Monday 29 June 2009

School bans black-face Morris Men

Which fool decided that there was any connection between the black faces of Morris Men and potential offence? This is a tradition of hundreds of years and has no racist connotations whatsoever.

The people who make these pronouncements need to publicly defend the logic of their position far more robustly than simply 'imagining' any and every offence that could be taken in this case and any and every possible case.

Usually the ability to spot patterns that connect is a highy valued intellectual skill. That of course is if the patterns are relevant and meaningful.

Prejudicial hypersensitivity is a debilitating and negative outlook. It is NOT intellectually clever to make any old connection and claim that their might be a risk of offence. The precrime thought police seem to be the ones who are prejudiced. Predjudiced against innocent traditions, predjudiced against common sense, and predjudiced against normal people who they regard as simpletons.

How dare they assume that we are all gullible and cannot see the danger lurking behind the face paint of Morris Men, how dare they presume our gullibility, how dare they think that they have privelaged insights to which we are all blind.

They are the people who are drenched in predjudice. So soaking wet in it they leave their soggy thinking footprints wherever they go.

These people should grow up and take their sixth form hand wringing out of public office.

Posted via web from Gullibimundi

Madoff Gets 150 years To Reflect On His Gullibility

The Bird that Madoff has got has to be a pigeon because it's certainly come home to roost. 150 years should be enough time for him to ponder on the havoc he's caused in people's lives by betraying their trust. He was however gullible in thinking that it was only the other people who were the gullible ones.

Events always catch up with people who reckon they are too clever by half. Abuse of confidences, abuse of power, he should find himself in expert company in the land of 'watch your back'.

Mr Madoff...imagine...all the ways you are going to be taken advantage of now!

Posted via web from Reasonable's posterous

Sunday 28 June 2009

Evidence of Gullibility
























Its been a while since I reviewed my Technorati page I notice that my 'authority' sits at 7 and that I've attracted 55 fans.

One neat aspect of Technorati is the 'watchlist' and a key word for me is as you would expect 'Gullibility' Over the last few days there have been a couple of great links.

The first is this one that claims to be images recovered from the inside of ill fated flight AF 447 Titled Gullibility (hooray!) the images seem to be clips from a TV series.

Next is a blog called Daily Irrelevant which covers a story about prize winning students who later had their prize revoked"prize-winners, Guillaume Chauvin and RĂ©mi Hubert, read out a statement admitting to the hoax, stating that they had wanted to make a “powerful artistic gesture” attacking the “voyeurism” and gullibility of parts of the press" as they took Paris Match for a ride.

Candid World
talks about the gullibility of people involved with Scientology, posting a fasciinating comment stream too.

It would seem that a fairly low intensity but steady stream of gullibility pervades the blogosphere.

Saturday 27 June 2009

Michael Jackson Super Nova

The passing of any super talent is like the explosion of a super nova. In a flash the brilliance is signaled to the world and in a flash it is gone.

Putting the usual experiences of the bereaved to one side, such as the loss of something that was thought to be enduring, the taken for granted access to the individual who is now unequivocally gone, the demise of Michael Jackson brings home once more just how reliant the human race is on a very few individuals to change world views, be the source of original thinking to lead the way forward. The ratio of these significant individuals to the people of the world is microscopic, these are people we rely on to take our world forward and their number and frequency is very very small.

The media will lapse into pseudo intellectual deconstruction of every twist and turn of his life, people and fans will share their views. This however is the passive, uncreative approach to life used by people who rely on the creative leadership of others rather than taking responsibility for generating original ideas themselves. They feast on the dead bodies of the talented for the raw material for their 'pop' philosophising and mawkish sense-making.

How best to celebrate the life of Michael Jackson? My suggestion would be to originate something that gives pleasure to others. It needn't be global in its reach. It would be in the image of the King of Pop

Posted via web from Reasonable's posterous

Tuesday 23 June 2009

The Rise of Hate 2.0

We'd be gullible if we thought that the digital space was any different from the FtF space. The full diversity of sense-making and behaviour from people of various persuasions will clearly be able to find a voice and constituency in the fluid and far reach medium of digital conversations.

