Monday 7 January 2022, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Any replies to the organizer
- thormay@yahoo.com
Venue: Cafe Brunelli, 187
Rundle St, Adelaide CBD, South Australia
Talking Points
Key idea: a) Ask 'why?'; b) Ask 'What if ..'
1.
Simple fact: World leaders, regardless of politics or ideology,
all wind up in the same 5 star hotels => a) Why?; b) What if ...
(e.g. What would happen if they all had bunk together in the
same hostel dormitory? ... What would happen if they all had to
...
2. It is impossible to be happy all the time => a)
Why?; b) What would happen if you were wired to be permanently
happy?
3. Why do people back into parking spots?
[Facebook meme] => deeper and deeper => Why do people quote
Facebook memes? => What did they do before there were Facebook
memes? => Have pub jokes gone into decline since there were
Facebook memes?
4. People pay spend large amounts of
money and time to listen to advice they will never take. It may
be a preacher, or a talk show pundit, or an 'influencer', or
Donald Trump, or Elon Musk or ... a) Why? b) What would happen
if people actually tried to do what was suggested, given their
personalities and limitations? => Examples ....
5. Food
seems to be an almost universal human obsession. For some people
food preparation and presentation is very elaborate. They are
maximalists about food. Some other people though give minimum
attention to food. What about you? Explain why about your food
preferences. => During World War II, the British population was
forced to survive on basic rations. Medical records show that
this was the healthiest time for the British population => What
would happen now if everyone was forced to live on government
rations?
6. When is silence uncomfortable? => Sometimes
this is only in particular situations (which ones?) => but some
people need constant external noise (why?) => but some people
are content with their own inner conversations (what kind of
people?) => and why are some cultures much noisier than others?
=> Is this changing?
7. Why are all languages equally
easy for a baby to learn? => How do kids learn language so fast?
(A 6 year old speaks about 2000 words but can recognize about
20000 words) => How does adult language learning differ from
child learning? => Are computer languages as easy to learn as
natural languages?
8. What kind of people use supermarket
self-checkouts, and what kind like to queque for a cashier?
Could you select individuals like this for other scenarios ? =>
jobs?, partners?, teams?, soldiers?, a risky undertaking? ...
think of more scenarios. Or watching them at the self-checkout,
are there sub-types of the species?
9. It would be
really, really hard for a foreign army to invade Australia. We
are vulnerable to missile attack though. How can Australia
minimize the risk of having electricity and other critical
infrastructure destroyed? (Look at Ukraine ..).
10.
Walking in socks without shoes is actually better for your feet,
and the socks last surprisingly well (I've tried it). How much
of what we do & say is the best practical solution, and how much
is just to avoid mockery? Think of examples.
11. OK,
what's your trivial idea that can be excavated at bit :) ?
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Extra Reading
Eddie Woo (19 Jul
2014) "Think deeply about simple things". Youtube @
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YJSDJGyIaU (9
minutes) [TM, comment: this is actually a (simple) maths
demonstration, but the idea can be applied to whatever you
fancy]
Lennox Morrison19th July 2017) "The subtle power
of uncomfortable silences". BBC @
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170718-the-subtle-power-of-uncomfortable-silences
Catherine Douglas Moran (November 15 2022) "
Self-checkout now comprises nearly 40% of grocery checkout
options, study says". Grocery Dive @
https://www.grocerydive.com/news/self-checkout-grocers-shoppers-catalina/636087/
[Quote: "Catalina found that the group of shoppers who used both
methods includes a mix of demographics, with consumers tending
to have a higher annual household income compared to shoppers
who used one checkout type exclusively. .. Self-checkout-only
tends to draw 19 to 24-year-olds and also people born between
1928 and 1945, known as the Silent Generation, the firm
said. ... Meanwhile, 49% of consumers prefer only using manned
lanes. That group mainly consists of baby boomers and Silent
Generation consumers with household incomes under $100,000 and a
high school education, Catalina’s research found".]
