jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) (06/15/91)
Over the years, I've observed a disease that infects space enthusiasts which I'll call "Pointless Organizational Daffiness Syndrome" or PODS. The symptoms of The Syndrome are: * Focus on geographical territory or domain, (including The World). * Lack of defining goals. * Attempt to be all inclusive to maximize the number of members rather than effectiveness. * A large amount of politicing over organizational details during formation. * Very little in the way of meaningful accomplishments prior to, during formation or after formation. * The waste of a lot of people's time. * Focus on attempts to claim credit for anything real that is accomplished by anyone anywhere. * Initial growth from sheep-like people who are afraid of being "left out." * Started by people who are expressing the human capacity for bureaucracy rather than pioneering, thus ensuring these organizations will service space suppressing bureaucracies like NASA/ESA, etc. The National Space Society (itself an organization with PODS) seems to breed these things like flies, primarily with the efforts of Terry Savage or his cats paws. The purpose of these NSS spawn appears to be to capture anyone who might spin off from NSS back into the bureaucracy mentality. Others have popped up from time to time. For example, some guy took a very hypothetical idea for a grassroots-funded SPS company I was discussing on Compuserv back in '82 and actually started SOLICITING FUNDS and setting up little subsidiaries across the nation. That was my first real encounter with PODS. Interesting it was also about the same time I first heard about AIDS. Is there a cure for PODS? I think AIDS will be easier to cure. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Bowery 619/295-3164 The Coalition for PO Box 1981 Science and La Jolla, CA 92038 Commerce -----------------------------------------------------------------------------