One More Religion

May 5, 2012 susirupines Uncategorized

I had a chance to give a speech during a philosophy conference on the topic ,,One More Religion. I present here some notes of the speech here. They are in Lithuanian language, but later I will translate them and make a little article from this

 

Tikrasis ateistas savo gyvenime su religija nesusiduria. Tikrasis ateistas savo žodyne neturi žodžio religija. Tikrasis ateistas nemato jokios prasmės svarstyti religinius klausimus, ir neturi tam paskato. Tikrajam ateistui religija asocijuojasi su mažiausia kibirkštėle, keista mintimi galvoje, kaip ir asocijuojasi žodis „grfdfd“. Taip galėtume trumpai apibrėžti ateistą, kuriuo aš norėčiau būti, tačiau nesu.

Tokie nėra ir keturi iš garsiausių  ateistų: Darvino raiteliai – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens(L), kurienuolat girdimi diskutuojantys apie įvairius religinius klausimus ar leidžiantys įvairias anti-religines knygas.

Akivaizdu, kad kur pažvelgiame, ten pastebime religinių simbolių ar užuominų. Galėtume pabandyti kiekvieną nuspalvinti raudonai, tačiau tada tarptautinės kosminės stoties gyventojas, pažvelgę į žemę, jos nebeatpažintų.

Kaip vaistą, juoką ar net gaidą prieš šiuos „religingumus“ aš sugalvojau „Dar vieną religiją“,  nekukliai vadinamą „Alberto religija“. Ji šiek tiek primena tikrojo ateisto sąvoką, nes realiai nieko, glaudžiai susijusio su kuo mes laikome religiją, šioje religijoje nėra.

„Alberto religija“ yra gana sudėtinga, kad ją galėtume pilnai suprasti ar užrašyti į kokią nors knygą. Esu pastebėjęs keletą jos požymių:

  • Apibrėžtumas. Jei pradedama „Alberto religija“ tikėti, kad ir ką bedarant, nebeįmanoma netikėti
  • Realaus laiko kūryba. Kiekvienas tikintis šia religija kuria naujas taisykles, normas, principus.

Pavyzdžiui, S. sugalvoja, kad kiekvienas žmogus turi šokolado. Vadinasi, kiekvienas „Alberto religijos“ pasekėjas, žinantis šią taisyklę, turi nešiotis šokolado.

  • Kibirkštėlių efektas. Neįmano įsiminti visų taisyklių.

Pavyzdžiui, vienoje iš Douglas Adams knygų teigiama, kad, jei staiga pradėsi galvoti apie dešimt skirtingų dalykų, prieš tai sugalvotas tiesiog ,“iššoks“ iš galvos. Aš pats sukūriau tiek taisyklių, kad nė 1% jų nebeatsimenu, o ir tas kurias atsimenu, nepakankamai, kad atskirčiau mėlyną spalvą nuo violetinės.

  • Nėra Dievo sąvokos. Skraidantis spageti monstras pakeičia velnio sąvoką.
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Why bomb?

April 14, 2012 susirupines Issues

It often happens that a high-budget film bombs in the box office, which means that it fails badly. There are also volcanic bombs, lumps of lava thrown out suddenly by a volcano. People sometimes go like bombs, which means that they move very fast.

There is a sadder side to bombing. A bomb (a container filled with explosive or incendiary material, designed to explode on impact or when detonated by a timing, proximity, or remote-control device) is used to attack a place or an object deliberately. Why?

  1. It is a good way of getting rid of (a place or object). Usually what remains are only bits of trouble or what used to be the trouble for the bombardier or bombardiers.
  2. It can be easily done remotely (some use suicide bombers, which is a very sad close-minded people’s ,,utilization”).
  3. One of ways of bombing – land mines, is very cheap to make and difficult to deactivate. Hence there are still over 110 million land mines around the world – ready to be stepped on.

It’s obvious that bombing can be used and is often used for honest purposes, and they should have a greatest support than any of the three previously listed reasons to ,,Why”.

  1. While mining – whether for gold, diamonds or coal – carefully planed bombing makes the digging more pleasurable experience.
  2. Collapsing old or fallen buildings. In my home city I have seen a building being slowly collapsed for well over a year. Bombing such a place would take quicker (if there are no glass windowed houses around for the re-windowing after…)
  3. Destruction of meteors that have a potential of becoming meteorites, thus creating an explosion, but not somewhere on space – on earth. This idea isn’t practiced much yet.

