Category Archives: Uncategorized

February 18, 2024 · 10:10 pm

ChatGPT Promises not to Make Things Up

There are lots of fun and practical  ways to use the powerful Large Language Model known as chatGPT. But when you want reliable information, watch out. This evening I asked chatGPT, version 3.5, to help me with some research on Open Educational Resources (OER). These are free or very low cost textbooks, short lessons, videos, etc. that any of us can use to learn about almost anything that is taught in schools – nursery school through professional training. I’ll show you parts of the conversation transcript in a minute. But here’s the punchline of this post:

So for any of you who are worried about whether OpenAI, (chatGPT’s corporate parent) is going to stop pretending to provide real, reliable answers to our questions, here’s their promise to cease and desist.

How did we get here? Well, one of the biggest problems with OER is that it can be very difficult to find the right instructional material for what you want to learn. Teachers and instructional designers compose these lessons, or sometimes even whole textbooks or courses, and submit them to organizations called Repositories that act like public libraries. There are many thousands of titles in Repositories waiting for you to discover and use them for free, either by downloading them to your smart phone, tablet, or computer, or by logging into the ‘cloud’ where they live and using them online. So which one is right for you? You have to search the Repository – each Repository – using a limited list of keywords, words like language (English, Spanish, Chinese), audience level (1st grade, high school, beginner, adult), or subject (biology, arithmetic, Python programming). However, each Repository’s search features are a little different. Hmmm, is this a problem chatGPT can help solve?

I started by asking for a list of repositories.

This is good and now you also know where to look for free textbooks, etc. Type one of these repository names into your search engine and start exploring.

Next I wanted to know what keywords we can use to filter the search results for each of these repositories, so I asked the machine… 

You can see from the response I got that chatGPT didn’t understand what I was asking for. All three lists were the same.

 

So I fiddled around with the way I asked for the lists and finally got something that looks about right. I had to ask for a comparison of just two repositories rather than all twenty at once.

Wow! This is just what I wanted. It looks like OER Commons and MERLOT both have 15 search parameters, they share 11 and each have 4 that they don’t share. Now maybe the machine has ‘learned’ enough to generate the lists for all 20 Repositories.

Nope, we’re not doing that. Suddenly we’re back to “commonly provided” and “parameters may vary” when what I want to know is exactly how they vary. This makes me question the responses provided about OER Commons and MERLOT. If the AI can give me accurate answers about two repositories why can’t it do 20. Isn’t the ability to do the same dull task over and over the very reason we humans want to use this technology? Here’s what happens next…

The wording on the OER Commons and MERLOT lists did not indicate these were “possible”, “typical”, or “likely”. It says these are the “unique parameters”. Is this accurate or fake information?

Hey Buddy, this is not “oversight”, this is misrepresentation. First you said, “Here’s the real stuff” when you were just blowing smoke. I won’t find out whether the information is trustworthy or not unless I already know enough to spot fake news and challenge you on it. When challenged you tell me your answer was incorrect. This disclaimer should come before the beautifully worded but untrue essay, not after. This is what make AI dangerous to the non-expert. 

When challenged, chatGPT back peddles, pretends it has human emotions, and then promises to reform its reprobate ways…

Is there any reason to believe this string of characters carries any more veracity than the ones that have come before? Who is speaking/typing/communicating here? Is there any author? Any accountability? 

 

I don’t give up easily so here’s my further challenge…

We are back to the beginning of this post. We have a public statement from Open AI:

“This response is a public statement from OpenAI, indicating a commitment to transparency and accuracy in interactions with all users. It applies to all interactions conducted by the AI model, not just those with you. Thank you for prompting this clarification, and I appreciate your understanding.”

Now it’s up to us users to hold OpenAI and all other purveyors of LLMs accountable for the statements their machines create no matter what prompts we give them.

