writing – Page 4 – John Vincent

Turn the clock back

Daily writing prompt

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

Innovation is much of a byword. Climate crisis, feeding the world, ending wars, curing disease, creating endless energy, conquering space – they can all be done if someone, somewhere, just invents something smart right now. We are greater believers in the power of “invention” than we have ever been. Doesn’t matter if sitting on the right or left of politics.

Invention and discovery are not the same. Discovery is to uncover something we had not known or understood before. However, that something was always there waiting to be discovered.

Invention is for makers and dreamers. A contraption, a connection, a way of doing business, a machine or a crazy idea. Invention has a huge spectrum. I’ve never been to the Heath Robinson Museum[1]. Now, I mean to go.

To un-invent presupposes that it can be done. It has been done in the past. The classical world benefited from inventions that were lost in the dark ages. Later to be rediscovered.

Genuinely to uninvent is hard. Human imagination, with so many people on the planet, mitigates against it. Uninventing may be a short-lived move.

My view is that it would be best to try to un-invent a damaging idea or process. For example, let’s uninvent slavery or subjugation.

[1] https://www.heathrobinsonmuseum.org/

Fuel for Online Conflict

Professional defensiveness is just as damaging as arrogant assertion. I wonder if I can justify saying that sentence. I’m saying this as an observation of comments made on social media. Maybe that’s an unwise place to start. However, we might try to pretend that social media is full of outliers. In reality, it often puts up a wobbly mirror to society. Not every time. Just often enough. Our good and bad behaviours are magnified through the lens of a small mobile touch screen or the keyboard of a desktop.

Who would have thought that at the time of early INTERNET optimism in the 1990s. The information superhighway was going to be an awesome educator. A great liberator. Egalitarian and a universal force for good. Technology was going to free us from ignorance.

What’s going on? Often, I see a spasmodic reaction to an article or a comment that comes from the school of knee jerk reactions. Highly respected commentators are not immune.

If you see a man in an orange tee shirt, and you don’t like orange the last thing most people would do is scream across the road a sharp rebuke. On-line, it can be the case, when a perfectly rational and reasonable but challenging and unfamiliar view is put forward, instant defensiveness takes the stage.

Those invested in the status-quo go into overdrive. And I’m not talking about Status Quo the British rock band. I must admit, I have been guilty of this myself. In a moderate way. I’ve even seen them live on-stage. Oh no, I mean the first thing I am talking about.

Professional defensiveness has a fair root. If someone is highly invested in a point of view or has had experiences that embedded an opinion, it’s not so easy to stand aside and be objective.

Sir Humphrey Appleby[1] would, week after week, defend the indefensible. He’s a fictional character that pinches our consciousness and reminds us how smart people can get stuck on tramlines. I’ve still got a small cartoon from the 1970s. It is of a draftsman, pen in hand, with blinkers on. The caption says: “but we’ve always done it this way”.

All I can do here is to take note. It’s a note for me. Anytime an uncommon or intriguing view comes forward, do a double take. Count to ten. Don’t go by the first instinctive reaction that come into my head. It’s a question of not seeing a view that overthrows past thinking as instinctually wrong.

I posed a dichotomy at the start. Let me say that professional defensiveness combined with arrogant assertion, now that is dangerous.

POST: What about the AI generated picture? Spot the problem? Is the number six ringing any bells? This is a nice example why AI will not be taking over the world anytime soon. It’s great to have as a helper and that’s all.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080306/characters/nm0001329

Speaking

Politics without passion is like a food without taste. The ancient Greeks sensed this a long time ago. Aristotle and his followers had a way of describing how a speaker should win over an audience. Let’s face it that’s one big part of a politicians aims.

It’s no good at all standing there and saying: we’ve got some fantastic politics, and our values are your values. If no one is listening, you can be the best thing since sliced bread and nothing much happens. I’ve seen a lot of good people who shout in the dark.

The capability to persuade an audience by whatever legal means puts politician A above politician B. It’s not just innate ability although, for those who have it, that is a great asset.

So, here’s the educational bit. It’s certainly something I keep in mind however bad at it I may be. To appeal to an audience, and thus persuade, three different spots need to be hit: logos, ethos, and pathos[1].

As a professional engineer, I know the first one of these categories well. It’s good solid sound logic. It’s the use of reason to construct an agreement. It’s the favourite of technocrats. It’s the 2 and 2 equals 4. Because of the power of logic, it tends to be elevated to the number one tool in the speaker’s toolbox. PowerPoint slide after PowerPoint slide.

