Today I did something that I have never done before – I had a ‘conversation’ with Copilot. I’m not sure how often I would repeat this, but I did find it to be more illuminating than I expected.
Cognition
Its How You Say It
I was surprised that looking back in my blog this subject doesn’t seem to have cropped up before – even though it is definitely something that I have – over the years – given some thought to. So now we will rectify that a bit.
Always Too Young To Know Everything
I’ve been prompted to write something on this subject by a couple of videos that popped up as recommended on my YouTube feed this week – although it is also in many ways following on from my previous post when it comes to being well informed and the Dunning-Kruger effect. The idea, of course, is fundamental to the purpose of this blog – i.e. to continue to learn and to constantly remind yourself that there is much yet to be known.
The (dis)Information Age
Much has already been written and said about the current state of US politics by people who are much wiser than me. Of course, probably much more has been written by others 😂. It is undoubtedly true that – for anyone – anything that threatens ‘their’ world view will be seen as ‘bad’ – that is, I think, an inbuilt knee-jerk response. For that reason, initial (and perhaps ill-considered) reactions are often not a good representation of ‘reality’ – and we will come to how much is ‘real’ in a moment.
Serendipitous Insight About Scouts
I have many times lauded the power of serendipity and yesterday it struck once again. Having written what I did yesterday morning about uninformed decisions I received a link in an email to a TED talk which was right on point about part of my thesis.
Wise Paraphrase
Perhaps an unsurprising source for something like this, but sometimes it is necessary to skip the political correctness and say exactly what you mean. I am sure that I have at least mentioned Dunning-Kruger before – the problem with something like that is that it seems like high falutin’ mumbo jumbo to the ears of many people – so perhaps it is better coming from the mouth of John Cleese.
The Logical Endpoint of Usandthemism
As you will have noticed – assuming you have read any previous posts – the notion of us vs them has been a recurrent topic in recent posts – and actually it goes back a long way in the posts in terms of the way in which I see the world and how we each “belong” to different groupings – often arbitrarily and fleetingly – sometimes quite deliberately and long term – and occasionally permanently due to “force of circumstances.
On Observing Reality
Reality TV shows are anything but. They are sold to you as good viewing because, unlike soaps or crime series etc., you are seeing “real life” unfold in front of your eyes. However, if it really were real life (and there have been some so-called “slow TV” shows made that could claim that) then the vast majority of the programme would be dull and unwatchable (always assuming that any show of this genre can claim otherwise 
Going Right Back To The Beginning
Almost nine years ago now since I started this blog – although I had been blogging on my work intranet for a few years before that. I decided that now is a good time to recap on the raison d’etre of what I am writing here.
Face It – You Don’t Know
I am no expert, but I suspect that those that control the press (these days I guess it should be “the media” to be more inclusive) have always been viewed with a certain amount of suspicion by some elements of the populace – for all sorts of different reasons. This, of course, has come to a head in a big way in modern day USA where the “fake news media” are regularly blamed for many things.