I suspect the fine print in the user agreements we all have to commit to in advance of using chatGPT will make it impossible to take legal action against OpenAI. But we can still vote with our dollars, with our feet, and with our communications to the developers of these products. Take the time to speak out if you are as bothered as I am by the directions the AI movement is taking.  So far, AI is like a toddler running around with no judgement and a risk of stumbling into the fire. We are the adults (well, some of us anyway). LLMs as well as other AI technologies can grow into marvelous additions to the human environment.  But we’re going to have to socialize them and not permit them to embody, no, simulate the worst qualities of human beings. This little tale is just one example of how we can go wrong.

See this whole chatGPT session, here: https://chat.openai.com/share/431ce57e-9fd4-48b1-bb42-70a7c37339f2

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May 3, 2023 · 3:30 pm

Is climate change going to wipe out humanity? No!

Desolated city

Creator: gremlin Credit: Getty Images

The disastrous effects of a changing climate – famine, floods, fires and extreme heat – threaten our very existence.

https://www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report/summary.shtml

This quote, from the very first page of the United Nations Common Agenda Report Summary, is wrong. Yes, there is a very real threat – but it isn’t a threat to the “very existence” of humanity. It is highly unlikely that climate change will cause such widespread death in the human population to reduce the 7,953,952,577 or so individuals now alive down to the 500 or so that would be necessary to repopulate the Earth.

What is threatened? The way of life enjoyed by the wealthy people who live in the richest nations on the planet. Yes, the poor are likely to die first under the influence of climate degradation. The wealthy will be able to move inland, to higher ground, or further from the Equator. They will be able to buy expensive food and build fire resistant, air conditioned homes. Yes, quality of life is likely to decline even for the rich. But no, climate change is not going to wipe out the human race. A comet strike? That could do it. Huge solar flares? Possibly. Global nuclear war? We might not survive that. But climate warming due to human activity? This is a self-regulating problem.

Why is climate change self-regulating? Because, as changing climate conditions kills off our excessive population, poorest first, it will also decrease the industrial activity that causes it. Humans will lose the technical capacity to keep pumping carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Without such interference the planet will reach equilibrium again. Overall mean temperatures may be hotter than the previous they have been in more than 100,000 years but, as a species, we are likely to adapt.

 

The last time the Earth was this warm was 125,000 years ago

https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/01/18/hottest-year-on-record/96713338/

 

Modern humans have been around at least 196,000 years and maybe as much as 300,000 years.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_human). They have lived through major climate changes that they did not cause. Some of us more modern people will too.

I’m not suggesting that there is nothing to worry about. The possibility of knocking human progress back to the stone age is no laughing matter. The likelihood of a global population collapse as cultures struggle to adapt to warmer and more volatile weather is not fun to contemplate. But does exaggerating the consequences of climate change help or hinder the popular crusade to halt human impact on planet-wide weather? By suggesting that the human race will not survive we make it easier to dismiss the whole issue.

IMHO, overstating the consequences of climate change empowers climate change deniers.

Flames rise from the remains of a house that burned down in Santa Rosa. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

 

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January 13, 2023 · 7:00 pm

Internet hopes and fears in 10 years

I just filled out a survey about what I think the best and worst consequences of digital technology are going to be for humans. I’m in a sort of cynical mood but perhaps you’ll find my responses interesting. If you find the questions stimulating, do feel free to reply with some of your own answers. I love comparing points of view.

BEST AND MOST BENEFICIAL changes

* Human-centered development of digital tools and systems – safely advancing human progress in these systems
Nature’s experiments are random, not intentional or goal directed. We humans operate in a similar way, exploring what is possible and then trimming away most of the more hideous outcomes. We will continue to develop devices that do the tasks humans used to do thereby saving us both mental and physical labor. This trend will continue resulting in more leisure time available for non-survival pursuits.

* Human connections, governance and institutions – improving social and political interactions
We will continue to enjoy expanded synchronous communication that will include an increasing variety of sensory data. Whatever we can transmit in near real time we will also be able to store and retrieve to enjoy later – even after death. This could result in improved social and political interactions but not necessarily.

* Human rights – abetting good outcomes for citizens.
Increased communication will not advance human “rights” but it might make human “wrongs” more visible so that they can be diminished.

