It is a very quickly changing place during the midterm elections last year we saw in the Texas State House Democrats picked up 12 seats in the Texas House they're now just 9 seats away from taking over that chamber you had better or come close to beating Ted Cruz. Democrats looking to house seats in the suburbs and you have all of these polls showing that maybe Texas voters would pick a Democrat over Trump in the election and so in addition to what we think we know about politics it's good to admit that there's a lot that we don't know yet and things are very quickly changing and we have to like Jackie said kind of keep that to guide look at what's happening I make to talk about R.T. This is on point I was going to Renee calling from Clearwater Florida Renee you're on the air. Hello magnons and I appreciate you taking my phone call go ahead. I am calling to also voice my concern and pressure over the media's coverage over the other candidates besides the top 3 and it's my opinion that those top 3 candidates are providing old solutions to our reality that is anything but old our current economy is changing and changing very rapidly if with regards to automation if we don't start start talking about the future and how to really talk about how we are going to transform with our economy and and make sure that all of us can succeed and that our crime rates continue to stay low and I'm really looking forward to hearing and reviewing action we get time because in previous debates he's been cut off his mike has been turned off and it's just you know this fellow when you name the 10 candidates you put him last well we have never heard a hang on with with fairness did you listen to on point on September 5th. Because we talked for an hour. Like a good idea what radio dot org all of our archives are there check it out we talked to him for an hour and we spent a lot of time on his ideas about automation and you know universal basic income but appreciate your call Rene and thank you so much I take your bigger point once again Janet Johnson re hearing people say like look there's this artificial construction our own who's getting all the attention in the media and through party mechanics we just talked about that there are 10 other candidates still in the race who didn't even make it to this debate stage so I want to acknowledge that frustration that people have but in the last minute last 30 seconds actually Jenna that we've got here I want to hear I want to do you for me what difference these debates actually make right because in the previous debates for example come Senator a couple of Harris she got a big boom for you know for a couple of days or maybe of a week after her performances there but then she sort of lost that momentum and hasn't been rising in the polls so are these debates really make or break. Gosh that's a really good question and I wish I had an answer for Ed these debates can propel a candidate. They can introduce the candidate with a little name recognition you know millions of voters very very quickly but they can also you know trip up candidates you know force them into you know giving a very quick answer to a very complicated situation that they have to lead or explain later I don't want any candidate who has to be the format and be with so many candidates very little time. But we've got 9 seconds you left very little time for us and I know you've got to get on the road to Houston So Jenna Johnson with the Washington Post joining us from Austin thank you so much and have a great time tonight this is on point. Point is a production of. Boston and. Comes from a new. Program based on a cognitive behavioral approach. And life luck. Personal information. Coming up next our point innovation is the buzzword for a digital era and so we're constantly upgrading and disrupting just about everything in our lives but would we be better off if we just slowed down and maintained through what we already have coming up next hour. For local news you trust ask your smart speaker to play Connecticut Public Radio. So in your own closed just what it used to be a lot of teens and tweens you know go through this sort of sewing and D.I.Y. Phase where they really want to discover their own sense of style but there's not much out there for them to do it I'm the company trying to disrupt sewing patterns That's next on Marketplace. Join us tonight at $630.00. This is Connecticut Public Radio N.P.R. And N.P.R. Age 51 married in at 90.5 W P K T W P K T H D one Norwich 89.1. 88.5 W. Our ally Southampton at 91.3. All dot org It's alive and o'clock. Major funding for on point is provided by Geico offering car insurance as well as services for homeowners and renters insurance through the Geico Insurance Agency additional information can be found at Geico dot com or 180947 audio. From N.P.R. And W.V.U. Or Boston I'm making a trucker party this is on point innovate or die perpetual beta nothing is ever done because it can always be made better the disrupter now I'm very sympathetic to the idea of continuous improvement but has the belief in innovation simply for the sake of it taken on a cult like feel everywhere Well I guess today say it's time to recognize where the real work of society is done not with the Hyperloop loving Valley innovators but with the maintainers those who repair care for and continue the basic functioning of our entire world up next some point celebrating the maintainer 1st the news. Live from N.P.R. News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst the House Judiciary Committee has approved a resolution outlawing ground rules for hearings and Democratic Democrats ongoing investigation into whether to start impeachment proceedings against President Trump as N.P.R.'s Susan Davis reports the resolution was passed along party lines with all Republicans in opposition Democrats say the technical resolution will give more investigative power to lawmakers for upcoming hearings on President Trump whether or not Democrats are conducting a quote impeachment inquiry has been a rhetorical tussle on Capitol Hill Judiciary chairman Gerry nowther attempted to set the record straight so cool this crisis of impeachment inquiry so cool that impeachment investigation is the legal difference between these 2 groups though to look at Care to argue about the job equation Republicans have consistently opposed all of Democrats investigations into the administration they stand behind Trump's assertions that he has done nothing wrong Susan Davis N.P.R. News the Capitol. Later today President Trump will be in Baltimore to speak to a group of House Republicans N.P.R.'s Khalid wire says protesters are expected in the city which trump criticized on Twitter earlier this summer some called Baltimore quote a dangerous in filthy place his comments were aimed at Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings I think one critic who represents a district there now Trump is headed to the city to speak to a Republican Conference and activists say they have the perfect welcome form at least can protest events are planned for the weekend N.P.R.'s call and why are the Census Bureau says it's planning to produce citizenship information for states to use when redrawing voting maps after the 2020 census N.P.R.'s Hansi Lo Wang reports trouble administration officials ordered the Census Bureau to release this information even though no states have asked for it after each national headcount The Census Bureau releases demographic information to help state redistricting officials reach although the districts here has been asking states if they need citizenship in for. Nation after the 2020 census for redistricting and this week the bureau said that not a single state redistricting official has asked for citizenship data but the trouble ministration has already ordered the bureau to produce that information now from a citizenship question that has been blocked by the Supreme Court but by compiling government records from federal agencies a major G.O.P. Redistricting strategy is concluded that using that information in redistricting could politically benefit Republicans and non Hispanic white people on the long N.P.R. News New York the number of people applying for 1st time unemployment benefits fell to a 5 month low last week the Labor Department says initial weekly claims dropped 150028 seasonally adjusted 204008 drop as the biggest since last May all straight is trading higher at this hour the Dow is up 2 points at 27139 The Nasdaq is up 21 points at 8191 yes and P. 500 is up 3 points at 3004 you're listening to N.P.R. . A former top attorney at the military court at Guantanamo Bay Cuba has filed a federal whistleblower complaint accusing the U.S. Government of gross waste of funds and gross mismanagement there N.P.R.'s national Pfeifer has more retired Air Force Colonel Gary Brown was legal adviser to the former head of Guantanamo's court he says he was shocked by the cost of the operation with its hundreds of lawyers translators case analysts investigators and other personnel at least a couple of times a week there was an instance where someone would tell me some expense we had or some individual we were paying for and then I would just have to stop in my tracks and say wait what how can that possibly be many of them involved unnecessary expenditures or waste of money Guantanamo has cost taxpayers more than $6000000000.00 since 2002 the Pentagon declined to discuss the spending on tape but says it now costs $380000000.00 a year forget most 40 remaining detainees Sasha Pfeiffer N.P.R. News the Coast Guard is implementing additional safety recommendations in the wake of the fatal dive boat fire off the coast of Southern California that left $34.00 people dead the new recommendations include limiting the use of power strips an extension cords and charging lithium ion batteries unsupervised the cause of the blaze is still under investigation crude oil prices are sharply lower at this hour down 2 and a half percent at $54.36 a barrel all street is trading higher at this hour the Dow is up 15 points the NASDAQ up $24.00 the S. And P. 500 up 4 I'm joining Herbst And you're listening to N.P.R. News from Washington Support for N.P.R. Comes from I drive providing cloud backup full system back up and on site I drive appliance to protect P.C.'s Macs and servers from data loss due to crashes and ransomware at I drive dot com slash N.P.R. And Americans for the Arts. The man known as Dr Seuss grew up in New England drawing inspiration from the locals who and his German roots so it was very influential in sort of shaping you know the artist he would later become the next from the New England whose collaborative tall tales from Springfield famous son and how another famous family shaped the climate debate manmade emissions have a right to play change yes fact done let's move on please join us in this afternoon at 2. From N.P.R. And W.V.U. Or Boston I'm making a turn for a party and this is on for Apple is an innovation machine and this week with its customary flair Apple announced its new i Phone I love it and if you're not one of those Apple acolytes who hang on C.E.O. Tim Cook's every single word the big her offer the i Phone 11 is a faster chip a new camera and. All day battery life. OK So yes I am a curmudgeon who longs for the days when my bar phone battery less than entire week on one charge but let's just dare to ask for one moment what is all the hype about where is the innovation here Can Apple's i Phone 11 just be seen as another example of where we all are as a world now a society that is so in love with innovation simply for the sake of it that we're fetishizing intervene pull our guest today say it's time to remember something very key about how we live that most of life in business and our infrastructure it's not about making new things or even wild new things but about taking care of things about maintaining what we already have they say it's time to champion the maintainers So this hour in point rethinking the cult of innovation and celebrating the maintainers and you can join us 180-423-8255 that's 80423 talk I want to know if you're one of those folks who are going to run out and buy that new i Phone 11 simply because of its whiz bang new battery life or if you really just project everything that I'm saying right now and believe that innovation is absolutely essential to everything that we do how we think how we learn the business is that we run or do you hear what our guests are about to say that maybe we ought to rethink that cult of innovation again we're at 804238255 it's. 80423 talk well Andrew Russell and leave insole are both historians of technology and back in 2016 they wrote an essay in The Journal Elan titled hail the maintainer's we have a link to it at on point Radio dot org And Andrew Russell is a historian of technology and dean of arts and sciences at the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute he joins us today from Syracuse New York and Russell welcome to on point Hi Thanks Magna great to be here it's great to have you and leave insole is a historian of technology a professor of science and technology studies ever Ginia tech and he's with us from Blacksburg Virginia leavin Zal Welcome to you I think so much for having us it's great to have you both here and I got my chance to beat up on Apple here a little bit we can help you with that so help me I mean am I am I wrong to sort of poo pooed this new whiz bang i Phone 11 and its all day battery life you know I mean I think you see this a lot with electronics and digital technology today where you know slightly new things get hailed as a major transformation and we can also think about you know how