Yesterday I went to target with my kids to buy some stuff and I went to look at the book section like I always do. To my horror I was amazed… shocked… surprised when I couldn’t find one science fiction tome on the shelves? I have a theory but my guess is that people just don’t read popular science fiction anymore? If they do… I guess they don’t buy it at target.
Angus and Robertson had no more love either
I left target and went to a dedicated ‘book’ store to look for science fiction because I thought what the hell is going on? One, maybe two shelves in the science fiction section and the rest was fantasy? I mean really what’s going on here. You know things are bad when the shelves are littered with Mills and Boon and there is no science fiction. What gives?
Science fiction slowly but surely disappearing of our television sets
It’s a great irony that Australians made Farscape pretty much and we never watched it. Now, Stargate’s disappearing, Red Dwarf can’t get any more love from the BBC… it’s a global conspiracy I tell you.
What can we do about it
Ultimately we have the power, people who made the Farscape miniseries possible (you know who you are). We must do something about this. I don’t what but surely there has to be an answer to the vaporisation of science fiction of our time dilated portals… I mean television sets and bookstores.
People often make me wonder. The things we do and don’t even realise we are following the group or being part of a herd. One day I was driving north on the freeway when again I was stuck in traffic. Frustrated I began to think: what the hell is wrong here? A few minutes later we began to speed up and slow down. Up and down and up and down. Finally some 45 minutes later when I got to the cause of problem I noticed a man standing behind a car someone had torched days earlier that was off the side of the road and nowhere near the traffic. I learned something from this: people are the same as ants in many ways. We stop. We think in discernible group patterns and we act accordingly. Here are some examples that I have also noticed.
Social Networks
People can whine about Myspace, Facebook or Friendster all they like. You know what, those sites are only popular because people forms groups around them and share common interests. They ‘hive’ around concepts. People who have mastered the art of being creaters of social networks have become the stuff of web legend. Popular language calls them mavens, sneezers, influencers and the like. I prefer the term pioneer because I think there is always that person out of the front of the group who can discern ahead of time what it likely to be popular and yes they usually pay the price for it.
Communication in groups
Ants have a knowing that allows them to build great things as part of a huge chain of communication. How do they do it? I don’t know and if you are reading this I am not sure I care to know. All I know is that I see them build huge nests. That is a team effort therefore they somehow communicate information to each other to make that happen. Consider Digg. A source of joy and frustration for bloggers. Digg is a hive. Sure, it’s moderated and has a hierarchy to it which surprises people. Still, it’s built by group communication, clicking and just enough manipulation to make it work. Ants!
Group perceptions and thoughts
We like similar things. I really like CSI, Torchwood, Doctor Who yet for me to enjoy these fine programs there has to be other people who enjoy them. In fact there has to be enough people to enjoy them and spread them around through group communication. Stephen King said it this way in On Writing… we can communicate using our minds. I can say tree and you have already seen what I am thinking in your mind. That’s telekinesis right there. You are seeing what I am saying when I say tree. It’s probably not the same tree but you get my point. Group perceptions are the same. We believe things in groups and build our identities around it.
In this video we have liberal (Australian Conservatives) and the Labour (the opposite). Notice how the comedy trio make light of the situation by playing on group perceptions. They use various political ideas and the way the recent Australian election was promoted as a way to share with us different ideas. The media do this in many many ways. People respond in a typical either/or logic box. Thus we are forced to take sides with two idiots.
Queens and Kings
In some ant societies there are head honchos which we call Queens. So it is in society we elect officials, make things popular and so on. We give people like Paris Hilton attention. We make Harry Potter a legend, we give precedence and through our group activity support and maintain the status quo. Over and over again. These things are made popular through interacting group perceptions, ideas and notions. Our queens and kinds are those we give ‘royal’ status through our constant conversations.
The chain gang mentality
Ants work in a straight line one after the other. I was watching them climb the wall at my house the other day and I wondered why do they do that. The know to go one after the other and form a line. As I thought about this I thought about work and how we do much the same thing. We work, never really questioning why this is the way things are and become part of a chain in a really long line. Day in and day out… nothing really changes.
Strategic Thinking and Action
Ants are great at thinking bigger picture. They are fantastic and making small things grow into big things. So are we. When we work together that is. In my family, as I imagine it is in yours, there is a lot of feuding. Being the ‘peacemaker’ in the family I often find myself in the middle of it. More times than I can count people make ideas they think are important which are really not. We hold our ground when we could work together to make peace. The amount of times I have seen great projects or research destroyed because people could not push aside their egos to work together. Alas, it’s no wonder the world is in such a mess.
Moving heavy objects
Okay so this is where we part company with ants… we can’t move eight times our own weight. AND we don’t have eight legs either.
In this observation we must remember that comparisons of us with insects is interesting but ultimately there is one thing that separates us from them. Our ability to destroy things. Humans have an uncanny ability to form ideological perceptions that destroy nations, spread evil and hate each other. Do ants hate? I have no idea. I am not an expert in insects. I can say that I admire their team spirit and willingness to work together to form complex wholes… something I rarely see humans do.
The answer to this question may seem very simple. University lecturers (like me) should not be responsible for teaching students how to manage real problems. However, I disagree. Why?
High school does not teaching practical skills as such
While I admit there are a lot of useful ideas for reaching teenagers and getting them to cope with real life issues and problems, there is still a long way to go. What happens is that students leave high school and then go into university then go into the workforce. Some, do trades or just get a job. Yet the process of learning is exactly the same. They go from high school to the outside world and then that’s it.
University courses are not that practical in general they are specific
Most university courses I have taught will not teach you how build great responses to problems. One of the reasons I started this blog was because I noticed people who were coming through university courses with no life skills. Yes, they could read and write (and do maths) but where were their problem solving skills? What about creative thinking skills? What about learning how to cope with relationships? If life is all about work then what do we do the rest of our time?
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90% of what you do at work is NOT academic
This is hard to admit but how often do you reach for your economics book? Or wonder what Maslow would have thought about your jerky boss. It’s time for bone dry honesty… how useful is the information you get at university, high school or college (TAFE included)? Theories are wonderful… I have a lot of them. But unless something helps me to solve a problem I throw it away. What good is knowledge that doesn’t work? It’s like having a Porsche with no motor OR a Monet with a hole in the centre of it.
Once upon a time university was a place where people expanded their minds. Now, I think it’s a sausage factory. People go out to work after studying and I wonder all the time just how useful this knowledge is? I have written papers in the past and then thought… is this even meaningful… I mean is this ever going to change our lives? I doubt it. We should be teaching people at University, high school and other places of education how to manage and cope with life. Why? I think there is a responsibility here for educators to realise that a portion of what we teach should be how to manage real life problems. If it isn’t then we are not preparing people for a life in the business world where learning curves are steep and lessons are harshly learned.