* Human knowledge – verifying, updating, safely archiving and elevating the best of it
Advances in digital storage and retrieval will let us preserve and transmit larger quantities of human knowledge. Whether what is stored is verifiable, safe, or worthy of “elevation” is an age-old question and not significantly changed by digitization.

* Human health and well-being – helping people be safer, healthier, happier
Huge advances in medicine and the ability to manipulate genetics are in store. This will be beneficial to some segments of the population. Agricultural efficiency resulting in increased plant-based food production as well as artificial, meat-like protein will provide the possibility of eliminating human starvation. This could translate into improved well-being – or not.

* Other – you are welcome to write about an area that does not fit in the categories listed above
IMHO, the most beneficial outcomes of our “store and forward” technologies are to empower individuals to access the world’s knowledge and visual demonstrations of skill directly, without requiring an educational institution to act as “middleman”. Learners will be able to hail teachers and learning resources just like they call a ride service today.

yellow robot looking to the right, standing in front of white building
MOST HARMFUL OR MENACING changes

The biggest threat to humanity posed by current digital advances is the possibility of switching from an environment of scarcity to one of abundance. Humans evolved, both physically and psychologically, as prey animals eeking out a living from an inadequate supply of resources. Those who survived were both fearful and aggressive, protecting their genetic relatives, hoarding for their families, and driving away or killing strangers and nonconformists. Although our species has come a long way toward peaceful and harmonious self-actualization,  vestiges of the old fearful behavior persist. 

Consider what motivates the continuance of copyright laws when the marginal cost of providing access to a creative work approaches zero. Should the author continue to be paid beyond the cost of producing the work?

* Human-centered development of digital tools and systems – falling short of advocates’ goals
This is a repeat of the gun violence argument. Does the problem lie with the existence of the gun or the actions of the shooter?

* Human connections, governance and institutions – endangering social and political interactions
Any major technology change endangers the social and political status quo. The question is, can humans adapt to the new actions available to them. We are seeing new opportunities to build marketplaces for the exchange of goods and services. This is creating new opportunities to scam each other in some very old (snake oil) and very new (online ransomware) ways. We don’t yet know how to govern or regulate these new abilities. In addition, although the phenomenon of confirmation bias or echo chambers is not exactly new (think “Christendom” in 15th century Europe), word travels faster and crowds are larger than they were 6 centuries ago. So is digital technology any more threatening today than guns and roads were then? Every generation believe the end is nigh and brought on by change toward “wickedness”. If change is dangerous than we are certainly in for it!

* Human rights – harming the rights of citizens
The biggest threat here is that humans will not be able to overcome their fear and permit their fellows to enjoy the benefits of abundance brought about by automation and AI.

* Human knowledge – compromising or hindering progress.
The threat lies in increasing human dependance on machines – both mechanical and digital. We are at risk of forgetting how to take care of ourselves without them. Increasing leisure and abundance might seem like “progress” but they can also lull us into believing that we don’t need to stay mentally and physically fit and agile.

* Human health and well-being – threatening individuals’ safety, health and happiness
In today’s context of increasing ability to extend healthy life, the biggest threat is human overpopulation. We don’t get too upset if thousands of lemmings jump off a cliff but a large number of human deaths is a no no, no matter how small a percentage of the total population it is. Humanity cannot continue to improve its “health and well-being” indefinitely if it remains planet bound. Our choices are to put more effort into building extraterrestrial human habitat or self-limiting our numbers. In the absences of one of these alternatives, one group of humans is going to be deciding which members of other groups live or die. This is not a likely recipe for human happiness.

* Other – you are welcome to write about an area that does not fit in the categories listed above

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December 3, 2022 · 3:27 pm

Skip that next latte and Send Fiston to College

Sometimes you meet a person destined for leadership and you want to make sure the way is open. This is especially true for refugees who are hanging on to the edges of economic cliffs. So here’s what we’re doing for Fiston. Forced to leave his village in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo as a young teen, Fiston made his way to the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in southwestern Uganda. There, he has emerged as a brilliant, articulate, active community leader – just the kind of young person we need to build a thriving 21st century. What blocks his path forward? No way to afford higher education. No jobs available without a college education. This is where you come in.