This recent BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8097979.stm is certainly thought provoking.

This merely serves to underscore the need to develop the education and critical skills of all digital media users. This will enable them to readily challenge the flawed logic of the hate-mongers and spot a gross generalisation and simplification at a 1000 meters.

People on the whole have become more media savvy. They know that people have agendas when they communicate. The disturbing feature of social media is that it enables 'the disturbed' who might have been previously disjointed to connect. And in this 'connection' to believe that they are establishing a general norm instead of a perverse small group norm.

Do we see a Hate 2.0 career path here? Does leaving a flame comment mean you will become a Troll, does becoming a troll mean you are predisposed to finding affinities with more established hate groups, does an on-line hate group manifest itself in physical action?

There might be a saving grace in the very nature of social media itself! The power of crowds only really works in the physical realm. Crowd psychology is a powerful thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_psychology The Nazis may have utilised the new technologies of film and radio but it was only in the setting of mass public meetings that the virulence of their thinking took hold.

Posted via web from Reasonable's posterous

Monday 22 June 2009

Police break up new Tehran rally

Am I missing something? Does the Iranian regime assume that millions of their own are people are gullible enough to be duped by social media messages from 'The West'? How does that work? Surely taking issue with the dogmatic views of a powerful regime requires 'critical thinking'.

Which means that if the the 'subversive' messages from the West' are as flawed, baseless and biased as the regime say they are then the very people they are meant to influence would see straight through them too (because they are smart independently minded people) and therefore they would support the regime.

Posted via web from Reasonable's posterous

Blog Posts Directly via E-Mail

The situation regarding the remaining 3 British hostages looks precarious. The hunt will soon be on for someone to blame http://www.bloggingtoblame.blogspot.com

I've used my e-mail account and  http://www.posterous.com to create this post to see what happens

Posted via email from Reasonable's posterous

Can Posterous Keep Communication Open In Iran?

I'm trying http://posterous.com/ to see how it makes a difference to my blogging. I picked up information about the site from Steve Rubel. You can read more via this link http://www.micropersuasion.com/2009/06/posterous-is-changing-how-i-think-about-blogging.html What I am expecting to happen is that this post using the Posterous book marklet updates my Twitter and Blogger blog automatically, posts and image and converts urls to links. So let's see!

With a Posterous account once it has been set up I can 'attach' my other social media accounts and then update via e-mail. Neat!

Posted via web from Reasonable's posterous

Friday 19 June 2009

Cotton Wool Society The Gullibility Of Health and Safety Regulations


















As we approach the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing on the 20th July it brings home the fact that a significant number of human achievements have been achieved at great risk. Would the moon landings in 1969 have been achieved in a health and safety culture? Would the risks of the Apollo programme have been undertaken in a cotton wool society? What has also come to light is a previously unknown snippet of Apollo 11 radio traffic reveals that Buzz Aldrin's initial words to Neil Armstrong were 'Mind The Step'

We now know that these words of caution inspired the burgeoning Health and Safety industry so that today we have an invisible hordes of bureaucrats and hand wringing worriers increasing the burden of Health and Safety legislation in our schools.

The arguments that explain the socially debilitating impact of 'cotton wool rules makers' are well known. What a job that must be! Presumably these people have been carefully selected for their positions by psycho metrically testing for neurotic predispositions and an overly fertile imaginations that are capable of imagining every possible negative consequence of every possible positive action.

Who is holding these people to account for the destructive educative consequences of their actions? Someone should be pointing out the 'risks' to individuals and society of their rule making and suing them accordingly!The 'Worry Culture' is endemic.

On my commute to work yesterday I had to listen to a woman bragging, yes bragging! to her friend that she 'was that obsessive parent', so obsessively concerned about her child's safety that 30 minutes after taking her daughter to her friends house to play she drove back 'just to check she was alright'

Any educator will explain the value of Experiential Learning. This is how we learn! This is how we develop social relationships. Now, how about this for a thought...what if aspects of youth on youth violence are nothing to do with economics and popular culture? What if the increased violence in our society is actually driven by a need to experience risk? What if our molly coddled society is actually breeding the violent and high risk situations it seeks to prevent! Do you agree?