 

 

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Hop

April 7, 2012 susirupines Art

“There will be a relatively small crowd of 1000 observing the event, so you should not be worried too much about your performances. The event will not be filmed, so we will still have an element of surprise even if we have to make another introductory show. There will be 100 of you, so your personal looks will not matter and you can wear whatever you like as long as you wear something. There will be 100 of you, so if any one of you fails, everyone does. Timing, precision and awareness are of great importance.”

I call it “hop” while others have different names to it: “mover”, ”puzzler”, “step”, “walk”, “path” and other dreadful names. In this spectacle, we have some number of people (i.e. 100) performing. At the beginning of the act, they stand somewhat randomly distributed on squares, where squares form a grid. Then, the bell rings. Each performer makes one move, “the hop”, forward, backward, left or right. After a second, another bell. Another move. And another. And another. After the last hop, an observer can clearly see a beautiful shape: a circle, a rectangle, a cardioid or some fractal.

“We will be trying not to impress, but to remind. People forget that creativity is  one of our abilities. Chaos exists in real life and tranquility in fiction, but with creativity, we can put chaos into the form of tranquility, and tranquility into chaos’. However, you will not have to use creativity yourselves just yet, because your moves are already created. We will give each of you a list, which you’ll have to memorize. Follow it, and the wonderful shapes and forms will be visible to the crowd. If you miss a single step, you’re guaranteed to not only alter the shape, but hop onto another performer, thus creating a falling domino effect.”

These days live performances are not seen very often. It’s enough to put the right algorithms into the computer, and a graph, a video or even a masterpiece will be the result. However, remove the computer, and it’s all gone. It is my goal to show people that there are many things that re not yet part of us. We are not born with a computer chip implanted.

However, we are raised as if there’s nothing left to chance. The games we play come out of the books, the foods we eat out of recipes, the tools we use out of department stores. Even the things we say are very often deterministic these days….

“I suggest we move to the next step, now that we have covered the reasons, cautions and objectives section. Practice”

 

Practice

 “Left. Forward. Forward. Forward. Right. Forward. Forward. Right. Right. Right. Forward. “ It’s a bit funny to have these names for moves, since it would be easier if I could turn and then go forward, backward, turn left, or right. But no, now I have to look at the crowd all the time, only that there’s no one but Stevens in the crowd. Elijah had already mastered his steps. It was easy, never having to go backwards – only three possibilities, even if he forgot a move, the odds would be barely against him to guess right. Anyway, being a master at “Simon” game, he had to hear his sequence only one.

“Let us begin!” – Elijah snorted. My legs are tiring from standing and my stomach is emptying.

“Not everyone is a genius as presumably you are, Elijah”- answered Stevens, the trainer, the observer, the creator, and the master of it all. “Left. Forward. Forward. Forward. Right. Forward. Forward. Right. Right. Right. Forward.“ – should I repeat again?

“Oh, but they should be little geniuses with these ONLY 11 steps, and you have to repeat thrice! Go on, entertain me! – answered Elijah. If he doesn’t take a hint, it will take a while this practice.

“Moving on. Gregory! Left. Forward. Forward. Forward. Right. Forward. Forward. Right. Right. Right. Forward. You don’t need repeating?”. “No, Sir, I was just as good at “Simon” as Elijah was!” – Gregory answered.

I wonder if it would be cooler to have a competition in “Simon” rather than this farce. He calls it the “hop”. I call it “give me my time back!”. Who forced me into signing the contract? Gregory… Your friend can be your worst enemy, too.

The practice goes on. After half an hour or so, everyone is somewhat familiar with their moves. Elijah is a patient man, only it does not show from his ranting, as he really enjoys complaining. Very much.

“Let’s start already!” – Elijah suggests. And they do.

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Where Does a City Guide Go?

January 2, 2012 susirupines Culture

I clearly remember the first time I got lost while following a city guide. It happened in the heart of Barcelona. Yet it was one of the best places to get lost in, with crowds of helpless people (as they were all foreigners and therefore had not a clue where the next sight we had to go to was even though we had a map!), hundreds of pigeons in the streets and sweets to buy in little shops!

Soon (after more than a year) I became a city guide myself, in quite interesting conditions. I traveled to a city I hadn’t been to for some 8 years. I spent three days there, before having to guide a group of 16 people around the city for 5 days! Since then, I have come back to my home city and here I am quite often organizing little city tours for my foreign friends. I would like to explain a little about my ways of being a city guide, what special ideas I bring and places I go to.