specially Apple products that many other people products are created to be on maintainable so they're really based on keeping us constantly buying new things the other thing I think about is just how kind of what we call innovation speak the ideology and lingo that we've developed developed for thinking about technology leads us to neglect basic things like maintenance and repair and just keeping the world going so Andrew Russell tell us more about that I mean when we when we say that we've created this whole language around innovation speak I mean I'm hard pressed to think of a of a sector industry that has adopted that language. It's true it's everywhere it's not only in digital technologies you've said it's in education which is the sector that you know I work and it's in healthcare you know any sector that you can think of it's there but the fact is that our lives reality doesn't really reflect that we need those innovations and I was just thinking about this on my drive in today in the studio that we're in now where we're you know I went over transportation infrastructure we're over radio infrastructure and these are all old technologies and I only got here in we're only talking because there are people working really hard to make the old technologies work OK Well I'm not going to leave Apple alone here for just another a minute because I just mean it's it's such a it's such an important example of both the upside and the downside of our focus on innovation here so so 1st of all let me just play a little bit more from their announcement this week about the i Phone 11 this is Phil Schiller he is Apple senior vice president for worldwide marketing and he was one of the folks at the Steve Jobs theater in Cupertino California extolling my producer has written this language so I'm hanging on to your hat there Steph extolling quote the awesomeness of the newest i Phone This is the most advanced and detailed i Phone we've made yet it's made of a surgical great stainless steel is a single piece of machine glass with an offical pin coating is a beautiful new matte texture finish that looks great and feels awesome in your hands. I for the love of pro as in some gorgeous new finishes this is an all new midnight dream with the senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller there and I know some folks listening that are probably actually drooling with desire but but let's go back to 2007 at the MacWorld Conference when Steve Job Jobs unveiled the very 1st i Phone Now Now here's what he said that an i Pod a phone. And an Internet communicator. On our i Pod was on. The way to do with these on. 3 separate devices was his I wonder why they were. Both here. I Phone was a. 2 day Apple is going to reinvent the fall Steve Jobs in 2007 now and really the reason why are to play that is because I think it tells the story of how this language and focus on innovation has changed in this past decade right because this latest i Phone 11 Harrar it's got a midnight green color but when the i Phone was 1st introduced in the you know in the sort of early of 2207 it was a trend the it was an innovation that was traders Peramivir So he said no you're not you're not saying like down with innovation are you. No no we're not we're not anti innovation or anti technological change I mean you know we're very happy to have antibiotics and air conditioning and so many things but I think that you're pointing to the kind of super fishy ality of the innovation speak that's developed in. in silicon valley and and act worlds i mean who would deny that cell phones and digital technologies a been transform it is you know to turn away zome to politics to so much else but you know that that that a new i phone announcement sounded like you know it's saturday night why get like us of of change so i think said you know that's the critique air and you what do you think i thought those announcements together sounded as much like go religious revival as they did anything to hear talking seriously about technology well those out it will turn france as tend to have of a fervent feel about them for sure they sure do and it you know full credit to steve jobs than and the team it out will that's their job and they have done a tremendous job getting these things and you know selling them and improving people's lives to the extent that we can say they've improved people's lives what they don't focus on is you know as we discussed before the hard work that it takes to keep their systems going and that's just leaving aside the downsides of having these things in our hands on our pockets inner lives 247 yeah so i want to i mean obviously would i want to talk with you about your idea of celebrating the maintainers and we will get to that in death the just a moment but it anderson's you said like that these apple conferences tend to feel more like religious revile like a revival like a tent revival meeting for a for attack a but it's not just their i you are you at least saying that the this belief even the innovation for the sake of innovation has become kind of a faith across across the united states across how how we do business that that eat enough itself is the end goal is simply to innovate Yeah that's exactly right it's a confusion of means an ANS And so health care is a great example where we all would agree that ends are to improve people's lives improve people's comfort and you know make life better for everyone but is it always the case that innovation and new medicines or new treatments is the best way to do that or are there cases where maybe innovation or new treatments actually distract from the work that nurses do or the hospitals do and making people feel better so that's just one example now if you listen to the executives and the scientists in the medical space they will be pushing innovation and the people who raise funds for hospitals and for medical schools they'll be pointing to the breakthrough treatments but our point is to simply and you know those are really important to be sure our point is that the talk the rhetoric is out of balance and we need to think about that balance and really think about that ends and not just be fixated on innovation as an end in itself when it's really just a means to an end OK So Lee I'm going to provide the devil's advocate pushback here though I mean there in the world that we live in now I think people are right to follow that montra innovate or die it is it is the means by which progress happens and that groups than individuals and businesses who don't actually see innovation as part of what they do to try and improve or make new things or better their business practices are going to be pushed by the wayside. Yeah I mean I think we have to think about how most innovation is actually incremental and boring and happening deep in the guts of industry and industry been doing that forever you know I mean I think part of the point is that what we call innovation speak using the word innovation it's only been developed in the last 30 or 40 years that industry has been doing this since the industrial revolution starts and you know the mid 19th century in America for for instance I'm so there's no point problem there but I think that you know the idea of disruption for instance that we're all going to be disrupted by digital technology or that you know I heard a guest on your last hour talking about automation and robots taking away jobs there's just not evidence for these kinds of claims that we're seeing some kind of rapid shift well leave or leave insulin and or Russell hang on here for just 2nd because this is so fascinating we just have to take a really quick break and when we come back we'll pick up with your idea of celebrating the maintainer's over the innovators and we want to know what folks out there is a great 184-3855 that's 843 talk has the cult of innovation gone too far. 