the basic statement is absurdly false - no-one has given a context in which it is true.

Perhaps Boyd was prone to hyperbole and instead meant "reducing your needs will deplete your finances at a lower rate thus leaving you free to spend your money on doing things"; not very pithy and hardly a surprising statement.

Don't get me wrong, Boyd seems like a remarkable and insightful character but I'm calling him out on this one, at least unless someone can provide context to justify the quote.

> We'd love to go abroad, the only prohibition to that is the cost of passports.

? A US Adult Passport costs $110 and last 10 years; that's $11 a year. (Kids are less.) Are you in a country where it costs a lot more than that?

Yes, passports for 4 of us cost more than our budget for a holiday. We could of course buy on credit ...

FYI if you just want to go to Mexico or Canada, they have Passport "Cards" that cost less.

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