Lowri
Dowthwaite-Walsh (January 10, 2018) "True happiness isn’t about
being happy all the time". The Conversation @
https://theconversation.com/true-happiness-isnt-about-being-happy-all-the-time-88600
Lone Frank (May 3 2018) "Can You Overdose on Happiness?
The science and philosophy of deep brain stimulation". Nautilus
@
http://nautil.us/issue/60/searches/can-you-overdose-on-happiness?
utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
[Quote: “How Happy Is Too Happy?” It is a good question, but I
was a little surprised to see it as the title of a research
paper in a medical journal. Yet there it was in a publication
from 2012. The article was written by two Germans and an
American, and they were grappling with the issue of how we
should deal with the possibility of manipulating people’s moods
and feeling of happiness through brain stimulation. If you have
direct access to the reward system and can turn the feeling of
euphoria up or down, who decides what the level should be? The
doctors or the person whose brain is on the line?"]
Naja
Ferjan Ramirez (April 15, 2016) "Why the baby brain can learn
two languages at the same time". The Conversation @
https://theconversation.com/why-the-baby-brain-can-learn-two-languages-at-the-same-time-57470
[Quote: "Language learning depends on the processing of sounds.
All the world’s languages put together comprise about 800 or so
sounds. Each language uses only about 40 language sounds, or
“phonemes,” which distinguish one language from another. At
birth, the baby brain has an unusual gift: it can tell the
difference between all 800 sounds. This means that at this stage
infants can learn any language that they’re exposed to.
Gradually babies figure out which sounds they are hearing the
most. ...Our findings show that babies’ brains become tuned to
whatever language or languages they hear from their caregivers.
A monolingual brain becomes tuned to the sounds of one language,
and a bilingual brain becomes tuned to the sounds of two
languages. By 11 months of age, the activity in the baby brain
reflects the language or languages that they have been exposed
to. ...The good news is young children all around the world can
and do acquire two languages simultaneously. In fact, in many
parts of the world, being bilingual is the norm rather than an
exception".]
Isabella (October 7, 2018) "Why You Should
Stop Giving Advice, What to Do Instead, and A Surprising Reason
Why You Should Give Advice". Reachingself blog @
https://reachingself.com/why-you-should-stop-giving-advice-what-to-do-instead-surprising-reason-why-you-should-give-advice/
Steve Glaveski (September 11, 2020) "5 Reasons Why
Self-Help Books Don’t Work — and why you should read them". Blog
@
https://www.steveglaveski.com/blog/5-reasons-why-self-help-books-dont-work-and-why-you-should-read-them
Asha’ar Rehman (March 30, 2018) "Ideology is
irrelevant". Dawn newspaper (Pakistan) @
https://www.dawn.com/news/1398424
Thor May
(2014) "What will be the dominant ideologies of the 21st
Century?" The Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/Ideology21stCentury2.htm
[Quote: "The 20 th Century revolved politically around competing
interpretations of Capitalism, Communism, Socialism and Fascism.
These are all ways to organize the lives of people on a large
scale. Are real alternatives or new interpretations likely to
emerge in the challenging years ahead? What might they look
like?"]
Wikipedia (2022) "Mockery". @
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockery [Quote: "Mockery
can be done in a lighthearted and gentle way, but can also be
cruel and hateful ... Mockery appears to be unique to humans,
and serves a number of psychological functions, such as reducing
the perceived imbalance of power between authority figures and
common people". ]
SAPN (2020) "Distributed Energy
Transition Roadmap 2020-2025". South Australia Power Networks @
https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/public/download.jsp?id=319084
Sam Altman (16 December 2022) "It’s Time to Pay
Attention to A.I. (ChatGPT and Beyond)". Cold Fusion Youtube
channel @
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uQqMxXoNVs
[Quote: "Imagine being able to have a language conversation
about anything with a computer. This is now possible and
available to many people for the first time with ChatGPT"] =>
[Thor, comment: this works, I've tried it, and it the
implications are scary .. ]
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