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This is on point i magnetometer Bartie We're talking this hour with Andrew Russell and leavin SOL They are a pair of historians of technology from the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute that's where Andrew is and from Virginia Tech that's where Leave insole works and they're writing about pushing back against the cult of innovation and instead of celebrating what they call the maintainers Now this is something that maybe isn't necessarily new as as Lee and Andrew point out in their writing back and even back in 2012 the vaunted Wall Street Journal into the quote innovation bashing act at one time counting that in just a one month period in 2012 more than 250 books with innovation in the title were published and that the term had begun to lose meaning so do you agree with that do you think we've taken the cult of innovation too far or not far enough and when Andrew unleased say we should celebrate the maintainers or the people who keep our world going as it is what do you think about that word 804238255 So Andrew only you know I have said this phrase the maintainers a couple of times and I think listeners just have a chance to hear from you who are the maintainers What do you mean what do they do . That you take that 1st. Yes So I mean there's different ways that define maintenance we tended to define it pretty broadly to include you know mechanics repair people who keep systems going janitors and others who keep our buildings clean and you know put together and all the way to things like teachers and nurses and people involved in caregiving so that you know for us it's really about a kind of war with entropy so the world falling apart all the time we know that this is fundamental to our physics and the maintainers other people who you know fight entropy and try to keep our world in some state of order and Andrew these so that it's it makes it seems like under that definition these. Maintainers are everywhere. Yeah that's right we're all maintainers and we're all maintained so one of the interesting things to think about once you accept that premise is what aspects of your life are you a maintainer and in what aspects of your life are you maintained and who is maintaining you who are what is maintaining you so absolutely we're all maintainers we're all maintained but it's certainly true that in some people's work and whole classes of jobs in different industries as Leah said the bulk of the maintenance work falls to certain kinds of people in certain occupations so then what do you think are some of the consequences of. Having on a lot of public attention surrounding innovators versus maintainers what are we missing when we're not talking about the work of maintainers. I was just interviewing a tech worker the other day who works at a software company in the Midwest and software is a well known package used in academia and the company's constantly focusing on introducing new features to the system and I mean that's how they hyped the change to sell this thing Meanwhile this guy was doing I.T. For the company so running the infrastructure including their sales and payment systems and all these kinds of things that make a run and that the system was he said held together with you know duct tape and you know wire basically he what he and his colleagues were. You know buying spare parts off of E.-Bay because their systems were so old and running Windows $95.00 and such and so you know within organizations and you see this knack you know in universities in government there's a lot of hype put on the new things you know what we're going to do that's new but meanwhile they're often you know failing to take care of those systems not giving the resources to the necessary systems to keep things going and those people who keep it up often don't receive recognition. Within the organization and often or you know don't receive compensation and other kind of benefits that you know the so-called innovators within the organization do well Andrew I mean as you only have written even within tech the vast majority according to your numbers the vast majority of people who work in tech would essentially be maintainers under this the smooth brick. That's right there's estimates going back as far as the 1970 S. And 1980 S. Of what percent effort different organizations devote to maintenance versus design or introducing new technologies and the numbers for maintenance fluctuate and they're tough to nail down but they're usually somewhere between 60 and 80 percent and that's what I'm here for software that's right and so if it leads right if you talk to people who work in these worlds especially in companies that are successful companies like You know Netflix or other streaming companies they devote tremendous amounts of resources to keeping up time in the 99.99 percent tile and that sort of thing that's what customers want but that's not really what's recognized in their P.R. And that's not what people think about when they think about those companies in the services they just want them to work and if they don't work then people will just go somewhere else and so that's that's one of the issues of the disconnect really that you're talking about people just don't understand it I mean but would you would Netflix be as successful as it is if it if it put and I'm not I'm obviously I'm not diminishing the importance of the work of maintainers here but but from a business standpoint would would they be as successful if they said you know here are armies of software engineers who keep your stream coming to you versus like here's all the new ways we're going to get you the content that you want it's anything like I thought experiment you know Hedley I think Netflix an interesting example could it's like a truly disruptive right like