This TED talk by Kyle Eschen, entitled “The art of cognitive blindspots,” explores the idea of cognitive vulnerabilities. He exploits human psychology through magic to illustrate how humans can have blindspots of perception and awareness, known as inattentional blindness. He uses a variation on the classic “cup and ball” trick to show how people can look directly at something and completely miss the important parts. At the end of the video, after he pulls off several tricks, he explains how magic is really just about understanding these blindspots and exploiting them. Specifically, he notes that the blindspots are a lot bigger than we would expect. This relates to our discussion of mindbugs earlier in the semester. Once we understand that we have these potential gaps of knowledge, we can address them, but it is so hard to realize that we have them in the first place.

https://www.tedxvienna.at/watch/the-art-of-cognitive-blindspots-kyle-eschen-tedxvienna/

I watched Chimamanda Nggozi Adiche’s TED talk entitled “The Danger of a Single Story.” This talk fit really well with our discussion of narratives and storytelling this semester. She warns of using a single story and applying it to all people, places, or things of the same type. This is actually a logical fallacy, called the fallacy of composition. I found myself trying to think of times that I succumbed to a single story. This mostly happens when I meet people from different cultures and backgrounds, and let my limited knowledge, or single story, affect how I see and treat them. I think this TED talk can help people be more aware that we have implicit biases and work to correct them. It also speaks to the importance of getting knowledge from a diverse set of sources, and being willing to tell your own story.

I watched Katie Hafner’s talk at the Jepson Leadership Forum entitled “The Origins of the Internet.” In just under an hour, she summarized how the Internet, the most ubiquitous technological advancement of the 20th century, was born. She described how the origin of the government project that resulted in the Internet was the result of a frustrated psychologist working for the Department of Defense Advance Research Project Agency (ARPA) who wanted his computer terminals to be able to communicate with each other. That psychologist was named Bob Taylor, and he subsequently hired Larry Roberts, a computer engineer, who developed some of the core concepts that would allow computers to communicate with each other. The project yielded a network, called ARPANET that connected the computers of the federal government and universities across the country, allowing them to communicate and share resources. ARPANET was the precursor to the modern Internet, as its concepts were adopted by the telecommunication and computer industry to create today’s world-wide network.

The most insightful part of Hafner’s talk was her commentary on the debate over the origins of the internet, based on two key questions: who gets the credit and why was it created?  She noted how many people significantly contributed to the creation of ARPANET, all in different ways. Taylor and Roberts were at the head of the project in ARPA, but Donald Davies, Paul Beran, and Leonard Kleinrock each made advancements, all of which were necessary for the dream of ARPANET to be fully realized. Hafner recounted a story, told to her by Paul Baran, that compared the process of building ARPANET to building a cathedral. All of these individuals came along and laid a few bricks, and at the end of it all, a cathedral was built. To me, this was an interesting example of how a vision can be more of a leader than an individual. Taylor was hardly the first to come up with the idea, but he did have access to the necessary ARPA funding to get the project going. But rather than focus on directly leading the project with more hands-on action, he simply tried to hire the right people and let his vision lead the way, which allowed those other contributors to come onboard and add their pieces. A shared vision can be more powerful than one individual, but it also shows that Taylor understood how to fulfill his role as a leader.

I tend to be more of a pessimist at heart, but in a way that fits with this reading. Just because I understand that there are more powerful forces than me at play won’t stop me from trying my hardest to accomplish something. In that way, I prefer to see myself as a realist, not a pessimist. Doing something is always better than doing nothing, so even if you’re not accomplishing 100% of what you want to accomplish, getting that 50% done is better than giving up.

One thing the reading didn’t touch on that I thought fit well was the impact of perspective on expectations. I think it’s important to have realistic expectations. That does not necessarily mean optimistic or pessimistic, but rather a more frank acknowledgement of both the circumstances and our ability to change them. It is possible to understand that the situation is dire and also know that we have the agency to improve it. Having expectations from that perspective, rather than blindly optimistic or pessimistic, empowers us to work more productively towards our goals.

This advertisement had very little content that actually related to the 2012 presidential election. It focused on Mitt Romney’s promise to cut funding for PBS, which produces Sesame Street. Romney would always reference the character Big Bird when making that promise, so Obama’s team took those sound bites and put together an ad making fun of Romney’s focus on Big Bird.

This accomplished two things. First, it showed the difference between Romney and Obama on funding PBS. Romney wanted to cut funding; Obama did not. But I’m more importantly, it showed that Mitt Romney was out of touch. Instead of focusing on issues like healthcare and education that are more prevalent, he was focused on Big Bird. The ad itself was very cleverly edited to grab your attention and make Romney look foolish.

My favorite ad, or rather, series of ads, are Coca-Cola’s ad’s centered around sharing a Coke with someone. This idea originated in the 1971 ‘Hilltop’ ad, in which a diverse group of people are singing on a hill that they’d “like to buy the world a Coke.” This ad established Coke as a brand that transcended any group identity, and could be shared by everyone. It was simple, and capitalized on the fame of the song “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” by the New Seekers. I think this ad appealed to people because it shows you that you can have something in common with so many other people around the world simply by enjoying the same beverage.

