{Translator’s Note}: The origins of the ROI tribe are not completely determined but the “story” or “myth” or “history” that I prefer is the premise used in this story. Their language is precise in some ways, but deeply embedded at the syntactic and semantic levels were very rigid framings about many things in life. In some areas that we would consider important, they had scarcely any vocabulary at all! For example, they seemed to view love as something of a disaster rather than as something wonderful. Often it was described as a kind of disease! This is a “disease” that allows us to survive as a species! But for them, things that proved less rigid and less predictable and less quantifiable seem to have been quite confusing and uncomfortable. Difficulties abounded in my attempts to portray what was actually happening until the Narrator told me that it was fine; he would fix it later because he had an omniscient view. 

What follows served as both a creation myth and a daily devotional prayer among the ROI.  

“Long ago, there were many tribes. But our tribe, the ROI, proved best of all. This is what we know: 

“Each tribe had developed a different way of looking at life. Some argued that this was a natural consequence of having spent a long time in a different environment. But we know the truth; we chose our way because it is the best way. It is the way of putting numbers to everything and making very strict rules. 

“Other tribes had different ideas so we devised a contest to see which tribe was correct. We would see who could propel their bodies fastest from the north edge of the common plain of Many Herds to the south end of the plain. All the tribes would go and prepare in whatever way they felt best and we would reconvene in one year to see who would win. 

“Needless to say, all the other tribes interpreted our words to mean that we would have individuals from each tribe race for the prize — a fine parcel of land that stretched to the banks of the Stream of Many Trout. The various tribes went off and had various ways of choosing their fastest runners and having them train and train. Of course, we already had a superior solution: horses. After many years we discovered how to capture horses and then train them with the use of whips. 

“When the day of the Great Contest came, the rest of the tribes were quite shocked to see someone astride a horse. Some seemed to think the horse would kill the human-astride or that the human-astride might break the back of the horse and kill it. Some felt it highly unlikely that the human-astride or rider would stay astride.  {Translator’s Note: Analyses reveal that there was a shortening of the name as “riding” became more widespread.} Naturally, when the race was run, the ROI won! And, also naturally, the other tribes objected. But these objections eventually became mere glowing coals. 

“Most tribes wanted to know how to capture and train horses. Naturally, we declined to show them! And, that wanting to have as their own that which was rightfully ours is why their complaints rekindled the fires of war. And, so the tribes worked together to drive us from our rightful home and we became wanderers. And so, we have been seeking another land. We will make this happen and destroy whoever now claims such a land.”  

---

 

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Beginning of the Myths of the Veritas

Beginning of Book 2 of the Legends of the Veritas

Index to Pattern Language for Cooperation & Teamwork

Essays on “Family Matters”

Though the Veritas were at high feast and had no known enemies, they reacted with amazing speed and fluid preparedness. They radiated out to previously staked out positions across the stream, opposite the direction of the arrows. Shadow Walker and Fleet of Foot ran with Many Paths. Once under cover, they turned back to assess the situation. 

Many Paths tracked the flaming arrows still streaming into the Center Place. Her thoughts raced. Who was this enemy that attacked without warning? What had happened to the Veritas guards? Which pre-planned counter-attack should be mounted? Many Paths felt a hand upon her shoulder. It was Fleet of Foot. He pointed to a small herd of horses speeding up the hill on the other side. But…Many Paths stared. These horses had people astride them! For a moment it seemed impossible. Yet, here it was, clearly visible for a moment before the horses and their companions disappeared into the forest. The arrows stopped flying. People and horses running as one? It was all happening too fast for her to decide what to do. She glanced at Fleet of Foot and spoke in a low voice. “A double flanking counter-attack?” 

Fleet of Foot nodded and barked a few short “commands” which were not words but the whistles of birds. The Veritas now streamed out from cover with weapons drawn and bows drawn, ready to overwhelm their enemy. Yet, no such enemy appeared. Those Veritas with the youngest and keenest ears could hear the distant muffled hoofbeats of horses in the wooded hills but no target could be discerned. The arrows were burning out and had not caused any serious or widespread damage. 

Many Paths quickly convened a war council. Shadow Walker quickly volunteered to lead a tracking party into the woods to determine the origin of this unseen enemy. Fleet of Foot and several other braves agreed to join including their visitors from the Nomads of the South. Many Paths knew that Tu-Swift would also volunteer but she judged that he was not quite ready for such a dangerous adventure. The arguments were forming on her lips but no such request came. She moved on to other matters at hand. 

She turned to Eagle Eyes. “I have trained wolves and you have trained hawks and eagles. Have you imagined to train horses as well?” 

“No, I mean, they are so large and fast and strong. How could one convince such an animal to serve a human? Yet, so too the eagle could easily fly away yet chooses to stay and befriend me. So, perhaps it is possible. I could try. I would have to think on that. It would take time. It takes time. It is all happening too quickly.” 