Blockbuster video does not exist anymore right and so they you know they're in they're deeply innovative in that way and they offer offer new services but I think that you know it's a nice thought experiment precisely because one of the ways they compete it is on up time right like high quality service and what's made that high quality service a reality is that they have some of the bad. Software and you know infrastructure maintenance teams on the planet and so you know that's just kind of left out of the picture and the same is true of Amazon you know Amazon is its most profitable services Amazon Web Services at this cloud computing that's totally you know maintenance work sure there's an end you know an important innovation in the thing itself but it's just like people fail to realize how much effort is being put into creating that quality service so these examples bring up to I think of the most compelling points that you make in the writing that you an Andrew have done and one of it is that we're with our sort of cultural focus on innovation it has rendered invisible the amount of work or in your in your language the absolute central of the of the work that goes into simply keeping the world going as we know it and that just and that stopped me in my tracks for saying it could be because I think honestly I don't give Sadly I don't give enough thought any thought in the course of an average day to the people who work in quietly to keep our world functioning I mean that it's quite a sobering thought. I think what I should what's interesting what's interesting is that. When we we've been talking to you know hundreds of these people over the last couple of years as we've been researching and organizing around this and there's a split. On the one hand I think it would be good if there were more recognition and more status and certainly more compensation devoted to these people but on the other hand a lot of them don't want to be heroes even though we would consider them heroes whether it's nurses or or repairman or plumbers and in the case of something that happened in my house they don't want to be called out as heroes they just like to keep their heads down and do the work and a job well done is satisfaction for them so it's an interesting little paradox here when we talk about the public perceptions of the work that they do because they're not necessarily chomping at the bit to jump into the headlines well when Andrew we've got a lot of callers who want to join us so I want to get some of their voices in here we are talking with Andrew Russell and leave insole there are a pair of historians of Technology who have been writing for quite some time pushing back against basically the cult of innovation in saying that instead we ought to be celebrating the maintainers and we're at 184-3855 that's 80423 talk let's go to Frank who's calling from Richmond Virginia Frank you're on the air Hi Thanks. Go ahead Frank. Oh so I guess my point would be going back to the original example of the i Phone. I think it's great that you know they're telling out with new products and things like that but having 1100 or however much it costs you I believe and I think more thought to be looked at how can you make things cheaper and more efficient for people like being of the money on generation that I could necessarily afford I thought 11 how can we help with me or improving upon official the and bring the cost down of some of the products that are so real or to you know the ailing of efficiency or innovation Well Frank thank you so much for your call let's go to Brenda who's calling from Ellicott City Maryland Brenda you're on the air oh yeah I agree with you that it's like a cult of let's all get something new and much for everything away and also I resent that everybody acts like this because I have a phone with a corny keyboard I'm too stupid to understand a new song i don't want to do from when I drop my son off a ladder I think I'll pick it up and it works and it's just terrible that I have to fill an ice cube tray it's no big deal my refrigerator 20 years old it's not in the landfill you know I mean why don't we just keep what we have if it works and put their own things the way you know that would be a significant way to help says Yeah well Brenda thank you so much for your call so slowly and Andrew a couple of interesting calls there this is pick up with Brenda's thought that that if we don't focus on. Maintainers or maintaining what we already have that there are all this leaves the major you know environmental implications is that part of your thinking about why we need to see you suggesting we shift our focus away from innovation Enderle start with you. Yeah absolutely the there's pretty good documentation about the escalating environmental costs of the whole supply chain of building all this new stuff from the mining of rare earth minerals to the mountains of plastic in the ocean and I definitely think it's true that there's a connection there that there's not only corporations who want to keep producing new things to support their own bottom lines and producing things that are are not easy to repair but also the consumers are demanding those things and so the to the extent that that's a problem and we think it's a huge problem then there's a lot that can be done both on the supply and on the demand side. Yeah I totally agree and I mean just to connected to Apple for a 2nd so you know if Apple wants to just sell luxury items basically to you know a certain class of people that's fine but I think the argument is that we should be able to maintain and repair those things for a long time and I would include encourage listeners to check out the website i Fixit the folks there do tear down of phones and digital gadgets and they show over and over again that Apple's especially bad when it comes to maintenance or repair and there's lots of toxic things that are you know instead of keeping these phones around for longer and making them maintainable they basically are things that have to be disposed of so there's a lot that corporations could change to make things you know more maintainable and you know have their environmental benefits that go along with that I'm a good talker Bartie this is on point now and really let me ask you really the thing one of the things that you get to in your thinking in writing about the maintainers actually has to do with the moral implications of the invisibility of a lot of this work right I mean especially around issues of infrastructure whether it be digital physical infrastructure meander Can you talk about that. Certainly yeah it's absolutely right we try not to use the word invisible because we like to emphasize that people are making the choice to neglect maintainers they're here they're among us we can see them they're rendered invisible or rendered silent