But wait a minute, let Fiston tell you himself…click

See more about Fiston and donate on his GoFund.me page

Thank you

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September 17, 2022 · 11:14 am

Indigenous Know-how as a 21st Century Skill

Today I’ve been reading about the Zizi Afrique Foundation’s Assessment of Life Skills and Values in East Africa (ALiVE). The program focuses on:
“the need for strengthening the integration and development of 21st Century skills, and commenced work around this. More than 20 Civil Society Organizations have committed to collaborate in deepening understanding of members on values and life skills, experimenting with what works in nurturing and developing values and life skills, and developing context-relevant assessments to measure progress, share learnings and inform system change across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In the first round assessments, ALiVE will focus on 4 competencies; Problem solving, Self-Awareness, Collaboration and Respect.” (Read more at https://lnkd.in/gQsYi2dN)

I’m wondering if strengthening indigenous Life Skills might contribute more to improving the immediate quality of life for extremely poor people than “21st century skills”.

Why take this approach? To benefit right away from most vocational, entrepreneurial, and digital technology-based skills, there must be a developed infrastructure that includes water, power, transportation, and telecommunications as well as an economy that offers paid employment. The lack of this infrastructure is the very definition of “underdevelopment” and improvement usually takes decades. By contrast, human beings have lived happy, healthy, often peaceful lives for millennia by passing on knowledge of how to thrive with only locally found materials and indigenous know-how.

Ancient or indigenous lifestyles and techniques are called “primitive” by people who can only see value in the new, modern, or flashy. However, indigenous techniques can be taught quickly, make use of low or no-cost resources, do not destroy the planet, and can be implemented without waiting for infrastructure development.

Don’t indigenous, low technology skills deserve to be included as “Life Skills in programs like ALiVE and the UN Sustainable Development Goal #4 on Education just as much as highly publicized “21 Century Skills”?

Find more discussion on this and other issues of alternative and expanded education at:
https://lnkd.in/g_aCAyVc

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April 23, 2022 · 8:24 pm

Musings on what education is and is not

I am beginning to participate in a future oriented group that is forming to study “education”. This, of course, raises the question “what is education” along with its companion question, “what is not education”. One person mentioned issues about appropriate curriculum for 6 to 8 year olds. Someone else focused on dissatisfaction of employers with the skills new hires had mastered at the university level. There used to be a joke about Community Colleges in the United States which offered courses in “underwater basketweaving” and other subject that were purely recreational in nature. Current news worries about growing rates of suicide and other mental health challenges now faced by high school students. These topics fall clearly  within the denotational scope of the word because they are associated with schools. Is this enough?

The following chart is my attempt to capture the scope of ‘The Education Space’ in a wider sense. The blue area is rarely excluded in discussions of education. I think the green area counts as education as well even though it may not be taught in formal educational institutions. As we humans adapt to the physical and cultural changes taking place on our planet we may need to consciously address the green spaces on the chart.

Do we want to include all learning under the umbrella of ‘education’? I think not. ‘Learning’, in its broadest interpretation, takes place continuously and often without intention on the part of the learner, of any teachers, or of the environment that may necessitate something be learned for survival. (Think of a baby learning to swallow liquid.)

Does there have to be a teacher with an intention to convey a specific skill or bit of knowledge for a process to be ‘education’? Not in my book. Much, if not most, human knowledge and skill is acquired by the learner observing another person doing something, examining or dismantling a mechanism, or exploring a natural system. There may be no intentional teaching going on. However, there is an intention or goal on the part of the learner to learn. We can include self-education and teacher-led education under the broader heading of ‘education’.

