Glen Dawson (1912–2016)

Curious book. I received a review copy of this from the publisher through LibraryThing. Presented in 50 short, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious couched in satire, Socratic dialogues… well, there are also trialogues, a quadratic conversation with an interjection of plus one (and a cast of twelve plus a chorus in the final entry) … that hit on politics, environment, economics, wayward science/technology, psychology/human behavior, AI, simulations/modeling, even a touch on religions, Mr. Dawson offers imagined outside perspectives - not all aliens… sometimes dogs, yes, dogs, tropey humans, or abstract entities such as science vs philosophy- of different pervasive human problems, fallacious thinking, social situations/issues.

Parts of the problems with out-of-the-box thinking are realizing there is a box to begin with, and then once you are outside… there is always another box. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know they are in a box. Parochial thinking, superior thinking, adherence to ancient superstitions authorizing dominion over everything, not-my-problem thinking, leave it for the next generation thinking… all are boxes. Mr Dawson knocks at the silliness and seriousness of such thinking.

Overall, I did like this and thought had more than a little value. The end exchange, however… I had a small flashback to when I finished Sagan’s Contact what? 35+ years ago? (a little “wow” to myself, has it been that long?) … I remembered being annoyed at his ending. I was a little annoyed at the end of this, particularly the final words of one of the players, Death (no spoiling). I have the benefit of those 35+ years broadening my experiences, my exposure to the world, my exposure to alternate (“alien”?) thinking. My resolve on a few points is strengthened by the consistent lack of evidence for unnatural (not “super”natural) beliefs. I long long ago discarded humans-as-end-state-of-evolution thinking and have no problems believing there are more probable than not multitudes of intelligences “out there”, just not that any of them have visited us. But I’m not a fan of pitched woo.

So while we can think outside the box - must think outside the box - with respect to solving the problems we face, and that we’ve caused here, there is always a box and for the foreseeable future, that box is this planet. There might be another planet to ruin in this small system around a medium star in a medium galaxy of a very large universe. But that is our box for now.

There aren’t solutions so much as prompting to look at things differently. And that is a good start.

A few highlights:

“Male Alien: “These humans think that we’re so fascinated with them. Why do they believe that?”
Female Alien: ‘Star Trek.’”
Nice. This reminds me of a couple of things. In the 1985 film “Ladyhawke”, there is an exchange between Rutger Hauer (Etienne) and Matthew Broderick (Phillipe):
Etienne: [sighs] I have waited almost two years for a sign from God So when I heard the morning bells of Aquila, I knew the moment of my destiny had come. You will be my guiding angel.
Phillipe: Me?
Etienne: [nods]
Phillipe: Sir. The truth is, I talk to God all the time. And no offense, but He never mentioned you.
And then there is the graphic of the Android User saying to the iPhone User: I feel bad for you, with the iPhone User responsing: I don’t think about you at all.
Must be aware that just because you are thinking someones are thinking about you, they probably aren’t.

[on real economists, and others] “Female: “So, what happens if things fall apart, and people figure out that you guys really don’t know what you’re doing?”
Male: “Oh, that’s easy. We blame something else. There’s always some convenient excuse. War, disease, natural disaster. And if we run out of excuses, we can always blame speculators.”
Female: “Hey, aren’t they those evil people who secretly pull the strings to manipulate the markets for their own selfish gain?”
Male: “Well, no. Those people are called politicians.”

[a disturbing observation] “Religion: “Don’t wait too long, or the horrors that I’ve described may be upon you sooner than you think. I will be here, as always. After all, you did leave the door open. And that’s a good thing, because it’s your only hope. If you close the door to me, then all hope is gone for you, and for all of humanity.”
Thor help us if religion is our only hope.

[more economics] “Big Dog: “Pure science precisely describes the way the world works. Economics practitioners describe the way they think the world should work, as opposed to describing how it really works.”

[on pretention] “Male Alien: “We must strive to keep things obvious.”
Female Alien: “Duh. No kidding. We are dealing with humans, remember? What did you think we were going to do? Teach them how to derive 10th dimensional hyperproofs?”
Male: “That’s not what I mean. We must stick to topics that are obvious to them. Nothing too subtle.”
Female: “That won’t work. If you don’t make it clever and subtle, they won’t listen. Humans won’t take you seriously if you tell them obvious things that they already know. Their intellectuals in particular will only entertain a detailed, analytically deep approach that’s not accessible to the masses. Preferably using arcane language and abstruse mathematics. That is what makes them intellectuals, after all.”
Ah, the old post modern intellectual obfuscation trick! That’s the second time this month I’ve fallen for it! (Apologies to Maxwell Smart…)
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