There are quite a few interesting sights to see in my city – including the castle, half-a-dozen of churches, a cozy old-town and a pedestrian street which lasts for 1621 meters. Obviously, I always try to include these into the tour.

However, one of my goals is always to find something more interesting to see in Kaunas, often places new even to me. Because of this reason I quite often go for a stroll in a city – on my own – to find some cool sights or interesting buildings. I did it even before my first “city guide” experience, because then everything in the city was new to me, and I had to find some backbone, a starting point.

Furthermore, I am not always completely truthful. Quite often it happens that we pass through the fire-station not so far from the main streets. I tell my guests that it is a most photographed sight by my guests. If I said it next time I pass by the fire station, I wouldn’t be lying. However, usually I don’t say anything about other places that I know nothing apart from saying that I know nothing about those places.

I ask my guests to do a bit of exercise, sometimes. In Kaunas, there are over 150 different series of steps, and it so happens that we pass through some of them. There are also two cable-cars, but so happens that they almost never work when I pass by (I have used a cable-car with a traveler only once to date).

Since my tours lasts for a few hours, I quite often go to some place to eat with my guests, too. There are many choices for it, and I let my guests decide – whether they want Lithuanian food, pizzas, sushi or a picnic.

I enjoy discussing various themes and topics with my companions. I believe that a city guide not only goes somewhere (around the city), but he also is someone (a citizen), and it might be just as interesting to see the sites as to get to know the locals.

Furthermore, I introduce some things from my education (mathematics) to a discussion. The length of the pedestrian street is one of them, then there are mathematical jokes, interesting and popular mathematical problems and also even famous mathematicians from the countries of my guests.

Finally, I understand that I still have a lot to learn to know what is the best place to go and most virtuous topics to discuss. I still learn from participating in city tours of others. Once, I even joined such a tour in my city, and got to know quite a few interesting things!

During my travels (in Slovenia), I even met a city guide who was hiding from sunlight with a help of umbrella. Moreover, I think that during that tour half of our group got lost in the beauties of Ljubljana and it’s dragon bridges, just like I did during my first touristic experience. I wonder whether they thought about where did the city guide go, or maybe they just went to buy some ice-cream for themselves…

susirupines, 2012/01/02

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How Not to Be A Spy

January 2, 2012 susirupines Issues

I believe that by watching films it is rather easy to associate oneself with one of the characters. You spend around an hour and a half exploring the life of some character or characters (usually there is one main character), observe his/her day life, follow his work experience. And this character rarely, if ever, acknowledges the fact that he/she is watched. There are rare cases like The Truman Show , but I think such film just proves the point. Even though characters are fictional, whoever observes the film, could be called a spy.

A spy can be defined as a person who keeps watch on others secretly. That is what everyone is doing while watching films, browsing random people social network profiles and in a way even while reading books. I think that a spy can not be relied on as honest or truthful (because he does things in secret and he may or may not say anything about them), therefore it should not be in one’s agenda to be a spy. If it is possible. Then, how not to be a spy? I think that one can not not be a spy, and it would be more beneficial to try separating spies into different categories or types.

Film observers, social network analyzers, book readers – these are the spy kids, because what they are spying upon probably want’s to be spied upon.

Discussing the example of watching films, one can watch a film in a cinema theater, with 10 or 20 other cinema-lovers. However, I would label this as group-spying, as those spied upon (even though fictional) know little about it. Hence, such a cinema lover could be a group spy (also a spy kid).

Someone who is live streaming all his/her activities over the internet. I would label such a person an honest spy. The stream would be available, but there’s no guarantee that the person spied upon will be watching the stream. If he was, it would be what we nowadays call a simple “video chat”.

Someone who is following another person in the street. A stalker.

What other types of spies there are? What kind of spy are you most?

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Believe in The Book

January 1, 2012 susirupines Issues, Science

A reader who is skimming this article with a slight interest might be interested in what is “The Book” I want him/her to believe in. I do not advice using Google the great or Yahoo the forgotten for this.

Trust me, I did this and found the most popular link to be about playing the percentages in baseball. I assure you, I know nothing about baseball apart from the newest Pitt film “Moneyball”, which I found quite interesting.

You can believe in any book you like. The bible, the menu, or some fancy bestseller. Yet there is one book in particular which I want to spread awareness about. It is “Proofs from THE BOOK“, a book by Martin Aigner and Günter M. Ziegler.