On a more mundane level the same applies to business. How many people work in organisations where exciting new ideas are crushed because somebody has 'seen' (for that read imagined) a host of potential pitfalls. These are the businesses that don't learn how to productively manage the experience of risk because risk never happens.

Imagine...35 years ago, NASA development meeting.

Person A "I think we should go for Moon landing"

Person B "Don't you realise there's a chance that the lunar module might crash or not be able to take off from the moon and the astronauts will die"

Person A "Oh I'd not thought of that, we'd better no do it"

Person B "Great!...now what do you reckon to my design for my new paper aeroplane?"

Person A "Make sure we have our safety goggles on before you chuck that thing around the office"

Person B "Don't worry I'll be posting paper plane evasive manoeuvre procedures on the notice board in advance for you all to read. Be careful though, don't get too close to the notice board in case you strain your eyes, or get really close and bump your nose"

Person A "I need to check with Health and Safety that the publication of Health and Safety notices isn't damaging our Health and Safety by increasing stress levels, so just hold back on the whole paper plane thing until we're sure its safe to proceed"

Person B "OK"


Wednesday 17 June 2009

She Should Have Had 'Gullible' Tatooed On Her Forehead



image credit Daily Telegraph












There are several factors involved with gullibility. One is not thinking through the consequences of one's choices and decisions, another is placing yourself in vulnerable situations that are in the control of unscrupulous people.

Now you may think I'm being harsh when I describe Kimberley Vlaeminck as gullible. However what on earth was going through this pretty girl's mind?

I can remember camping in the South of France and watching travelling tatooists working the bars and beaches. Clearly relying on the 'holiday spirit'of prospects so that they would take advantage of their relaxed and uncritical situation.

That this young woman fell asleep as she had the face art done is surely a metaphor for an uncritical mind. The full story can be read here 56 Stars later

Tuesday 16 June 2009

The Fallacy of Blogging Anonymity
















It never ceases to amaze me how people overlook the fact that the basic reality of blogging is that it is a highly public endeavour. Many bloggers and social media users nevertheless behave gullibly and assume that because they blog behind the privacy of their PC screen it means they can't be seen by others. This Ostrich behaviour has just claimed its latest victim.

Detective Constable Richard Horton has just been disciplined by his force for blogging as Night Jack A blog that discussed the world of the police service...all in the public interest. What is interesting is that the RSS feed still seems able to read this blog or at least an echo of it because the Snapshot window shows at least four recent posts - including Return of the Lucky and Erm..Hello.

The key thing about this story is that UK courts seem unlikely to protect anonymous bloggers in future should they step on people's toes. Bloggers need to understand that they should communicate on-line like they would communicate face to face. Offence, false accusations, sharing confidential information are all publicly risky things to do.

The solution? - don't bury your head in the sand. You might not be able to see them, but they can see you.On other hand you could try Hide My Ass

Saturday 13 June 2009

Iranian Election - Images of a Dalek Nation



image credit BBC


















The BBC report that the Supreme Dalek -Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has congratulated Dalek Ahmadinejad on his election win . Win? you ask. We'd be gullible to think that any other result was possible.

The similarities between the Iranian regime and the Daleks are not a surprise. Wikipedia explains that they "are a powerful race bent on universal conquest and domination, utterly without pity, compassion or remorse (it is believed by many other characters that all of their emotions were removed except hate, leaving them with a desire to purge the Universe of all non-Dalek life"

Chillingly the Supreme Dalek has warned off his rivals against any 'provocations'. As the situation develops we should listen for the cries of 'Exterminate! Exterminate!"

As events unfurl in Iran on the 13th of June 2009 striking parallels can be seen with the history of the Daleks. Originally called the Kaleds a fascist authoritarian race they embarked on a nuclear, biological and chemical war with the Thals in an attempt to eradicate them. How Thal-like the supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi seem.

What other similarities can you spot between the Iranian Regime and The Daleks?