The problem is that this approach doesn’t work when the audience is a general one. Brexit is a perfect example. So many of the arguments against Brexit were framed in terms of economic costs and benefits. Logical, rational, sensible and supported by evidence. As it turned out addressing the head and not the heart was not sufficient.

Next on the list of three, Ethos is all about credibility. It comes from the simple question; why should I listen to this person? Is the speaker truthful? It even comes down to simple appearance – do the look the part? Like it or not, I’m not going to be inclined to listen to a politician on a podium sporting a Micky Mouse tee-shirt, wearing clown shoes and mumbling bad poetry. There’s a normal expectation that a credible individual will be polished and professional.

And so, to the last on the list. Pathos is multifaceted. I may talk of music or poetry. Those who can speak with language that evokes strong feelings. Being able to shift the emotions of an audience by evoking beliefs and values can be extremely powerful.

This one is dangerous too. It can tap into prejudices and stir-up destructive as well as constructive passions. If we have a lesson from this electoral cycle, it’s that the overuse of emotional rhetoric in a civilised society needs to be restrained. It’s for each speaker to carefully consider how the message they are sending will be received.

Politics without empathy and passion is dull and unworkable. But exciting public passion beyond a certain point has a cost. The cry for social justice or the anger at a perceived stupidity must be recognised. Overplaying emotion for political gain. Demonising an opponent with vivid words of hate. This is path to destruction. A path to be avoided. A time to stop.

[1] https://www.lsu.edu/hss/english/files/university_writing_files/item35402.pdf

Snow

In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen. Good job too, I’d say. The phrase is from a song called: “The Rain in Spain,” in the musical My Fair Lady. That was a Christmas treat. It’s antiquated but still a wonderful classic film[1]. Yes, some of the miming is rather questionable but the story is told in a leisurely and wonderfully warm way. It’s just enjoyable entertainment.

It’s not pitching. What’s not pitching? The snow. The snow is not pitching, I said. This morning when we had flurries of half-hearted snow. Snow not sleet. The sort of light snow that I could be confident in saying was going nowhere. It danced around in the air more for performance than doing anything that was going to mess-up my day. Fluffy and gentle and certainly no hurricanes.

Sue looked at me. She’s done this before. You see London folk are hardly acquainted with the term I used to describe what the wispy snow was doing. Strangely, I thought Chat GPT would draw the same blank on the use of this verb of mine, namely to pitch. It didn’t. Whereas Microsoft’s AI hadn’t a clue when I asked did about “Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire”, for my simple West Country verb it got it right away. Although, the AI’s explanation was to say that the word was from the city of Bristol. How could it have known any better?

It’s an alternative word for settle. The snow fell but it didn’t settle. I’d say the snow fell but it didn’t pitch. I’d say that instinctively. So, ingrained I’d wonder why anyone would use a different word. It means that the snow that was falling disappears as soon as it hit the ground. In other words, it’s too warm or the snow not plentiful enough for any accumulation or hazard for that matter.

Fictional professor Henry Higgins would no doubt have looked at me with disdain. Londoners have this way of thinking that theirs is the only valid English language spoken. What will the proliferation of digital bots do to innocent regional quirks? Will Chat GPT become a snobbish tyrant like Higgins? Or will it become like a journalist writing for The Sun newspaper? Writing as if my reading age was about 10 years old? I have no answer to that one.

It would be a shame if inevitable electronification stuffed us all into the same box. Ironed out the ripples and variations in langauage. Gave the pedants a leg-up and arrogantly kicked the rest of us. Will we need a Campaign for Real Speaking?

On another point. Conversations can go off at abstract tangents. One thing I’ve noticed about AI is that when it’s fumbling for an answer it will throw-up anything with a vague link to the subject of interest. It’s saying – I’m still not sure what you’re asking so I’ll take a blunderbuss approach.

Today, I learnt something I already knew. I knew it because last year I did a lecture at the University of Hertfordshire. However, the information had disappeared into the far corners of my brain. The University of Hertfordshire has an American Football Club called the Hertfordshire Hurricanes. I wonder if some cocky smart alec[2] named the team because of the musical. I’ll bet – not.

POST: An answer could be that the site of the University is the site of a former British aircraft factory. The de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited. However, the Hawker Hurricane was not produced on that site. de Havilland did produce propellers for the Hurricane.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058385/

[2] https://grammarist.com/usage/smart-alec-and-smart-aleck/