
At Work, Expertise Is Falling Out of Favor - NN88
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/future-of-work-expertise-navy/590647/
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randcraw
Curious article. Even before its publication, the US Navy has discovered the
reverse of what the article claims -- that a tiny crew of generalists like the
crew of the USS Gabrielle Giffords DOESN'T work and probably never will.

In peace time, these minimalist crew complements are fragile to injury and
breakdown making them exceedingly vulnerable. But in war, when support from
base or repair craft will often _not_ be forthcoming, the crew's lack of
knowledge about ship systems will make them unable to do even basic repairs,
much less quickly jury rig a fix, as is often essential in war for survival.
In peace, this staffing model has not only failed, but in war will, will
exacerbate to catastrophe.

Yet this article not only suggests the promise of such an approach as a new
model for war (and the tale definitely is interesting), but it disregards the
serious problems with its implementation to date and then takes the next step,
claiming that the value of expertise _outside_ this narrow (failed) example
domain is also moribund. Whhhaaaaaaat?

In anything, the lessons in the article imply the opposite -- that expertise
is alive and well, and given the rising levels of sophistication in the world
of technology, will almost certainly require ever more specialization and
expertise -- _especially_ in a US Navy that doesn't want to scuttle its ships
every time an on-board system blows a fuse.

