It is likely that many will look at this idea and say yay or nay to the question of is this idea a good one. The problem is that whilst that is a possible way of gauging public opinion in lots of respects this is ‘opinion’ of the worst sort and it is definitely possible that the popular opinion may well be missing the point. The reason for this is that without an enormous amount of study it is impossible to actually quantify the worth of a ban – or conversely the worth of allowing social media use.

In this post I should say that I am in no way putting forward my own opinion– because I am quite ready to admit that my knowledge of the ins and outs is sparse. What I think I do have is the capacity to explore the things that need to be covered in depth to arrive at any judgement.

Starting with the easier aspects it is undoubtedly true that social media as it currently exists certainly has the potential to do harm. There are certainly people who are “bad actors” in the social media community. Looking from the other perspective it is also true that there are people who are much more likely to fall victim to the dangers that lurk in that environment.

I should put a warning here that this post is likely to go off on a number of sideshoots and it maybe difficult to determine what the main point is. If you find yourself thinking that then good – to a certain extent you are getting the point – this is not a neatly contained problem.

Fundamentally, of course, all social media is just a set of tools to enable communication. You might ask “why do we need them” – however they the latest in a long line of ‘improvements’ in how we communicate (and I put improvement in quotes deliberately because probably they all bring with them some major or minor issues which some would disapprove of). These steps forward go a long way into history and at least part of the problem with social media is that the rate of change in the way we communicate (and the tools we have) has become much faster.

Going all the way to when the first language started to take the place of grunts and pointing (and yes it is an interesting question as to who and why language first came about – I am sure there is a lot of research into that in the field of linguistics) we have seen many changes – some of the most significant have been writing, the printing press, the telephone, television, mobile phones and most recently things like email, zoom and social media. I realise that this is an incomplete and selective list but it is sufficient to illustrate how things have changed.

In all cases the change led to behavioural changes – and a time of education and learning. Not everyone coped with the introductions of the “new technology” at the same rate and – importantly – these changes themselves did not mark the end of development – rather each new invention continued to morph and improve – just think of what television looks like now compared to the first channels.

So social media will inevitably continue to change – it is already very different to how it started – and you might hope that as it continues to march into the future then it will become ever more helpful.

However, in parallel to the technological improvements (yes that slight misnomer again) it is necessary for people to learn how to use the technology and that is perhaps a bigger problem. I have written elsewhere (I think it was in relation to how the way that rules and laws are generated becomes more difficult as the community that they apply to becomes bigger) that when one person is communicating with one other person it is reasonably straightforward to reach a ‘status quo’ which allows the communication to be fully understood – as the community grows – to family, neighbours, towns, countries and bigger things become much more difficult.

Most of what I write here will be in relation to Facebook – only because that is the platform that I am most often on – but it pretty much applies to all of the platforms.

In “the good old days” there would be a few people who knew about what was going on in your life; what your thoughts were on various topics; what gossip you wished to share; your opinions on world events. There would be a few other ‘levels’ of connection with people who would know different levels of detail about your life. One of the major question marks I have about Facebook is to do with the fact that you have friends and there is no stratification – if you make a statement then all your friends (at least) know about it.

Different people use this in different ways – I have friends who never post and I have some that share (seemingly) every detail of their lives. It is your choice which end of this spectrum you feel comfortable. The problem (in my view at least) is that the majority use this unthinkingly and without regard for the implications.

So – is banning young people going to be a good idea? Like all tools, it is imperative that you use them properly. Many useful tools have associated dangers and so it is with social media. A sharp knife is a useful tool for some things – but you would not let a three year old play with one to avoid any accidents. They need to – at the appropriate time – learn how to use that tool properly. Knives are also a tool which can be deliberately used ‘wrongly’ as a weapon. Should they be banned? That is another question which doesn’t have a quick answer but perhaps the basic answer is that they need to be controlled.

A car is a very useful tool – but (rightly) in order to be allowed to drive one unsupervised you need to have passed a test. This, in itself, does not make you a good driver, but at least it sets a minimum standard – they can still abuse its use.

In the “real world” there are usually constraints that stop the ‘unqualified’ from doing things they should not do – or at least makes it more difficult. Usually these may possibly be inadequate – but that is still better than nothing. A fence will stop people going to somewhere they shouldn’t – but it can be climbed – a law stops young people from obtaining alcohol – but it is sometimes difficult to enforce. So should there be some of these sort of things in social media rather than an outright ban?

Social media can be really good and it can be really bad. In my experience the ‘better’ things have been where a group – which can be quite large – share a particular interest and all play by the rules – even when those rules are not written down but are really just – to put it bluntly – “common decency” and respect for each other and the group. In these areas people do not post things that are irrelevant or disrespectful or whatever.

In much of social media that is not the norm. Just the other day I saw a thread where an initial post led to a host of replies accusing the original poster of a particular worldview – whilst at the same time illustrated precisely the point that was made in the post. So many times we see the pot calling the kettle black. Usually these things have little or no basis in reality. This is shown up starkly in posts on X – I don’t usually take part in any discussions there because they rarely consist of balanced and rational content – discussion no; argument yes.

This is perhaps illustrated most in any post that is either pro or anti Trump. Both sides will weigh in without any real content – perhaps without any thought – and certainly with no sign of taking anything from the opposing viewpoint. Regardless of which side you are on you should always be willing to recognise that others are entitled to their opinion and, maybe, could have a point.