because of choices that we make so that's absolutely a moral issue and there are things that we can very simple things we can do about it including recognizing the people who do that kind of work and thanking them very simple things but it also rolls up into having some pretty significant economic consequences so the people who are doing maintenance work throughout society generally aren't paid too well and they have families they're generally the working poor and there's a lot of work done on the subject by a research group in the United Way called Alice Alice stands for ass asset limited income constrained but employed so basically the working poor and they've got a ton of data on how these how Alice families are represented all over the country state by state county by county and the fact is that if they were compensated better in making whether it's a living wage you know there's a lot of lot of discussion that could go into that but if we compensated the maintainer's better there would be no benefits to the entire society so the more on that in the economic are really closely related interesting Ellie let me ask you if regarding say just our physical infrastructure we were talking about transportation infrastructure near the beginning of the show. Most of it which is really old in the United States do you do you draw a line between I mean this is this is such a simplistic question I'm almost hesitant to ask if I'll do it anyway do you draw a line between you know are sort of fed is fetishizing of innovation and are sort of color active ignoring of crumbling infrastructure No I mean I think that. You know that's part. Our argument and you know we draw in a lot of people to make our arguments one person we drawn around this is Chuck Marone in the group over at Strong towns which is a group that tries to help localities be sustainable financially sustainable and his point is that you know we often use federal money to build new infrastructure in towns but then the towns are you know basically signing up to maintain and repair these infrastructures for the rest of time until we get rid of the infrastructure and his point is that it's just totally unsustainable system and there's there's lots of impetus for politicians to kind of do ribbon cuttings and stand in front of new you know bring in money and do new things but what it's doing is burdening us with you know incredible infrastructural debt and you know you look at things like the American Society of Civil Engineers infrastructure report card where you know the U.S. Gets a deep loss or Pfeffer when it comes to infrastructure and you know this is it comes in part from a good session with growing and building new things and not really thinking about the long haul and how we're going to be able to take care of these things over time well as you as you and Andrew written in The New York Times for example you say that political inaction around allocating resources necessary for preventative maintenance in transportation is quote an action that is inaction that is a symptom of a deeper problem one is one that is too seldom discussed Americans have an impoverished and immature conception of technology one that fetishizing vision as a kind of art and demeans upkeep as mere drudgery. That leaves out that what you think yeah it is I think you know we learn from the from Chuck Moore own it strong towns about infrastructure and then you know the more we've been working on our book and doing research for our group the maintainer's we just see this everywhere we see it in universities where there's a lot of. You know innovation but not taking care of the infrastructure you see in corp like I said that software company I think it's very widespread well leave insole and Andrew Russell stand by we are talking about Andrew Allee's thinking around what they call the maintainers and pushing back against the cult of innovation where at 1843855 will be right back this is on point. Support for Connecticut Public Radio comes from the Connecticut forum presenting a conversation with Seth Meyers a not so late night of entertainment and laughter live at the Bushnell on September 20th subscriptions at C T Forum dot org. 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This is a point I made the truckers already We're talking this hour with Andrew RUSSELL He's a historian of technology and dean of arts and sciences at the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute and his collaborator leave insole who's a historian of technology as well and a professor of science and technology studies ever Ginia tech and together they've been writing for several several years about what they call the maintainers and pushing back against the cult of innovation in America for example they've recently written this that quote While innovation the social process of introducing new things is important most technologies around us are old and for the smooth functioning of daily life maintenance is more important and Andrew and Lee are you that we are not paying enough attention to the people who are doing that maintenance work 18438255 that's 843 talk let's go to Fred who's calling from Duxbury Vermont Fred you're on the air. Yes So folks I have a couple of things I've been making Seder I've been a blue collar worker a mechanic. All my life truck driver expect truck and I've noticed discrepancy here that I don't want to call her a system but you know I have dirty hands you know my hands show that I work hard in my pants on my show I work hard I'm not a tech 1st my brother on the other hand is older went to college he is a tech person and he are always going to be a worker bee all your life he says but he can't change his own spark plugs on his car I just noticed that throughout my life that if you're not on the cutting edge if you didn't go to college if you're not on edge you know Vader so to say and I notice that a lot with my own children my high 2 boys they're the of the hipster age and a lot of the your friends are techies that are you know all their work is done on a laptop and here on their home somewhere both of my boys are hands on workers on an even noticing that it's generational from me in the seventy's to my kids in the teens for that to get back to their thank you so much recall I think it kind of getting a little rough on us misspeaking of maintenance we need maintenance on our phone lines but Fred thanks so much we reflect on one for you say especially he was seeing sort of a. That even with his kids' generation I'm perhaps might even more with his kids generation there's this lack of respect as he said for doing some of this work I heard him say a couple really fascinating things The 1st was that you know we often kind of mark out maintainers they're visible to us you know they often wear uniforms that kind of set them aside as a certain kind