Back in 1985, a great Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős said during one if his lectures: “You don’t have to believe in God, but you should believe in The Book.” He referred to “The Book” in which God keeps the most elegant proof of each mathematical theorem.

I am a mathematician and therefore this book has a particular interest for me. However, it discusses some very elegant mathematical and even real world problems, and all these problems have proofs, possibly the best (but probably not, because they were collected by no god, but Aigner and Ziegler). Therefore, quite a few of them are understandable to the general public, and wish the general public was interested to read them.

I myself have already talked about some of the proofs in the book to a wider public than me, myself and I, and it seemed interested. My hope is so that general public would understand the meaning of mathematics in our lives. Reading books that are trying to popularize mathematics, of “Popular Science” type are one way to reach this goal. But I feel that many of those (at least by their titles) are meant for a teenager reader, who have not learned about the subject enough yet to be motivated. This I deduce from the titles like “Dude, Can You Count”, “Letters to a Young Mathematician”, “The Music Of Primes”… “Proofs from the Book”, however, dives into pure mathematics straight, by introducing six proofs of the infinity of primes in the first chapter. In contrast “Dude, Can You Count” starts with an alien coming to earth. I admit, I find “Dude, Can You Count” a great read too, but my support goes for Paul Erdős and the elegance of mathematics.

So far, I have covered my motivation of reading The Book. What about believing?

According to Oxford Dictionary, to believe – accept that something is true, especially without proof. However, if you believed that the proofs in the book are correct, there would be no reason to read it. I think it is important to believe not in the correctness of proofs, but in the existence of such a book in general. Paul Erdős book. An example of such a book is “Proofs from THE BOOK“.

As I briefly mentioned, it is not really that book. But so are “not really” many concepts in mathematics. Finding the best proof for any theorem might be like finding a limit to some mathematical function, as 1/n as n goes to zero. It doesn’t make sense if you just put in zero, like it doesn’t make sense that some imaginary somehow manages to keep such a book for him/her/itself.

Therefore, it should make sense to believe in this book or it’s approximation as you can not really find it in real life, as any Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Pagan believes in some unprovable higher-mind and power beings.

susirupines, 2012/01/01

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Eagle

December 27, 2011 susirupines Art

A little poem about our relationship with eagles. Close your eyes and imagine looking at the world through the eyes of an eagle.

 

I was sitting on a bench.
He was flying without sense.
I was stalking a nice girl.
He was aiming for a kill.

But the girl-she ran away,
And the kill-it met it’s prey.
I declared to be insane.
He just lept into the air.

I declared to be an eagle.
I was snapped by an eagle!
I declared to be a chick,
I was dropped into an eyrie!

But there was another chick,
He just bit my lip,
And the eagle took no notice,
He just bit my other lip.

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A little bit of civil disobedience

October 24, 2011 susirupines Art

The dam
Never give up. For even rivers someday wash dams away. – Arthur Golden

Oslo, the capital of Norway, was waking up after it’s National Day (syttende mai) the day before. You could see the first rays of sunrise. The blinds were partly open. A little room in the attic of an apartment building was depressingly quiet. There were three beds in the room. Two of them were unmade, presumably from a night before. You could see only a few more items in a room: some posters, a table, a television, three chairs, a little closet and an aquarium. There was nothing on the table. Television was laying on the floor. Three chairs were folded into one in the corner. There were no fish in the aquarium. Emil seemed to be the only living thing in the room. He was a 24 years old postgraduate student of Environmental Geology in the University of Oslo.

Emil turned in his bed uneasily, having woken up a few hours earlier than he would have wanted. He noticed the TV, which was still running. Being too tired to think about the schedule of  the upcoming day or even the question what to have for breakfast, Emil just kept on gazing aimlessly at the TV. After some time (and possibly a few short naps) he suddenly started to observe what  was being showed on the screen. It was the “Very Early Morning Norway News” report. Among the issues of a few frozen horses during the night, amount of burglaries around the country and weather forecast (to name a few) Emil also spotted a short clip about the construction of a dam on the river Glomma. Swiftly, he got up, turned the alarm clock off (it was already 6:29 while the alarm was set for 6:30) and went past the empty aquarium out of the room to the bathroom so that he could start preparing for the upcoming day.