In all social media something that matters a lot is who you choose to “listen” to. That in itself can be a hard choice to make. Lurking at the root is that those who are chosen are often those who proclaim the same worldview as you do – or at least a similar one. Of course it is good to get your thoughts and ideas confirmed by others – but it is necessary to learn and grow, getting new perspectives, by listening to those with a different point of view.

In my blog post Us and Them I discussed the dangers of slicing the world up that way. Whether it is by nationality or religion or colour of skin or any other polarising criteria there is always danger of treating someone as Them rather than Us rather than exploring the differences and the similarities between the viewpoints.

Although such a separation is wrong and divisive what is much worse are those people with influence to use that influence to pull Us and Them further apart. This is often done by using some generalisation about Them – “they are eating the dogs” being one recent example. It works by finding some attribute that can easily be put to Us as being “a bad thing” and labelling all of Them with that attribute.

Just last week there was a very high profile case where a footballer was shown some leniency after receiving a red card. The desire for a change in his punishment came from someone who was both high profile and had a significant amount of influence which has recently been used to set up many groups of Them for his Us to push away – literally out of the country. One group were those who had birthright citizenry in the United States. All of them should be stripped of their citizenship and no one should be able to claim such citizenship.

Turns out that the footballer is someone who gained his US Citizenship through this process as he was born “by accident” in the US simply because his mother was denied travel when late in pregnancy. This inconvenient fact has been ignored as his place in the US football team was secured!

This has been a long diversion – but the point is that those who wield influence on social media can be among the bad actors. Whether they put themselves forward as leaders, or content creators, or influencers, or experts in a particular thing they do so without any guarantee that they are worthy of those positions.

Don’t get me wrong – lots of those people put forward useful, interesting and needed information – the problem is that there is nothing to back up their claims to such fame – in the professions there are ways to become qualified and whilst this in itself is not a guarantee, at least it is a barrier that should keep out those who are simply charlatans. I did actually see a YouTuber – an ‘expert’ in a particular field – actually post a video where they ranked others who publish videos in that field.

(On a related but slightly perverse note – what qualifications should you have to serve in government?)

Young people are naturally less well informed and knowledgeable to make the distinction between the charlatans and the competent. For many the mere fact that something has been published means that it must be right. So a social media ban would shield them from the charlatans – but unfortunately it would also mean that they avoid the wise pronouncements of those who actually inform the audience.

One thing that does worry me – away from the young people ban – is the fact that I see so many people posting stuff – reposting stuff – or just making stuff up that has no grounding in facts and reality. Worse – often the original poster is attacked with comments about their character, faith, political leanings or whatever when that is not relevant to what has been written. Basically the OP is one of “them”.

It is rare (certainly on Facebook) to see a considered discussion about just about anything – rather there are arguments where the only choice is between two opposing viewpoints with seemingly no common ground or any attempt to explore the grey area between the extremes. This can be about little things or big things – but whatever is discussed always comes down to A or B. A big topic for a long time has been immigration. I think anyone considering this would agree that uncontrolled immigration is something which causes problems. However, there are many, many reasons why immigration is not only needed but definitely beneficial.

It does make me smile – or perhaps some more negative reaction would be more appropriate – that a country like the USA which is, lets face it, built from immigrants who were more often than not treating the natives with (at best) disrespect, should be so showing considerable anti-immigrant feelings – and actions!

All of this – as you can probably tell from now given how far this has strayed – seems to highlight the fact that banning youngsters from social media participation is treating the symptom instead of the cause. It is not the use of social media that needs fixing it is the misuse – a large number of participants need to be better educated on ‘proper’ behaviour (not just on social media).

This post is now far too long – so I will wrap it up here. There is much more that could have been said, much more that maybe should have been said – but my posts are not going to change the world.

In this blog I don’t often directly share these things as my underlying philosophy suggests that each of us should be serendipitously happening on our own sources of inspiration, confirmation or wisdom. This is one of the exceptions as today’s email is about the benefits of a thin skin – not in the colloquial sense of the opposite of being able to withstand insults and the like – i.e. having a thick skin. No this is to do with the physical aspect of a literal thin skin and the sense of being closer to what is outside of us.

Interconnectedness is a frequent visitor to my writing – knowing that we are each connected to everyone and everything is a much needed piece of knowledge to reduce our ignorance. Just one little quote from the essay sort of sums it up in relation to my own worldview.

The lack of acknowledgement that you “can’t change just one thing” will immediately provoke and rouse the law of unintended consequences and the equally inevitable later of response of “I didn’t realise that would happen”.

We would do well to thin our own skin in this regard realising that the effects of our actions will reverbrate throughout a much wider sphere of existence than we might initially suspect.

Straight away in this post I have a perfect example of where this could have been problematic even for me. There are many sources of wisdom to be found. A while ago I thought I had located one that resonated a lot with my ideas. However, that person then – seemingly – started to support things that I could not get my head round. It would have been easy to then dismiss this source and never again read anything he wrote. That, though, would have resulted in my missing much wisdom – such as these posts on substack.

• Moving Beyond Two Sides-ism
• Peace

It doesn’t take much thought to equate Two Sides-ism with Usandthemism of course. Where the writer (Charles Eisenstein) also won me round was when he wrote about his reasoning for seemingly going away from what I expected him to espouse and embody. In reality – and here I am assigning my own interpretation of his acts not in any way supported by his own words – he had sort of taken his own advice on how to work against two sides-ism and – while he did not necessarily agree with everything he was seemingly supported it gave him the opportunity to perhaps influence things in a way that would not have been possible if the barriers had remained up.

