This is a great article, not just about the Not Invented Here syndrome, but the efficacy of replacing humans with automation.
I'm very involved with educational technology, where there is indeed a lot of work to replace the "person at the front of the handbarrow" (the teacher) with "a wheel" (a computer). The proposed answer to that includes Khan Academy or other videos, and a variety of online and "app" education sources. It's an interesting effort, but this article is great at bringing back the metaphorical reflections about which you'd rather have when the cargo is a human (especially your child) in a stretcher vs. a load of rocks in a wheelbarrow.
Then again, just to play the other side of wheelbarrow scenario, replacing the other person at the front of the handbarrow with a gps-guided, obstacle-avoiding, all-terrain, path-to-destination optimized robotic motive unit, then we can just replace the human at the back with a wheel.
I'm very involved with educational technology, where there is indeed a lot of work to replace the "person at the front of the handbarrow" (the teacher) with "a wheel" (a computer). The proposed answer to that includes Khan Academy or other videos, and a variety of online and "app" education sources. It's an interesting effort, but this article is great at bringing back the metaphorical reflections about which you'd rather have when the cargo is a human (especially your child) in a stretcher vs. a load of rocks in a wheelbarrow.
Then again, just to play the other side of wheelbarrow scenario, replacing the other person at the front of the handbarrow with a gps-guided, obstacle-avoiding, all-terrain, path-to-destination optimized robotic motive unit, then we can just replace the human at the back with a wheel.