It was the day when the construction on the river should have officially begun. The plans were already in place, the permits granted and the machinery was coming. Emil and two hundred of like-minded environmentalists had decided to obstruct the construction by traveling to the site and making a protest there. The construction was supposed to start at 10 in the morning and it was a two hours drive to there. Emil had to be very quick. It was not because he was lazy that he had only a few hours left. It was more the fault of the government, because it announced the construction only on it’s national day. Therefore, Emil, his two roommates and many others had to work late into the night so that something could be done. To plan. To invite more activists. To organize  the transportation. His roommates were still in the computer room. They worked all night.

In the car there five people – Emil, his two roommates and two more girls. They also had with them a map with the exact location where they were going, the flag of Norway and some food. Emma, one of the girls, was trying to understand how legal their plan was.

“It seems to me that in the end, we will all end up in jail, as our act could be called civil disobedience!” – she argued.
“You are right. It will be an act of civil disobedience, but what else could we do, if the government didn’t leave us any time to react as citizens? We didn’t even have time ourselves to discuss the damage of this construction fully!” – answered Mathias, one of the boys, who was so passionate about their activities that he didn’t feel the sleepless night at all.

They were lucky to reach Glomma sooner than the “Opening Delegation” (people who wanted to announce the beginning of the project officially by signing the last required document). Other activists were arriving in numbers (even larger than expected), too. The plan was for everyone to stand in a row. To hold hands and protect the river side which was approachable by vehicles (on the other side there was a very thick forest). The environmentalists knew that they couldn’t stand up against the whole government just by holding hands, but they knew that the result would be much greater than a few  sentences in the “Very Late Evening Norway News” and a short clip in the “Very Early Morning Norway News”, which almost no one watches anyway. It could be at least a few hours or a few weeks of delays – just enough for the environmentalists to have their say through the “Official Channels”.

While trying to organize people to stand in a few rows (there were too many for one row) Emil accidentally bumped into one of the construction workers.

“I don’t think the little war that you are creating will do anything. We were already working here for a few weeks, cutting down trees here and no one complained so far. We have something to occupy ourselves with and the country will have a little more electricity in the future. Seems right to me.” – lumberjack expressed his opinion.

“Sorry, I don’t have time to discuss this, but: a) we didn’t know about this before; b) the dams destroy the landscape; c) they hit the population of fish terribly. I hope you think about these points before you cut down another tree”. – responded Emil.

Finally, the “Opening Delegation” was there. Two cars came, eight people in total. They brought with them a few small tables and some chairs for the signing of the document. The lumberjack and some other workers helped the newly arrivals to unpack. These people walked around a bit. However, there was not a lot of space to walk in. One person from the delegation came to the protesters, wondering, what they were doing there. After that, he made a few calls. A few more minutes passed. The lumberjack was asked to help again. The “Opening Delegation” packed up and left.

It was over. No one else came that day. No one else came the day after, either. In the afternoon of the second day the protesters, surprised by the events (and secretly happy for not being imprisoned) left, car by car. Emil also decided to gather his group, go home and figure out what happened and why did they succeed (no one had internet there, there were no messengers on a horse and flying pigeons were seen nowhere..).

They were just in time for the “Very Late Evening Norway News”:

“Yesterday, a massive fraud was uncovered. On the National Day we became aware of a dam project on a river Glomma. The project was supposed to begin yesterday. For some reason (at this moment we don’t know why), the last official document was not signed yesterday. Now, it is no longer important to know why. Our sources in the government say that it will not be signed at all. It seems that some of the documents were forged. In particular, there were some inaccuracies in report on the effects to the environment and also the funding. Those responsible are known to the officials and will be revealed to the public as soon as possible.”

In the end, did Emil’s and other environmentalists’ act matter at all? He did not know himself. It seemed that he was right to question the construction. Was he and his friends right to question the government? What would have happened if the fraud was not uncovered? (Jail, as Emma predicted?) He knew what happened in most cases in other countries – the dam was constructed. Emil felt that in those cases the rivers themselves could wash away the dams. However, it takes many, many years. He also thought about the brief encounter with the lumberjack – he and many other people are in need of work, and they could be hired to demolish the dams that harm the nature most. Or, Emil could have done a little act himself by saving one of the fish in the river for his aquarium.

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How to Attract aTtention?

August 18, 2011 susirupines Questions

I admit that recently I have been quite an unsuccessful hat wearer. I have lost, left somewhere or got stolen from me three hats in a period of just over one year. It might not be a big issue since over the same period of time I received three hats as presents and also bought another one myself. However, I want to speak about hats nevertheless, because it was during this time that I realized how hats can be used as an attention grabber.