I also think this ad established a foundation for future Coke ads. For example, the ‘Share a Coke with’ campaign has run for several years, and builds on the foundation of the ‘Hilltop’ ad. Coke is the brand for everyone, and it is so ubiquitous that every time you have a Coke, you’re sharing it with someone else around the world. Initially, this campaign just started with first names on cans and bottles of Coke, then expanded into more general terms like ‘dude’, ‘mate’, and ‘superstar.’ The campaign also tied in with sports by using sports nicknames like ‘MVP’ and ‘Champ’, as well as football team logos. While the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign didn’t explicitly reference the 1971 campaign, having consistent themes across 50 years is what makes Coke such a recognizable brand.

I found the passage on the Where and the How particularly interesting, especially in an election year. Leaders running for office must decide how they will balance appealing to the masses while clearly articulating their platform and plans. The example given, contrasting Obama’s “soaring rhetoric” with a heavy focus on ‘we’ and Clinton’s more pragmatic but less inspiring realism about the difficulty of leading the country. Obama, of course, won that campaign, and it could even be argued that Trump beat Clinton using the same focus on what he said, not the how of accomplishing his goals.

Looking at this election through that lens, candidates who were very plan oriented, such as Elizabeth Warren, had strong bases but failed to expand their appeal. Pete Buttigieg, who famously adopted much of Obama’s language, managed to rise in the polls. The two candidates with the most support, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, had clashing styles. Bernie Sanders used people-oriented policy to explain how he would get support for his plans, while Joe Biden touted his experience as Obama’s VP. In this, they combined both the rhetoric with the ‘how’ to gain mass appeal.

I think Zinn’s passage about the idea of a necessary sacrifice for human progress relating to European conquest of the Americas raises some really important questions about our history on this continent. Zinn’s passage describes the unethical actions taken by European countries to establish dominance in the New World. He also looks at conquest from a consequentialist perspective, pointing out that all of the death and destruction did not lead to any advancement for European countries. Was it a necessary sacrifice for human progress? Not really. But, would the United States and everything in our lives exist as it does today? No, which is why the real history of North American can be so difficult to acknowledge. The U.S. arguably owes Native Americans reparations for the destruction of their civilization, which, as Zinn notes, was not the uncivilized savagery described by the conquering Europeans.

This is the next key point made by Zinn. The Native Americans had a burgeoning civilization, with trade, industry, government, and the arts. With that in mind, European conquest was actually counterproductive to human progress. The Native Americans could have offered something to the world to advance human progress. Indeed, they made scores of advancements in agriculture, medicine, architecture, transportation, and more. Imagine if their civilization had existed for centuries in contact with the rest of the world. So many more developments could have occurred.

I found it interesting that the Stanford Prison Experiment took place in 1971, which was 17 years after William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was published. In some ways, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a real-life test of the theories about human behavior that Golding expressed in Lord of the Flies. There are some key differences. For example, the boys chose leaders among themselves, whereas the Stanford Prison Experiment assigned prisoners and guards. The boys also were given no structure, but the Stanford Prison Experiment had some structure to it.

But even in their differences, Lord of the Flies and the Stanford Prison Experiment both showed the willingness of people to be cruel to each other, when given power. The progression of the guards and the boys with power in Lord of the Flies was similar, as initially they were uncomfortable with oppressing others, but quickly became accustomed to it once they realized no one would stop them.

COVID-19 Warning

When I was reading the Stern and Kalof reading about methods of scientific inquiry, my mind naturally went to the current coronavirus crisis. I doubt this will be a very original blog post, considering that most people’s minds are on COVID-19, but this entire situation will be analyzed for years to come. Not only is it a serious pandemic, but it affects almost every sector of life. Labor, the economy, education, government, healthcare, sports, and more have been deeply affected by COVID-19. So how will we analyze this crisis?

The first way is through naturalistic observation, answering this basic question: what happens in a pandemic? I’m sure there are people tracking how colleges and universities, sports leagues, and different industries have responded to coronavirus. Journalists and historians are likely documenting the situation as well, trying to figure out what is going right and wrong. This applies across all of the areas that COVID-19 has affected. But naturalistic observation is more likely to raise questions than answers. For example, we know how different governments responded to the crisis, but how can they improve for next time? That question can be best answered by retrospective case study.

It is likely that COVID-19 will serve as the case study for most future pandemics, because it actually escalated to the highest point of any pandemic in the last 100 years. It also takes place at a moment of unprecedented ability to document information for future study, making it easy to go back and study what happened. Of course, the operations of government and politics in this period will be studied, but another interesting angle is the rise of teleworking. How much efficiency do companies actually lose from employees working at home, and could this lead to a future where offices are less necessary to run a business? Despite all of the destruction and havoc caused by the coronavirus, it could very well lead to huge changes in how our lives function after the crisis is over.