Friday 12 June 2009

I'm So Bored of 'Sorry'

Politicians, Perpetrators and Perverts all seem to want to play the 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card called I'm Sorry. and I'm really bored with the all the public chest beating and hand wringing that we see when people are caught out when events catch up with them.

Just how gullible do these people think we are I wonder? The 'sorry valve' is used far too often, the very knowledge of its existence encourages people to hardly pay any attention to their actions in the present. It numbs the mind to consequences. It is an over-used social safety net.

So in the case of politicians what could be more worrying. People who don't think through consequences. Aren't we paying politicians to think through complex situations on our behalf. Can you imagine someone like Winston Churchill saying 'sorry' if he'd lost WW2? The latest public demonstration of public behaviour therapy comes from Might Mouse Hazel Blears. Oh how she regrets her resignation timing, oh how sorry she for wearing that childish 'rocking the boat' badge. What more evidence do we need that she shouldn't have had any responsibility in high office in the first place.

Then we have the perpetrators. The killers of Ben Kinsella who have just been sent down for 'life'. No doubt in a few years we'll hear how 'sorry' they were for what they did, particularly if it assists their parole hearing. Ben Kinsella was an innocent young man and a victim of a consequence free thinking. We should stop talking of Knife Crime and start talking about the The Crime of Consequence Deficient Thinking. By focussing on the Knife we focus on the object not the subject!

No doubt we will soon hear how sorry Amanda Knox is in a few days too. Whatever happened when Meredith Kercher was murdered, she'll put it across as anything but anything to do with her lack of attention to consequences.

And finally how soon will it be the 'sorry' of Vanessa George Surely there must have a moment, a split second before the camera was taken into the nursery and when she thought about what she was about to do? Commit the act and say sorry after the fact.

These people have de-valued Sorry and they don't even regret doing it!.

Sorry it seems is not the hardest word.


Here's How To Apologise

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Am I Gullible If I Believe In Luck?

















Do good and bad things happen in your life because of Luck? Aren't we being gullible if we think we can change our luck by using charms, colours, numbers, sequences and the like in an attempt to alter destiny.

Was the lady who threw away her mother's mattress containing $1million dollars badly organised, ill informed or just unlucky?

Were the additional 42 people who have just been diagnosed with Swine Flu in Britain simply unfortunate?

Was the man who found a dead mouse in his loaf of bread unlucky too?

Why is it that we attribute things we can't control to a lack of luck. Why do we spend so much time and energy on trying to find out How To Attract Good Luck and Fortune into our lives

Surely things just ARE. Aren't they? As Marcus Aurelius said "How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!"

Friday 5 June 2009

The Difference Between Statesmanship and 'Politicks'

So what's your theory for becoming a successful politician? A glance at the front pages of two UK newspapers shows the difference.Here we have the Politickal version.


Guardian Friday 4 6 2009


Career politicians who devote their energy on managing the system to their personal advantage.A world of introverted personal powerplays that resembles the social posturing of a celebrity reality TV show. Political survivors and professional duckers and divers who focus attention on their aspirations, and gaming the system.

And here we have the Statesmanlike version.


Independent 4 6 2009


Someone who is intellectually capable of grasping the big picture. Someone who is on the pulse of globally important issues that effect the lives of billions of people. Someone who wants to make a difference to others.

Britain is suffering from two politcial diseases. One the 'MBA'ing of politics, that defines success as someone who is characterised as a capable 'manager', someone who has sussed the political code, someone who can deploy basic methods of organisational management and the other the 'Celebification' of politics where British political process is understood as nothing more than reality TV freak show that requires a similar depth of attention and understanding to follow.

You'd be gullible if you mistook our politicians for leaders instead of mere executives. Cue Big Brother voice over..."James is sulking in the garden and Gordon is the kitchen sharpening some knives"

Wednesday 3 June 2009

The Disturbing Danger of Swine Flu Gullibility

We are being really gullible if we think that the 'hot news items' in the world of politics, business, society and entertainment have somehow made Swine Flu go away.