So often it seems that the default position in any discussion is adversarial. Be it partisan politics or hard-nosed questions from reporters or panels on TV (and I include things like Question Time here) it is almost always us and them – or more often “and them over there as well – and them ….”. Seemingly it is not possible for things to be couched in terms of unbiased and informed discussion. Better to get the other person’s back up and then we can have a good old rammy.

Think about how many situations you have seen recently where you heard someone blaming some “other” for something that they didn’t like. Immigration is, of course, an easy target for usandthemism – but as I said in the post linked above eventually “us” becomes “me” because in some way we are individuals who do not have too much in common with anyone else. Are we not all immigrants to a certain extent – unless we still live in the house where we were born. Country borders are in many cases pretty arbitrary. Laws governing who can migrate are probably even more arbitrary.

If someone moves (legally) from one country to another – how long, or how many generations perhaps – does it take before they stop being an immigrant. Those who move illegally are – rightly – in a different situation. However, even then the questions must be asked about why – are they fleeing persecution for instance.

Of course there are examples where it is right and proper to bar entry to a country, or a city, or a club – however that should never be simply because it is “one of them” and they must be banned. Stigmatising “them” is not going to help in any way – it will make “them” more likely to avoid any attempt at reconciliation and it will make “us” much more quick to put the blame on “them” for more and more of the ills of society that should be sorted in much more sensible ways.

Back in my first writing on usandthemism I touched briefly on politics and the tribes within the UK parliament. Watch any coverage and you are immediately greeted by the spectacle of (in many cases fake) antipathy towards the “other side”. I always thought that (grown up) debate was an art form where you scored points by the skill of your argument – seems that as far as our parliament goes (and it is also reflected in others) this is not the main purpose, rather it is to diminish the ideas, knowledge, character, whatever of whoever is “across the ballot box”.

Tonight I sort of witnessed the same thing from across the pond – although they do things a bit differently there. Regardless of the differences there was something in common that screamed at you. One side did not countenance any differences of opinion from the other. I have touched on some problems of this sort of parliament before I think, but when the split is always along party lines there must surely be something nefarious going on. Surely some (on both sides) are actually “in the middle” and could be swayed either way to ensure that a fair and just consensus is arrived at – rather than the ideas of (probably) a small proportion being supported regardless of whether they are good ideas or not.

As an aside, albeit an important one, the issues of truth, reality and others that I have written about recently loom large here because, in many cases, it is impossible to tell who is grounded in reality and who is simply espousing make-believe. (what is not said should also be considered)

Whether “One Big Beautiful Bill” is a good thing or a bad thing for the American people will play out over the coming months and years – I for one have no idea, although I suspect that if history is anything to go by it is not all good.

Probably more to come on this topic…

There is a lot that could be said about the meeting between the heads of SA and USA and I am sure I haven’t got the skills to fully analyse everything that happened. In the same way that the previous ‘ambush’ of the Ukrainian leader was ‘orchestrated’ this – to my mind – broke all the rules of how we should treat one another.

The narrative of the supposed ‘genocide’ of white farmers in South Africa had been circulating for quite a while. Like many other examples it is a narrative that suits the purposes of those in power in the US. Using the position of power that he has in the White House treating a guest – let alone a foreign leader – to a barrage of criticism and (in this case seemingly unfounded) accusations in front of a TV audience is just awful.

This post though is not about the behaviour itself, rather it is to look at the fiction that lay behind the accusations. There was seemingly photographic ‘evidence’ and video ‘evidence’, however from what I understand the photographic evidence was simply inaccurate as it did not originate from South Africa but from a different country altogether and the video evidence, whilst the video itself was (probably) genuine the interpretation of what it showed was highly suspect.

It seems unlikely that this ‘evidence’ was ‘found’ by the president himself – more likely someone had provided him with this ‘proof’ of the allegations. There is therefore good reason to think that there were a number of people involved who ‘approved’ of it and were OK with the nature of the accusations.

Alongside many other narratives being pushed by the administration it seems that there is a group of people who are either stupid or who believe that they are clever and that everyone else is therefore stupid (or at least stupid enough to believe what they are being fed). Now, it seems that recent events have proved that there are a sizeable number who are that stupid – but it is certainly not everyone. Unfortunately, because the narrative is out there backed up by tons of ‘evidence’ it becomes really hard for anyone to change the narrative.

Hold on – do some of those pushing the narrative actually believe that it IS the truth?

Belief systems tend to be self reinforcing – people look for reasons to continue in their beliefs – they tend not to look for reasons to modify them. There are countless examples through the years of “truths” that turn out to be false. Although with many of them there will be people who continue in their beliefs even when it has been discredited. Flat Earth? The sun goes round the earth? and many more. Even when presented with the ‘alternative’ explanations some simply refuse to give in. (Witness the photoshopped pictures of a set of knuckles not long ago)

Of course, part of the problem is that it is much easier to defend a falsehood when you refuse to accept any evidence that might contradict it – especially when your social group is invested in that falsehood.

Have to say that this is not exactly the way I expected his post to go. I was originally intending to focus on the fact that belief systems are built on whatever are accepted at truths at the time. Truths are reliant on the ‘technology’ we have to create our ideas. Worryingly AI has, of course, brought the ability to produce ‘evidence’ that is entirely fictional and we will have a hard time distinguishing what is real from what is made up. This is already the case, of course, as it doesn’t take long being online to come across images that are definitely not real.

