We Engineers Love Symmetry

Some portrait painters like Picasso stand out because they deliberately distort the human face.  It becomes their “brand of art expression” and we can accept that even though it may offend our sense of balance in the human form.  We prize symmetry and balance in all dimensions of our faces and bodies and celebrate the “perfections” in that all the time.  One of our neighbors came in No. 2 in the Miss World competition and she would even describe herself as having won “the human lottery” in that she was born with certain proportions.

What surprises me the most these days is that we fail to recognize the asymmetry in our politics and news cycles.  Americans celebrate the freedom of speech yet some conservative speech is now deemed undeserving of freedoms.  The news media most often uses the term “alleged” when they describe a criminal even when the video footage shows them committing the crime.

On the other hand, when the political talking points do not agree with what seems to be patently true, we hear the news media declare these “deviants” as “deniers” rather than simply expressing an opposing point of view.  It seems we have really bad memories that the claims of Russian interference in the prior election cycle have now been proven false.  It is surprising to me that the election laws had to be changed if there were not problems in the past.

Picasso would be proud.  We now live with asymmetric news and media coverage on so many issues:  everything is a climate crisis.  Really, do you really think the Western water crisis is all about the climate and not about more uses than sources?  Do we really think the recent climate bill will change anything in the climate for the better in the near term?

Worse yet, the recent news media coverage seems to be amping up the rhetoric to “outlaw” opposing points of view.  Isn’t that a clear step towards Marxism?

As an engineer I do love symmetry … so I guess I am not loving where any of this is going.

How about you?  Tell me where I am missing something.

 

2 thoughts on “We Engineers Love Symmetry”

  1. Joel, you are spot on with all of this. I think some of the American people are Marxist but the majority feel helpless to change the trajectory of our country. Trump was their answer but he doesn’t play well with others and has sabotaged his ability to be re-elected.

  2. I have long called “misinformation” as a different opinion or read of data. If they don’t like it, just call it a lie or misinformation, and don’t use any analysis, video, written word, or data to back it up.

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