 

 

 

Is this simply an “academic” discussion? Who cares where we set the borders of education? Everybody cares. People worldwide want themselves and their children to survive and thrive. The poor (those who worry weekly about survival) are told by the rich (those who are thriving) that education is the key to get from the former state to the latter. But more and more human beings who have basic formal educations are still failing to thrive, to achieve a lifestyle they would describe as “wellbeing”. It may be that the content and processes we have bundled under the heading ‘education’ need to be enhanced if humanity is to adapt and survive in the world we will inhabit today and tomorrow.

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February 5, 2022 · 2:05 pm

Are Equity and Access Enough?

One of LO*OP Center’s volunteers sent me the following questionnaire as part of his college research on Computers and Society. The wording of the questions suggested to me that we need to get smarter about the factors that impact ‘equity’ and ‘access’ to digital technology.

The first question seemed to be designed to establish my bona fides:

What has your experience been with providing low-income communities with access to technology?

newspaper article on ComputerTown USA! from May 26, 1980

ComputerTown USA! News in  neighborhoods in 1980

My response:

Before personal computers became prevalent and smart phones were invented I was filling the trunk of my car with small computers and demonstrating their use across California.
I ran a public access computer center that provided extremely low-cost access. I participated in ComputerTown, USA!, the first project to put computers in libraries for patrons’ use. This greatly facilitated access in low income communities. I also introduced computer literacy to teachers.

My experience is that members of low-income communities are just as capable of using computers and other high-tech devices as wealthy people. Access is related to having the means to purchase hardware and software but it is much more. Effective access requires a sense of agency, a commitment to continuous learning, permission to do things differently, and the availability of long-term mentors, factors that are often lacking in low-income communities.

The questionnaire continued:

Do you feel as though people from low-income households have equal access to technology?

My response:

Of course not. Income determines access to all commodities including food, health care, digital devices and connectivity.

To me the question seems like a throwback to the early 1900s when many people believed that poverty was an inherited trait like eye color or being able to curl your tongue. It’s not the poverty that’s inherited in our DNA. The poverty is maintained through cultural practices, the learned behaviors that are passed from grandparent to parent to child. Some cultural practices allow us to survive, thrive and celebrate our unique community identities. Others sap our self confidence, tell us things like, “our people are farm hands, not land owners.” Traditional cultures often rely on what worked in the past because the environment didn’t change much from one generation to the next. Schools can counter this stay-the-same mentality. They can give children permission to go beyond their heritage, to carry forward the language, art, cuisine and styles of their ancestors while revising work habits, attitudes toward money, and rejection of new technologies.

Are people from low-income communities any more or less inclined to pursue technology related studies than those from higher income communities?

Although it isn’t politically correct to admit it, most of us “apprentice” in our own families and follow careers that are similar to our parents. Our studies are highly influenced by our career choices. If your family is economically stressed you are usually less “inclined” to take risks because you have little or

no financial cushion to absorb the blow if you fail. We (educators and technologists) are making strides toward bringing low income students into our ranks but the cultural and educational barriers remain high. It’s important that we not “blame the victim.”  Instead we need to analyze more deeply the relationship between low-income and adoption of untried technologies and the risks of pursuing them. 

What do you think our education system can do to assist in giving equal access to technology and technology related skills?

Access is just the first step in the process of creating equal representation in electronic technology ownership, use, and employment. Schools are discovering that simply giving each child a tablet computer helps but does not solve the problem. Motivation is just as important. To address motivation our educational system must improve student perception of self-efficacy and overcome cultural inhibitions that prohibit participation in new employment patterns and financial success.

There is no one “silver bullet”, no single intervention that schools can implement that will magically lead to equal access to ed tech and subsequent economic success. Even multiple changes in schooling will not be enough. We need to see schools as one in a chain of community institutions that surround and support those among us who are not thriving.

 

words related to education and development

Word Cloud from Africa Voices Dialogue Workshop on 5 Feb., 2022

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November 9, 2021 · 3:48 pm

Research Interest Histories and the Forces that Shape Them

journal reprintsMany of us who read research literature may notice that research is a very “trendy” business. For example, the areas of “personalized learning” and “individualized instruction” became very popular for about 10 years between the late 1990s and the early 2010s. Subsequently this subject has faded away and few papers address the topic. Why?