As I have said elsewhere I think, this is also not new as those in the ‘entertainment’ business have creating believable alternate worlds a central pillar of their work. That has been true since well before Shakespeare’s time, novelists weave marvelous tales of places that don’t exist, film makers create images of what could simply be dreams. The technology moves forward and those creations become more and more indistinguishable from reality.

Hanging on to what is really real is not getting any easier and no matter how many “fact checkers” are put on the job it will always be very much an uphill battle with defeat almost certain.

This isn’t meant to be a downbeat post, its not a “we are all doomed” situation – but I do think that more people need to waken up to the dangers because only by understanding what is happening can you start to process it and ensure that you are not captured in “the weave”.

This post has been a long time coming – both in terms of “since my last blog entry” and in terms of how it has stewed around in my head (and as a draft) for a long while.  There are multiple things which contributed to my thinking, however the “big” one both in terms of importance to my thinking and in terms of importance to “the world” is the war (or special operation) in Ukraine and specifically the different portrayal of the events there by the two opposing sides.

I have, it must be said, no reason to doubt that what we – in the West – are being fed by the media is in any way less accurate than what the Russian people are being told.  Something else that I have touched upon before is the fact that in today’s connected world the “old rules” and “old strategies” are often inappropriate – simply because it is much more difficult – although clearly not impossible – to avoid the facts.  It is still possible – and this is something widely used by all sorts of people, not just the Russian leadership – but with cameras everywhere and ‘instant’ information availability (to many) the “facts” are shown to the world before the spin can be applied.

Now – here is where things get complicated because “truth” and “facts” are not (for many people) the same thing.  It is difficult – though not impossible – to deny facts.  Perspective and interpretation then makes truth a much less precise thing.  Look through other posts where I have effectively been stating just that in terms of there being much less black and white in the world and much more shades of grey.

Sometimes it seems as though some people go beyond this – the so-called “big lie” in the US these days is perpetrated by many who – surely – know it is just that – a LIE – but it suits them to act as though it were not – even when the facts get in the way.  Just listen to the way that some of them argue away anything that does not fit their view – when confronted by a video of the ex-Attorney General stating that there was no material fraud in the 2020 election and that what was being put forward by the former president and his “allies” was complete nonsense the response “well someone must be paying him to say that”!

Whilst that is, as I am sure you would agree, not entirely outside the bounds of possibility – given the context and the “supporting evidence” it doesn’t seem likely that it is the case.

Unfortunately, those who are on the side of conspiracy or “fake news” are usually working on the basis of a pretty flimsy layer of information – so it is easy for them to debunk more cogent arguments by adding similarly unsound and thin arguments against them – they do not see the fact that this becomes nonsensical eventually.

Where my thinking takes me though is to something much less clearcut than simply crazy people believing nonsensical conspiracy theories, because we can all at times come up with the “what if…” sort of thinking that results in totally ridiculous conclusions.  Instead, I want to explore a little about the critical thinking side of things – how do we know that what we think is ‘right’ – how do we know that we are not simply delusional about some things.

This is a much more nuanced thing to delve into because whilst in some situations things are, indeed, clearcut – we are able to reconcile facts with truth and what we believe with reality – in other situations it can be enormously difficult to determine what is real and what is made up – perhaps the mere fact that we can consider these two possibilities is a thing that distinguishes us from the conspiracy theorists.

If something happens to us “first hand” whether we actually experience it directly or simply witness it ourselves then we can be reasonably sure that (for the most part) we know the facts and that they are true.  This needs to be caveated by the fact that most people are very unreliable witnesses and by the fact that in many cases how we ‘react’ to things is a result of our own biases and perceptions – which may, or may not, be appropriate in any given situation.

Our interpretation of what we have seen happen will inevitably be coloured by our past experiences and also by what we know (perhaps erroneously) about any of those who are contributing to the situation. It is, without doubt time that I rounded off this post since it was started several years ago now – but is, if anything, even more pertinent now. I have over recent years come to ‘know’ many of those who present ‘late night news’ on american TV. Just this week, two of them have – in different ways – tackled this matter of ‘truthfulness’.

In one case the way that they addressed the issue was by – to all intents and purposes – spreading disinformation quite deliberately – but in a humourous and most certainly unbelievable way. Although having said that I sort of suspect that there will actually be those who believe it. The format is – take a subject (the two that I have seen are “5G” and “Boat Wakes”) and create a narrative around those things that is borderline believable and continue to make nonsensical connections until a web is created which – if it weren’t so absurd – would be difficult to deny.

In the other case the format is (sort of) the reverse – so take something that has really happened and point out the absurdities until there remains little of the original narrative. It is amazing how often this is very easy to do.

In yet another – completely different – situation the comments on an article published on Substack were prime examples of how those who disagree with the narrative outlined in the article are quick to dismiss it as untrue and entirely fictitious – despite the fact that the article itself was actually talking about how something could be staged to give the appearance of something happening in order to further a particular story.

In that particular case, the majority of the article was generated by AI – so one would imagine that the logic was sound (although that is notwithstanding the fact that an AI knowledge database could be filled with falsehoods as easily as it could be filled with truths). Will the rise of AI help or exacerbate the problem of “truthfulness”? That is a whole different subject.

