Decision And Execution

"'Living pilots, gunners, all personnel, are meant to make decisions. Machines execute most of those decisions...'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT Chapter VII, p. 522.

There are two distinctions here:

living pilots etc as against machines;
decisions as against their execution.

The latter distinction is also applicable as between human beings. Thus, the captain makes a decision and issues an order. The crew obeys the order and thus executes the captain's decision. Returning home one evening, I saw a former neighbor cavorting on the street with a bread knife while a current neighbor clutched his side and said, "Get the police, will you?" Not making but instantly executing that decision, I went inside and dialed 999 for police. I did not have a mobile phone back then and in any case would not have used one in front of the suspect. If someone waves a bread knife, that is a job for a trained, uniformed policeman, not for me! Of course, the mere sight of an approaching police car led to "The pigs are coming!" and instant flight. Since 1979, there has been one other violent incident on the street but I slept through it.