The disturbing nature of this virus was really brought home to me as I was reading Bill Bryon's book
A Short History of Nearly Everything in which he describes the disturbing and frightening reality of the Swine Flu virus over pages 386-389:







I didn't realise that the 1918 flu epidemic was Swine Flu. and Bryson provides some astonishing facts including:

80% of American World War 1 forces casualties were the result of Swine Flu, and 21 million people died in 4 months world wide.

The most frightening aspect of the virus however relates directly to the 'phase' of its development we are in at the moment, yes that means Summer 2009. Bryson writes "Swine flu arose as a normal, non-lethal flu in the Spring of 1918, but somehow, over the following months, non-one knows how or where, it mutated into something more severe"

He goes on to describe a series of stomach churning experiments conducted on convicts in a race to create a vaccine. Their participation was based on the promise that if they survived exposure to the virus ranging from being coughed in the face, to ingesting 'samples' from patients that had died from the virus they would be pardoned!

The most difficult and worrying to explain he says was "how it managed to lie low for several months before erupting so explosively at more or less the same time all over. Even more mysterious is that it was most devastating to people in the prime of life"

He concludes by saying "The greatest mystery of all is why the 1918 flu was so ferociously deadly when most flus are not. We still have no idea"

Swine Flu Latest:
9th June 2009 Australia flu could tip pandemic
10th June 40 New Swine Flu Cases in the UK
11th June 2009 WHO 'declares swine flu pandemic'
12th June UK Swine Flu cases pass 900 Mark
14th June 2009 UK First Swine Flu Death - First Outside Americas
27th June 2009 Swine Flu At Glastonbury
28th June 2009 Second UK Swine Flu Death
29th June 3rd UK swine flu death
2nd July 2009 100,000 a day in UK expected
3rd July 2009 Death in London
6th July 2009 Child 9 years dies in London
10th July 2009 1st death of healthy person

Tuesday 2 June 2009

Jacqui Smith Falls On Sword Before She Takes The Knife




















Jacqui Smith has decided to end her ill-fated tenure of her ministerial position.

After a series of political mis-judgements, not the least of which included picking political fights that she stood little chance of winning she is off.

MP gullibility seems to be standard issue at the moment. Invariably based on a misplaced sense of Hubris Any senior politician that doesn't appreciate that pride always comes before a fall must be the most gullible of them all.

It simply isn't good enough to be able to manage a department, to be personable. It requires proactiveness, vision, imagination, astuteness, and sound judgement.

History will judge whether Ms Smith was cutting edge or not!

Monday 1 June 2009

Taking Care of Susan

Reading the runes I'd say that the pressure on lovely and talented Susan Boyle to live up to expectations was self evident in her demenour on the Britain's Got Talent Final.

The news that she has been taken into clinic is yet another example of the use of language to imply that Susan is somehow 'mentally shaky'. This is unfair. Anyone who has had to Reframe the context of their life and their sense of identity knows that this is a challenging and often up-setting experience.

I would also not be suprised in the slightest if the Britain's Got Talent production took and executive decision to take some of the pressure off Susan by massaging the results. This of course is pure speculation, and it could have been a weird sort of 'care effect' by the voting public to refrain from voting to protect their heroine.

Thinking like this is also unfair to Diversity, who I thought were awesome on the night. I was one of the first people to Stumble their Youtube on April 26th 2009. So its very likely that Diversity won outright fair and square.

This just goes to show how the mind works in lots of different situations. Are we gullible in thinking that rocketing to international fame wouldn't cause Susan to need a massive re-think about what is happening to her? Are we gullible in thinking that the type of super hype pressure cooker that is Britains Got Talent won't turn grown men and kids to tears? Are we gullible in thinking that we don't 'fill in the gaps' and create conspiracy theories the instant we only have partial information.

Susan Boyle deserves every ounce of success.
She deserves some well earned rest, and she deserves to be taken care of not only by the entertainment industry but by the the Media and the public. Other wise every single one of us deserve to be accused of taking advantage of another human being.

How appropriate that she does a cover of the Rolling Stones Wild Horses. She's certainly riding them!