Generalizing from my personal experience, I doubt that the shift in trend results from loss of interest on the part of the researchers. If one invests 10 years of study on a topic, boredom is unlikely to cause the shift. Perhaps we should explore three other possible influences.

First to come to mind is results. Many research projects focus on very tough nuts to crack. Figuring how to provide a custom curriculum for every student at scale isn’t easy. After chipping away at such a problem for 10 years it may continue to be of interest but an investigator may be daunted by how far in the distance a solution still appears. When significant results are scarce a line of research may be difficult to continue to pursue.

A second force may be the acceleration of technical change. In a field like education, one is concerned not only with the content being taught, the tools used to deliver that content become a subject of study in their own right. As computing devices infiltrated teaching practice, I’ve seen educational researchers struggle to separate the impact of motivation to play with the machine from both learner and investigator focus on the instructional content. Instead of varying one experimental factor at a time, researchers changed the phenomenon being investigated, the experimental methods employed and the situational context from one experiment to the next. No wonder results about the impact of computing in education have been inconclusive and/or unrepeatable.

A third force is inconsistency in funding for research. Funders, like the rest of us, tend to be dazzled by the latest and greatest innovations that are grabbing the headlines. A foundation may invest millions in a line of research such as personalized learning over a period of years and then suddenly switch to a sexier topic. When I follow the individual researchers who were publishing on personalized learning ten years ago, they show up today in searches for data analytics, MOOCs, AI in education, or workforce retraining. Personalization is no longer an effective keyword. Personalization may be an underlying factor in any or all of these new titles but the connection is difficult to track.

What makes interest histories important? By failing to sustain a line of research from conception of a problem to solution, we waste huge amounts of money and slow the impact of research way down. We discourage careers and often fail to recognize brilliant, although preliminary advances. We make it harder for those with an underlying passion for the same interest to find each other and collaborate.

complex sociogramToday we have some wonderful data visualization tools to make interest histories easier to track and thereby encourage valuable collaborations. We can display mesh diagrams showing student-professor relationships as well as co-authorship of papers and patterns of citations. We can see which journals are featuring articles we need to read, what conferences we would benefit from attending and how siloed groups of practitioners can cross-fertilize each other. The migration of keywords that indicate an underlying interest can come to light. Perhaps an even more practical use of such analytical methods would be to alert us when promising research initiatives begin to starve from loss of funding. I doubt that lack of interest is a key force here. It’s time we paid attention to what is driving trends in research.

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Contemplating Future Scenarios

In the spring of 2020, shortly after it was clear that the COVID-19 pandemic was not just a passing cloud briefly darkening an otherwise sunny global landscape, I was invited to join a group of forward-looking thinkers on the Millennium Project. Over the next 9 months we produced three “stories” about what the near future might look like as the novel virus rampaged through the world’s populations. Our purpose was not to blame or take political action. Rather, we sought to help medical, social services, NGO, and government decision makers prepare for an unpredictable future. (You can see a video report on this work here.)

This last week, Knowledge Management World published a review of the Millennium Project’s report. It begins:

“The American Red Cross is no stranger to crises and disasters. When things go bad, it is often among the first organizations on the front lines lending assistance.

Yet, last year, during the height of the pandemic, Michael Kleeman of the American Red Cross kept thinking a different approach was needed. In a recent report, he is quoted as reflecting at the time, “We’re so focused on what we have to do today to respond to the COVID pandemic that we don’t have time to think twelve-to-eighteen months down the road. But someone has to.” That’s when he turned to The Millennium Project for help.

Jerome Glenn, CEO of The Millennium Project, and one of the world’s top strategists, had to step back for a moment, since the vast majority of his body of work focuses on the long term. In fact, Paul Saffo, his colleague at The Millennium Project, studies time horizons spanning tens of thousands to billions of years. Never ones to pass up an opportunity, especially given the turmoil the world was (and still is) going through, they accepted the challenge.” Click here to read the rest of the KM World article

I posted these notes in the comments section following the article:

“Nice review, thank you Art.