of cast so it's true that we can literally see maintainer's in in lots of different areas but the other thing I heard is you know. Something we hear often which is about the loss of skills in keeping the world going so here in Blacksburg for instance it's very hard to find trades people to work on your house you know I heard there was an H. Back a guy who is quitting at the end of the year just because he's working constantly and the money's just not worth it for in anymore and you hear this a lot with the trades where there's just not enough kind of people entering and so you know those are 2 big things well so Andrew I want to read made me think about circling back to something that the that you and Lee were saying earlier because a lot of the this is maintenance work. Is work to has historically been done for example as you're saying health care work at home cetera by by women and now even and now the more so people of color as well so that when we're not paying attention to this particular kind of work of meeting the maintenance work of our society we are not paying attention to draw broad swaths of people as well. I'm glad you brought that up I was reflecting on your question about the moral implications in the break of this distinction between the innovators who are praised and the maintainers who are ignored and it's I think it's no coincidence that the 2 voices we heard at the top of the hour were the 2 white guys in Silicon Valley praising you know that this really expensive new new device that's going to change everything but really the people who are doing the Word are disproportionately people of color women and that's been true and it continues to be true and it's just you know it's really unfortunate and it's it's a cultural problem that I think we've begun to recognize and that critics of corn quote Silicon Valley have begun to recognize I think firms are trying to do something about it but it's such a deeply entrenched problem throughout the educational system as as you've said that children are being driven to think they need to be innovators and inventors when the opposite is true and you know we need to structure conversations and structure compensation in different ways well you know exactly just for just for one second is that we have an example of something that you and Andrew have written about which is exactly the point the entry is making about how even around education. Young people are getting a lot of this innovation messaging and getting it intensely So here's one of the examples that you provided in one of your papers it's got it's a book about the University Innovation Fellows Program and the idea behind this program is to get students to teach themselves and their universities to become quote change agents and here's who. Fussy who Dina who is a co-director of the University Innovation Fellows program talking about one of their projects in India India is on the brink of an innovation revolution in universities and colleges and on the need to prepare for the innovation that students need to understand. It's all on top of the real world problem and develop innovative solutions that benefit. So not to pick on whom there but I will she said the word innovation 3 times in that little clip and I'm not exactly sure what this program does Lisa's this is one of your examples Yeah well who knows what it does I mean I think they they hold events and talk about innovation. I mean I think you know I want to kind of go back to your point about race and gender and we can talk about development in a poor countries how much you know the successful programs focus on helping women who are often doing maintenance and care work in their homes and you know so Andy and I are work draws on lots of things but a lot of it's on feminist literature that points out so much of the kind of daily upkeep work that women do you know and how that goes on recognized and you know it's literally not counted in G.D.P. For instance housework isn't and you know even if we thought about poor countries you know a lot of what they need are poor places in the states frankly like you know places in Alabama and stuff what those places need is basic infrastructure and help on those levels they don't need you know a new gadget or design thinking or whatever supposed to produce innovation Asus or early Well let's go back to the phones and go to David is calling from Sarasota Florida David you're on the air. Thanks for taking my call show on the subject of maintaining existing infrastructure and it's you know it's an impact to the environment in specifically building operations building infrastructure I've been in that industry since since the eighty's as an operating engineer so and I've seen it in many cities I've been in Manhattan and now I'm here at the local set Sarasota and what happens in our industry is that we you know we emphasize the innovation and changing the equipment your. More of the fish and type and style when when in fact some of the equipment most eagerly worked on once maintained in operating the way it's intended or to its design it does a fine job so it's important to realize that when we introduce this to recycle the Quitman back into the environment it's a tremendous impact when if we were to maintain and make innovative changes to this equipment quite frankly you're doing a tremendous service by not impacting the environment and we see in many many different ways in many many different facets of building operations Well David thank you for that observation and for your call as well let's go to Jim who's calling from Boston Massachusetts Jim you're on the air. Hi this is a fantastic topic and I'm just going to go for it also because this is right my wills the last 15 years this is all I do is you know I make engines want to put forth engines into V.W. Vans to keep them on the road to maintain them and I want to make 2 points one was that I when you're earlier cause kind of touched upon it which was this whole maintain of us innovation thing is very kind of similar to the way young and elderly are viewed in our society it's kind of you know you kind of relegate you know you know you cheat them out of out of the main focus it's not not fashionable but then the 2nd thing I want to say too is it's not always mutually exclusive so there's a lot of innovation that can go into the maintaining part as well yeah and you know I do that every day. Jay I think of the have a go ahead Lee Yeah you know I mean I think this is important we try to make a distinction between actual innovation like technological change and what we call innovation speak which is the way we come to talk and think about these issues because when you get down into it like as social processes are not necessarily you know at ends with each other we can talk about new things like the i Phones and how they're not