Where I want to end though is by ‘sort of’ answering the question in the title. Does truth matter? Throughout history there have been alternative stories being told to explain the inexplicable. Would it be reasonable to say that very few of these stories have been fully ‘true’? In Western cultures religion has played a huge part in directing the narrative. So here we seem to have belief being more important than truth. Note that here I am not saying that there is no truth in religion – rather it is seemingly clear to anyone who has thought through the subject that huge parts – perhaps an overwhelming majority of it – are, given our current understanding, simply unknowable and therefore can only be supported by belief.

The problem is not the belief systems so much as those who promote falsehoods as part of such a system. Many years ago I wrote that my belief was that no one – absolutely not one person – actually knew what the effect of Brexit might be. That did not stop those – on both sides of the argument – for putting up various ‘stories’ purporting to be ‘facts’ on which people built their belief systems about Brexit. I believe that this happens over and over again about all sorts of things.

So – yes – truth does matter, since it is imperative that our belief systems are built on truths – including the truth that there are things that we do not know. The more we make those things explicit, the better our understanding of the world.

Sort of brings it full circle to the point of the blog – feeding my ignorance – where the first step is identifying where the ignorance lies.

The first video reminded me about Plato’s allegory of the cave.

The focus for me would be on the fact that when the ‘enlightened’ one returned to tell the other captives of what he had learned they did not have the capacity to believe him. This is exemplified frequently by people who “used to be” MAGA trying to convince those who still are that there is a big world out there.

The second video was the ‘banned’ TED-talk by Rupert Sheldrake where he pointed out the fact that scientific progress is seemingly often hindered by what he termed dogmas that scientists refuse to entertain may be wrong.

Specifically, people always assume that what they already know is “truth” and are very unwilling to change that ‘knowledge’ which results in confirmation bias kicking in and an ignorance of anything which contradicts your worldview.

This all combined in my thoughts with an interview with a young entrepreneur on Bloomberg TV in which an ‘interesting’ picture was painted of his knowledge. I get it that there are some people in every generation who are well ahead of their peers – you see plenty of examples each year around A level time when a (very) few people score exceptional results – and it is newsworthy because it is not a common phenomenon. I could relate a whole host of such examples through the years, but the point I am making is simply that these people are rare.

They excel (albeit in a limited environment) and this is great.

The “Internet Age” for want of a better word has, in contrast, thrown up a huge number of “influencers” – or whatever they may wish to be called – and an even greater number of young people who believe that they are extremely well informed. The particular young man interviewed on Bloomberg is not someone I have any knowledge, so this is neither criticism nor praise of him – simply comment. He came across as supremely confident, seemed to “know his stuff” although in the short time I watched the video I didn’t actually figure out exactly what “his stuff” was. In short, he seemed typical of lots of people (mainly online) who appear in our YouTube feed or other such source and “sell” you their view of whatever part of the world they know a bit about.

The issue is that – usually – that ‘knowledge’ tends to be pretty superficial and rarely looks beyond the ‘immediate’ in terms of how their ‘advice’ helps. This particular guy did seem to have more than the usual depth to his knowledge, but in terms of “those like him” I would say he is most certainly in a minority. The vast majority suffer at least in part with the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Now looking more specifically at the current situation with the “search for inefficiencies” within the US Government agencies we meet precisely the same sort of thing. I don’t doubt that hidden in those agencies are valid examples of genuine waste, whether through incompetence, honest mistakes, lack of resource and, probably, some deliberate fraud. However, I would posit that the idea of sending in team of people who have no background in the ‘context’ (or perhaps contexts, since it is definitely possible that there are many competing and conflicting factors) is an immensely stupid idea for what are they actually looking for. If it is “waste of money” – what does that mean? If it is “paying too much” – how do they arrive at what is reasonable?

The questions go on and on. A further – and VERY important consideration is how do you actually go about measuring inefficiency or ineffectiveness and at what point does something “cross the line” into those categories. You can imagine that it is likely that they will find the low hanging fruit rather than the significantly ineffective. Of course, much of government spending is also multi-layer with contractors and sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors and so on – how are the inefficiencies in that chain going to be identified?

All that is before you get into the issue that not everything can actually be measured – a huge proportion of this is necessarily objective – whether someone qualifies or does not qualify for a benefit for example will have a mix of objective, measurable parameters and a lot of subjective, “gut-feel” parameters. Yes, you can put numbers on them but the assignment of those values will itself be a subjective process.

Then there is the cost of not spending the money – that sounds like a perverse statement but is often very true. Thought experiment – there is an illness that is expected to affect 10% of the population and will result in a significant medical cost for each person affected (although it is not known the distribution of “seriousness” of the illness. There is also a drug which – if administered before infection – will protect almost everyone. In this case it is sort of clear that the cost of not spending the money to provide the drug is the relatively unknown cost of treatment. How on earth do you measure the efficiency here? (Of course, this simplifies the real problem since there will be other benefits and costs which are relevant.

It seems to me that throwing a team of (and here I am guessing at their skills) data miners at this problem is a monumentally stupid idea – assuming that what you are REALLY trying to do is root out the inefficiencies. Remember DIKW? Data is, on its own, not terribly useful. Simply saying “they spend $1m on xxx each year” is not a helpful statement – worse it is a misleading statement depending on what “xxx” actually is.