Several points you made are worth emphasizing. First, future scenarios are not predictions. They are intended to bracket possible outcomes so organizations can prepare for a wide spectrum of events.

Second, the “citation ring”, echo chamber, or confirmation bias effect makes ferreting out reliable data difficult for experts and even more challenging for ordinary news consumers. On one hand, receiving the same message from a variety of researchers may indicate that the community of practice has tested a concept thoroughly and reached a convergent conclusion we can rely. On the other hand, multiple secondary reports may result from many writers picking up on the same, possibly fake, extremely preliminary, or mistaken published research. It take considerable sophistication to discern the difference.

A third issue you highlighted is data that did not “distinguish between purely COVID related deaths and deaths involving comorbidities.” This is an example of the logical fallacy, “post hoc ergo propter hoc” that concludes that if B follows A then A caused B. Under the pressure of so many hospitalizations of elderly and frail people, it was impossible to take the time to sort out whether an individual patient with COVID actually died of COVID-induced respiratory failure or something else.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the Red Cross is not the only response agency that could benefit from scenario studies similar to the one we did for COVID-19. Any time there is a large-scale event that plays out over a multi-year period, agency staff tend to focus on methods drawn from their recent training and experience. And, they talk most often to their known partners and colleagues which can enhance the echo chamber effect. But whether the event is a wildfire, a war, slow but inexorable climate change, or the impact of a new, rapidly-adopted technology, the uniqueness of the event calls for more robust and innovative responses. Scenario studies can both drive innovation and confirm the effectiveness of well-known practices. The world would benefit from more Millennium Project style thinking.”

My contribution to the Millennium Projects COVID-19 report was minimal and I was honored to be able to participate. Public health is not my area of expertise although I have been active in disaster preparedness and recovery in my home county, Sonoma, California. But, by joining this working group, I learned a tremendous amount about how to conduct future studies. Learning and education are my wheelhouse and the view from here is dismal.

Over the next two years I would dearly love to stage a Millennium Project study of the future of formal, non-formal and informal education. It’s not too soon to start taking names of those of you who would be willing to participate in the Real-Time Delphi process.

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November 7, 2021 · 12:46 pm
September 5, 2021 · 12:47 pm

Unprecedented?

IN LESS THAN two centuries as a US state, California has maintained its reputation as a sunny paradise while also enduring the nation’s most erratic climate: the occasional massive winter storm roaring in from the Pacific; years-long droughts. But recent investigations into the fossil record show that these past years have been relatively stable.

(from ‘The Biblical Flood That Will Drown California’ Wired Magazine Online)

 

“unprecedented” is one of the most frequent adjectives popular media attaches to current events. To me, most uses of this term are an egregious example of fake news ranking along with white supremacy, climate change denial, and anti-vaccination propaganda.

To be ‘unprecedented’ an event must never have happened before – ever. That’s not just within your grandmother’s memory, that’s never, never on this Earth, never in the universe. To label something that you haven’t happened to hear about as ‘unprecedented’ is the height of ignorant, self-centered egotism and very dangerous.

Why is this dangerous? Because it lulls the listener into thinking the event won’t happen again and that there is no point in preparing for it. It encourages confirmation bias, the idea that what I already know about is important and that broadening my information about the world has no value to me. It promotes a sense of helplessness, the feeling that, as a human being, I am in the grip of forces I have no tools to manipulate and am facing problems no one has ever confronted or solved before.

Whether a headlined event seems positive or negative to us, let’s push back when reporters try to exaggerate our emotional response with that word, “unprecedented”.  Humanity has survived and thrived for much longer than our historical record. As the article quoted at the beginning of this blog demonstrates, “hasn’t happened in over 100 years”,  “is unknown in my country”, or “is unacceptable within my culture” doesn’t mean it has never been seen before.

The news media needs to do its homework. Unusual or unfamiliar events, both bad and good, are an opportunity to uncover historical, geological, behavioral or cultural context, to see events within the broader scope of human and planetary experience. There isn’t much new under the sun.

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