Me with hats. The last one was just borrowed

It was spring of last year. The sky was cloudless, and I was getting used to wearing my cap-hat as a protection from the sun. The mania of giving out some kind of supermarket “stickers” started around that time, too. When someone bought food or other goods from a shop or a kiosk for a certain amount of money, a little sticker was given. Of course, most of my university friends didn’t need those stickers for anything but giving them away to their university friends, so, being an university friend, one day I found myself having a few of them. The number of stickers started growing. I didn’t know what to do with them, but I didn’t join the list of “friends of university friends”.

the stickers

One day (it was still spring last year) I happened to think of an idea – put some of those stickers on my cap-hat, which before had only a number written on it. I started making the hat more colorful by adding the stickers! After some time, there were more than 10 stickers on my colorful hat and my friends were smiling when they saw me with the hat. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the “attention grabbing” hat to show now. However, it seems to me that my idea was creative and would have received high marks from designers, had any of them seen it!!

The hat before addition of stickers

The time passed, and the spring ended, the summer started and the middle of July came, when I had planned my journey to Romania and Turkey. Knowing that most of the people I was going to meet there would be unknown to me and the cultures unseen to me, I decided to remove the stickers from my cap-hat. Now I think that I shouldn’t have done that since I managed to loose it while sitting in one of the parks in Bucharest, Romania! The hat didn’t even attract my attention anymore!

Something similar happened to my other two missing hats – one of them I lost in a park in Istanbul, the other I lost this year, somewhere in the student’s house of mountainous village of Slovenia. Both hats were attention grabberless.

Having told my story of hat, I am still wondering what are other ways to attract attention to yourself by using your hat. Or, how to make a hat important enough so that you wouldn’t dare to loose it.

susirupines, 2011/08/18

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New job proposal

August 17, 2011 susirupines Issues, Questions

You are without a job, but feeling like you can do some great things. The world is in so called job-crisis (darbakrizė) and the only open position is janitors’. Everyone who has a job is sticking to it until death, but death is only a short stop in their ever-lasting careers. You desperately need money, but don’t want to ask your mates for help.

I highly doubt that you will find yourself in exactly this situation, even though it’s highly likely that many people find themselves in such situations (apart from the ever-lasting stuff, it’s real only in such article introductions as this). Because of this it seems to me important to discuss a new job proposal in such situation (and inflate your imagination). For others (again, hopefully not you) it might actually be a good job to have. Of course, it’s a job that I thought of myself, which might be interesting by itself to the third part of the readers (aliens, invisible friends, flying spaghetti monster..)!

It’s a job that I thought of myself, which means that it has nice purposes, very short working hours and is creative. I call this position “Questioner”.

Questioner

Places where you would work:

University (lectures), conferences (lectures), websites (faq), information centers (however, this position would more appropriately be called “traveler”), magazines (reader’s questions column), etc.

What would your work look like:

  • If it was a lecture, you would be the one asking the speaker to clarify any points if they were not said during the lecture. You would be also asking questions after the lecture so that the lecturer does not feel uncomfortable, the organizers (the dean in university) does not have to worry about asking themselves), and all the time assigned for the lecture is used up.
  • Be it a creation of a website, as a Questioner you would have to think of questions that users could ask. Hence the creators could have “frequently asked questions” before opening the website
  • In information centers, you would have to ask questions of a person working there in order for him not to waste the time counting birds or other similar useless activity
  • Magazines – to write questions instead of readers

What personal skills would you need:

Intelligence, politeness will be measured, but being able to ask creative questions is the most important one. Also, if you are a journalist or study journalism, you will not become a Questioner.

The reason why can’t a journalist become a Questioner:

In short, journalist is an “Answers gatherer”. The ultimate goal of a journalist is to use the information that is gathered from asking the questions. The Questioner, on the other hand, is not required to publish articles or stories. Therefore, his range of questions is not that limited. As a questioner you would have time to prepare for asking as a specialist.

I probably had an idea of Questioner because I generally enjoy asking questions myself, and I would like this “skill” to be acknowledged better. Questioning is something that everyone can do. Yet proper question asking (which could kick off into an interesting discussion) needs thinking. One would need to teach to think in order to ask questions. Looking from the other perspective, by trying to ask questions, a person would also improve his thinking. I suggest you to do this: be a volunteer Questioner (it can and probably most often already is a non-paid job:)) and learn how to think and solve crosswords better.

 

susirupines, 2011/08/17

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