Here is an idea – it was reported that the cost of President Trump going to the Superbowl was around $20m – which made me think – how much is spent on ‘supporting’ the president during his four years in office? How about changing things so that the president never needs to leave the White House for four years – how much would that save the country on transport, security, ‘wasted time’ both for the president and for those who ‘need’ to follow him around – there is so much more. Strikes me that – ignoring all the subjective and contextual aspects this would be a huge saving and wipe away a lot of extravagance.

OK – so that extreme may not be possible but I am sure there are many ways in which much of that inefficiency could be wiped away.

So – coming to the title theme of this post – the team that is enthusiastically gutting US government spending seems to be composed of “youngsters who know” – although what they know is still a bit of a mystery. Whatever it is, it almost certainly does not include the mechanics of – for example – military procurement. It won’t include the ‘soft’ effects of USAID’s spending around the world – they may never have entertained the fact that this was something that mattered. It won’t include virtually everything that isn’t how to find data inside a computer’s memory.

There have been reports of the use of what are effectively keyword searches – this is not by any means a foolproof technique. AI has lots of plus points, but a significant defect is that it has no way of correctly factoring in all of the variables that make up a decision. Think for a minute about sitting down at a lovely restaurant with a menu packed with your favourite dishes. Which one do you choose? Why did you choose that one – and go beyond, because I fancied it at this time! There are likely a number of (seemingly) unrelated things in your brain that led to the choice – and not just in your brain. What about if your companion chose a dish you were thinking of having, but then you chose a different one so there was variety – now it is also all those things going on in your companion’s brain. What if there is a group of eight or ten or more – lots of brains to consider now.

So, the decision to send $1m of aid to some middle eastern country may be an inefficient use of those funds. However, think about the huge number of factors that may well have been considered in arriving at the decision to do that piece of funding. Of course, one of the options is that the decision maker took a bribe – that would make it not only inefficient but also illegal. However, I have to believe that the vast majority of such decisions are made as a result of the best knowledge available at the time.

Time – brings up another thing here – looking at past decisions it can be easy to point to those which did not turn out the way that was expected – so, with today’s knowledge it was inefficient or ineffective. Decisions are made at a point in time and I along with others have stated before that you NEVER make a wrong decision because whatever decision you arrive at is based on all the knowledge you have AT THAT TIME. You may well discover a few seconds later that some of your knowledge was incorrect or incomplete – that doesn’t change the fact that at the time the decision was the right one.

This is an important point for two main reasons – the investigators later cannot apply “better” information to your decision and just because someone doesn’t like your decision they cannot say it is a wrong one, because their “total knowledge” will be different to yours resulting in a different interpretation of what the decision should have been.#

In turn, we come back to the (dis-)information idea from the previous post – if you are basing your decisions on incorrect data then inevitably your decisions will be skewed – they will still be the ‘right’ ones for you to make. Perversely therefore the DOGE team gutting the US government are making the right decisions – which only goes to show that it is vitally important to get the right decision makers – which, perhaps is another long essay!!

The fact that the DOGE team is young is a huge issue, however we who are older also need to realise that we are always too young to know everything. This echoes Sheldrake’s points regarding science where they believe that because they know it is no longer necessary to keep looking – never fall into that trap – whilst the unknown unknowns are without a doubt a huge contributor to any risk – a much greater danger are the knowns that are simply incorrect.

I originally described it as a simplified view which had its limitations (as all models do) but I now am more inclined to think that on the left hand side of the diagram it is more than ‘just’ simplified’ it is actually quite wrong in one specific respect. It purports to show all the ‘possible’ lives that had been open to you in the past but there is one – to me – significant flaw.

When it comes to any decision you have to make a choice between two or more ways forward. You will, if you are wise, think ahead about the possibilities along each path. However, there is NO way you can know what lies down any of the paths and, with one or two notable exceptions, you will never know what lay along the paths not trodden.

So – all the black branches should really only progress a little way, certainly not as far as the next decision making point unless you choose to represent your ‘expectations’ of the other path rather than what would ‘actually’ happen along that route. Then you could justify a little lengthening – but not to the extent in the diagram.

I sort of expect that this will continue to rattle around in my head for a while, so there maybe further additions.

The original tweet was by Tim Urban and this is the diagram he posted.

I have a few ‘issues’ with the diagram, but it is at the same time a useful illustration. To get to where you are now you have avoided – one way or another – many alternative routes each of which would have led you eventually to a different place now. Some of these are ‘close’ to the actual but most are quite a long way away from it.

In actuality, I think that my major ‘issue’ is that it is (perhaps necessarily) too simplistic – and because of that perhaps somewhat misleading. In fairness the original post had a quite specific purpose and I am here taking the diagram somewhat out of context. The point originally was that ‘people’ focus overmuch on the black paths that are no longer reachable and which were spurned or taken from them at some time in the past at the expense of not giving enough focus to the green paths which are, at this point, still in our control.

I empathise with that point of view – and have said similar elsewhere in this blog – yes, looking back gives us opportunities to learn, but that should only be in order to make better choices/decisions in the future when our path bifurcates.

Now, my describing the diagram as simplistic was not intended as a criticism – way back in my writing the idea of a ‘model’ was discussed a lot, although perhaps I have not used the term so frequently lately, and any model is a simplification of reality so that ‘parts’ of that reality can be understood. What is needed though is a clear statement of the simplifications and the possible effects on the uses of the model. This diagram is a model in that sense.