maintainable but when you think about maintenance how we do maintenance maintenance has changed hugely over the last 100 years so you know a lot of times it involves digital technologies and stuff so it's important to emphasize that it's not like technological change and maintenance are necessarily at odds with each other that's not our point exactly but one of the points you're making and I want to spend the last couple minutes of the program on this is what does focusing on maintenance or shifting our focus allow us to do now this is from from some of your writing Andrew and Lee and you say quote informal economic terms innovation involves the diffusion of new things and practices the term is completely agnostic about whether these things and practices are good and then you go on and you say what if we focus on maintenance will that provide opportunities to ask questions about what we really want out of those technologies versus just the innovation itself and you making an ethical argument here Andrew hate to tell us more about that. Yeah well it's certainly the case that not everything should be maintained so you know just like not all innovations should be celebrated not everything should be maintained and we can think of a number of systems that should not be maintained in our best cast aside whether it's systems of political oppression or wasteful technological systems inefficient technological systems as we've been discussing so that's one really important piece of our argument that you know just like we're not anti innovation we're also not reactionaries and I think this this most recent discussion about there being room for it and the need for ingenuity and creativity in maintenance that's a really important subtle point a mega Chakrabarti this is on point but I want to dig into this little bit more Andrew in Leigh because as we said a couple of times this hour the talk around innovation reach such a froth that there's confusion between innovation as a process versus an ends right that the means to the means versus the ends debate here and I just really interest about the idea that if we focus on maintenance more as us that that allows us to to ask questions about what we want out of these technologies what purposes are they actually trying to serve what do we really care about what kind of society would we want to live it I mean Levy make the argument to me that that bringing maintenance in or focusing on maintenance is the way to to ask those questions I think it goes back to your earlier point about innovation being kind of religion you know I think we've come to the technological change as the thing that's going to get us to the promised land and it pretty clearly isn't there's so many problems that have come with you know Silicon Valley and digital technology and stuff it's not that and I think when we when we move technology I would it being the end in itself when we start talking to each other about what do we what kind of society do we want to live right how do we want to. Live together and realizing that no matter what kind of technology we introduce into the world most of the work afterwards is going to be in keeping it going in just daily life it opens up a new kind of conversation about what things we actually need how we can plan for the long during a and you know about how we can properly compensate and take care of each other. Well let's go to Michael who's calling from Fort Lauderdale Florida Michael you're on the air. Hi good morning thanks for taking my call I thought that you were making a very interesting point about you know how we decide together as a society to live together and I think that is being hampered if we are not looking at the underlying motivation for this cult of innovation right which I think is the economic models the way that we think about money and business and how things work in our society I think is a very important factor in how that how that works you know have a Mattia know a common me or a business does not grow as much this year than last year then there's there must be something wrong and then there's this kind of in the market like oh my God what are we going to do it's like well nothing that humanity has ever created is meant to be permanent everything in nature goes through close ups and downs why would we think that anything that we create would be any different and not just the actual physical items but any of the systems that we create. So we totally have to decide together how we how we do that but we 1st have to address the money issue money Dems the most important deciding factors in your life over everything then we cannot have a discussion a meaningful discussion about how we live our lives together because we're too busy competing for money. Michael I'm going to take it back because we've just got a minute and a half left and you've left us with a really interesting thought here's a thank you for your call Man did you want to just 1st respond to Michael saying that like really. His or his view of the but at the at the very foundation of this issue is capitalism really and money he's right when it comes down to it someone has to pay and systematically societies have underestimated and underfunded how much we've had to pay for maintenance so that's perfectly clear there's but the point he's also making about having a conversation is equally important and that's something that Lee and I have had a lot of fun doing why why hearing from these callers with these amazing questions is so much fun we write but we also hold conferences so I want to plug our next conference in Washington next month that's called maintainers 3 and I'm and I bring it up because I think the best way to really get through these questions is through conversation. So the police just we've got about 30 seconds here and your past maintainers conference is what people wanted to talk about. Yeah I mean you know it's one of these things just like the cause where people just come out of the woodwork with so many fascinating stories so that's what we love the most is you know there's artists and professors and engineers and librarian and open source software people and that's really you know what we'll see at the next conference but we love the most people come out with their personal stories to tell about their stories and about their lives as maintainers Yeah well I have to say thank you to both of you because this has been completely fascinating I mean change is a fact of life as you said innovation has been with us for centuries but maybe we are all do our own ourselves and our culture our nation better by focusing on those folks who keep things going so Andrew Russell and leave Insel thank you both so very much I should let folks know they have a book about this coming out next year is a keep your eye out for that this is on point. On point isn't.