The first simplification is that the diagram is two dimensional – a VERY necessary simplification when using traditional ways of representation. That leads to an ‘unknown’ in viewing it – when lines cross do they actually ‘meet’ or do they simply pass by. From my worldview, I would probably argue that it is impossible to get to the same point by two different routes when considering the life journey. This is because of the fact that along the way you are gaining experiences, knowledge and behaviours that are unique to that path. So any ‘self’ you meet who has arrived there by a different path would be endowed with a different set of experiences, etc.. A multi-dimensional model would make the interpretation clearer.

A second simplification is that all of the ‘choices’ or ‘decisions’ are depicted as bifurcations – there is no example of having multiple options at a single point – which I think is often the case in real life. (although you can potentially reduce that to a series of bifurcations in some contexts).

I have become increasingly sceptical about the idea of coincidences – whilst there may be some situations where ‘real’ coincidences appear, my suspicion is that there is something more at work which leads to seemingly coincidental events – which are therefor far from coincidental. I ended that with a laugh as even as I was writing it it was clear to me that I wasn’t being particularly clear about what I was saying.

Recently I was writing in my journal about the fact that for me – and I suspect for pretty much everyone – the way in which I met my life partner was along a path strewn by possible alternative endpoints – and the diagram here pretty much sums up a lot of what I was saying in terms of the left hand side – at least when viewed from the decisions that I had to make to reach the wedding day. Was it coincidental that this diagram appeared?

However – this example “my path to my wedding day” – is incomplete because there is another, similarly complicated, diagram that led to my wife being at that same point in time and space. She had also made many decisions along the way and only the actual set that she did make would have led her to my side.

Now we have come to the crux of my personal dissatisfaction with this model – good as it is in the simplistic case. Now we have two such models – overlaid on top of each other and all of these decisions – which took place in two separate (for the most part) life timelines – need to have taken the correct path through the maze.

It gets worse many of the decisions that led to the pair of us standing side by side at the altar were made by other people. This may seem strange to you if you haven’t considered this before – but as one clear example, if I hadn’t been seen as a “suitable candidate” for a job by someone working for Plessey in Liverpool I would not have ended up in the same geographic location as my future spouse. There are so many other examples of this.

As ever we now have a model that is growing exponentially more complex and it quickly stops being useful. I do think it is worth doing the though experiment though of trying to identify the least likely person who has contributed in a meaningful way to some aspect of where (and what) you are today. (and that meaningful way could be negative as well as positive of course)

There are, basically, two reasons why I shared this diagram here – the first is what I alluded to in the title and addressed briefly above. Once you make any decision and choose a path I believe that you can never return to the path (or paths) that you have rejected. Every step along the way adds to your experience, so even if you retrace your steps and choose the other path instead you have been changed by that diversion and do not return to the point of choice in the same state as when you first encountered it.

This is far from a new idea or outlook – Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, once said,

This is, in essence, the same as what I am saying here in a rather less poetic way. I claim no originality in this thought. However, I suspect that – for many – the idea behind the quote is not something that they would recognise as part of their normal worldview.

This brings me to the second reason for the sharing of this diagram. I suspect that, for many, the complexity of life and decision making to navigate life is seen in a much more ‘blinkered’ way. I don’t use blinkered in a critical way, rather what is happening is necessary to blank out what might otherwise be overwhelming. We all need to tailor our worldview to what we personally can cope with and understand – our models cannot be too complex to comprehend. That means that – for everyone – some potentially significant information will be ignored or unknown. This diagram brings a relatively simple view that can help widen the focus to understand that things are never that straightforward.

As Christians the idea that we will all be reunited in heaven is something that is central to the Faith. The words of a hymn strike me as significant here….

Of course it is difficult to define what heaven will actually be like – there are many differing interpretations – but assuming that we meet everyone who has been important in our lives once more – which version of them do we meet?  This is particularly relevant for those to whom we have a ‘connection’ stretching over many years because people change – our relationships change – do we get to meet again with all the different facets of that other person – or is it only a single version of them that reaches heaven.  If we meet them multiple times – is it always the same version?

So – the seemingly simple statement in the third verse of the quoted hymn turns into quite a complex idea when it is given some due consideration.

There are some people that I have only ever met in a single place and time. For those, is it safe to assume that when we meet up again in the hereafter they will be as they were from that single meeting? If that is true, does that also mean that as far as they are concerned I will be the same also? That immediately brings to the fore the conundrum that I will ‘appear’ differently to different people. Of course this is the ‘simple’ case.

Inevitably people change, of course in appearance, but also in personality and character. So a single person could – potentially – appear in many alternative guises – or even multiple different guises. Will I meet the ‘version’ that I grew up with? or the version that I met again several years later? or whatever version that person continued to grow into? Thinking about the people I know – and therefore presumably fall into the “Friends will be there I have loved long ago” category – it is clear that my memories of them are very definitely set in a particular time. Almost all of them have “moved on” from the person they were when I ‘knew’ them. (that is, of course, heavily caveated by what I have written about not really knowing anyone)

As I write this I am very aware that it becoming a litany of questions – things to be pondered on – and that every single one of the questions is inherently unanswerable because none of us has any idea of what ‘heaven’ might look like. That’s OK though. I would always prefer the complex unanswerable question to the simple – and inevitably incomplete – answer.

This has been turning around in my mind over the last few weeks and there are many aspects to this to explore.

Whenever I start thinking about this topic the questions only pile up. It seems to me that whatever the answers to these questions are (and I don’t have many – any?) the way in which it must work is very different to the way in which the ‘real world’ works. That – I think – is almost a given as it seems nonsensical to explore the topic with real world constraints in place. The only caveat to that which is worth highlighting is that I am uncertain whether “the real world” is fully understood. Certainly not by me and I suspect only very few people, if anyone, has the full picture there.

There are many people – scientists, authors, film makers, philosophers, and more – who have one way or another explored the concept of what I will term “alternative worlds”. The one alternative world that almost everyone is familiar with is the world of dreams. In that world many things happen that are simply not possible in “the real world”. In the same way as I ask the question about which version of a person do we meet in heaven, so we can ‘meet’ different versions of a person in the dream world. Sometimes the person will simply come from a different time, when they were younger for instance, but sometimes they may be nothing ‘like’ our normal memories of that person – but you still ‘know’ that it is them in the dream setting.

Equally, the situations, the locations, the perils, the mix of people, and many other things can be a long way from the possibilities in “the real world”. Of course, the interpretation of dreams is something that has occupied many minds for a long time and I am certainly not going to try to address the meaning, my purpose here is to draw some sort of parallel between how we perceive dreams and how we envision heaven.

Sticking with the main topic of this particular post – the dream world suggests that we can envision people differently at different times without losing their identity – they remain identifiable even when they ‘appear’ different. So this sort of goes along a path which leads me to think that who we meet in heaven is too simplistic – when we meet a person there is it in some way the ‘essence’ of that person – some might call it the soul I guess – that thing (or those things) which define them as being X rather than Y. The view that we get is less to do with an accurate picture of them at a particular time, but more to do with some ‘creation’ of how they should ‘look’. I have put ‘look’ in quotes because I am also unsure whether seeing is a thing when you start talking about either dreaming or heaven.

Thinking again about the many people I have known, only a few of them are represented in my memory by a recent picture. If I visualise them they appear “as they were” at some point in the past. Even those for whom I do have recent views, my visualisation is not necessarily in line with that. I am also well aware of some who have appeared in dreams looking nothing like my memory of them. Another aspect here is that, for many, the last days/years of life are not how we would want to remember them – so I guess that if and when they turn up in our heaven they will not be ‘as they were’ towards the end of their life.

The fact that I just said “our heaven” highlights another aspect of this. Different parts of the world, different religions and just plain different people all have differing views on what ‘heaven’ is. Surely that does not mean that only people who share our religion (or whatever) will be met in ‘our’ heaven. If heaven is a personal thing then admittance would be open to anyone of whatever race or faith or whatever.

I also think about situations where two people who I am friendly with do not “get on” with each other – does that mean that they never show up together in ‘my’ heaven?

This, for the time being, along with all the other enigmas set out in this post will simply have to remain open questions with no clear answers. Perhaps in time all become clearer, although I suspect not given the nature of the subject.

What he said was

Not the way to put it if what you are trying to do is win friends and influence people, perhaps, but it does paraphrase the Dunning/Kruger effect perfectly for me.  The softening effect that I would probably insist on is that just because someone is stupid about one thing doesn’t mean that they are stupid about everything.  So Cleese’s rather generalised statement should be tones down a little – but then it might lose its impact.

A realisation that we are “stupid” is the first step on the road to becoming more wise.  It opens the door to “I don’t know” and a realisation that perhaps not everything we believe is actually true.

I have – over the last few years watched american politics with – shall we say “amazement”!!  Perhaps incredulity would be better – but its less accurate since – up to a point – I can understand the “why” of what is going on.  (Can I also say that I do not think that america has a monopoly on “amazing” politics – you can see equally “stupid” things happening all round the world)

I don’t often “talk politics” – mainly because I believe that my views are mine – yours are yours –  and we are all free to hold them.  I guess that I would be (in UK terms) classified as slightly “left of centre” in terms of my own particular views, but certainly not extremely so.  Translated to a society like the USA it is entirely possible that I would start to be classified as amongst the “loonie left”.   The point here is it is very much dependant on what you are comparing it with.

I guess that most people are most comfortable with the “political system” that they are most used to – so as a lifelong Brit my tendency is to think that “democracy” is the way to go.  However, in my view ALL political systems are flawed – just as ALL political systems have some things going for them.

Perhaps my thoughts on democracy could be summarised by a single quote – “the best thing about democracy is that everyone has a vote, the worst thing about democracy is that everyone has a vote” – I’m not sure whether I am quoting someone or being original – but that is where I am at with my own personal thinking.

The “stupid people” get to decide alongside those who know better.  On many subjects I would have to be within the “stupid people” set (you may recall that this blog has the overall title of ‘feeding my ignorance’ – I know there are gaps in my knowledge).  The fact that I realise this doesn’t help – because it also means that I also realise that on any particular subject the vast majority of those voting for a particular decision will be entirely ignorant of the repercussions.  (Brexit being one of the ultimate examples of this)

It is all very well saying simply “follow the science” – “follow the facts” – but we see numerous examples of where a significant proportion of people cannot even manage to agree on the facts and a significant number of those empowered to make decisions for us (our politicians) are swayed by factors that are unrelated to the particular situation.  Again – looking “across the pond” at the moment this sort of contamination of decision making is seemingly becoming hopelessly out of control.

There is more to be written on this – perhaps I ought to blog more frequently (or perhaps not ).