Many Paths nodded. “Indeed, it all happened too swiftly for me to….” Many Paths broke off her speech and scanned the larger crowd of Veritas who were repairing the feast, putting out small fires, and fetching weapons and provisions for the tracking party. She swallowed hard as panic began to dry her mouth so badly she found it hard to speak loudly. 

“Tu-Swift! TU-SWIFT!! Where is Tu-Swift?” Her council looked about them. Shadow Walker leapt on top of a small log pile and yelled, “Has anyone seen Tu-Swift?” The people paused in their tasks, looking about them. They muttered questions at each other and shook their heads. No-one had seen Tu-Swift since the feast had been interrupted. 

Many Paths breathed deeply to calm herself. The Veritas were looking to her and she needed to keep a cool head. She looked to She-Who-Saves-Many-Lives and their eyes locked. The old shaman shook her head imperceptibly. Many Paths understood her meaning — that Many Paths was now the leader and it was up to her to decide what to do. Many Paths nodded back. Again panic almost overtook her as she imagined Tu-Swift injured or dead. Into her mind, unbidden, the image of the death of her parents came to mind. She pushed all this aside and strode over to the table where she had last seen Tu-Swift, dreading to find his lifeless body under the table. 

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“I can’t see! I can’t see!” 

Mentally, Tu-Swift screamed, but he was, in fact, unable to manage more than a muffled grumble. He felt the cloth, tight across his mouth and the dark cloth around his head. He could not imagine what was happening. He felt his body bouncing up and down. Perhaps he had fallen into the rapids, he thought, and the rocks and frothing water tossed his body about like a fluttering leaf. But he didn’t feel wet. Fighting to stay coherent, he tried to organize his thoughts. Inventory. Inventory. An image of Many Paths playing a game with him flashed into his mind. She had explained that, even in confusion, one could use various tricks to stay calm. One was to take inventory. What did he know and what did he sense? 

He began at the top. The back of his head pained him. He could hear. He could see as well, though not well. The world continued to bounce but it was cloth tight around his head that made it difficult to see. He heard pounding all around him. He smelled pine and dirt and horses. His wrists hurt and so did his ankles. He tried to move them but found them tightly bound. The pounding sound, he recognized. And people were talking, but not in the tongue of the Veritas. He tried to recall the snippets of other languages he had heard. This speech didn’t sound like Cupiditas, or the speech of the Southern Nomads nor yet of the Fierce Fighters of the North. 

What did he remember? There had been a race. He had raced Many Paths to the Center Place where they were about to have a feast. Had he won the race? He couldn’t recall. Wait! He had turned and run straight into a sapling. It must have knocked him out. No, that wasn’t a hard enough blow. The sapling had sprung him backwards. It had mainly hit his chest, not the back of his head which now throbbed with every bounce. Had he fallen backwards and hit his head? Maybe, but how would that make him tied up? And bouncing? Inventory. Inventory. Tu-Swift tried to sort it out, but nothing made sense and he drifted out of consciousness again. 

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Many-Paths thought she had been fearing the worst: to see the lifeless body of her brother. But when she saw instead, the obvious signs that he had been dragged away, she found that, this was even worse than the worst. If her brother had died, of course, that was cause for grief. But no-one is brought back from the dead. Her journey would be a trail of tears, but it was a single path. Her only strategic choice for the tribe would be whether or not to pursue revenge for her own private motive. It would be easy, she knew, to slide from one issue to the other. She might hate the people who killed her brother and want them all dead, even though this might (or might not) be disastrous for the tribe. They didn’t really know enough about this enemy right now to decide the best course of action. But she could argue and support those who argued that this enemy was dangerous and deadly; that they needed to be weeded out now or they could keep striking like this over and over. There was certainly that possibility. But Many Paths knew that misleading the tribe in even the smallest degree would be the worst possible thing that a leader could do. She would be able, she knew, to fight and win the battle of that temptation. 

But now, Many Paths was faced with a far more painful path, and a far less certain one. What to do? What was best for Tu-Swift? What was best for everyone? Should they invade, negotiate, run. Determining the best course of action for her own selfish motives would be difficult and complex. Determining the best course of action for her tribe would also be difficult and complex. Trying to disentangle the two so that she could do what was best for the tribe would be more difficult still. She never once doubted whether this was the proper course of action, but she did doubt her ability to do all that. Perhaps she should relinquish leadership to another. She at least knew that she needed the counsel of She Who Saves Many Lives. 

——————————————————————-

Many Paths turned to walk to to the cabin of She Who Saves Many Lives and there she was and she spoke immediately, “You will do the right thing, Many Paths. You will do the right thing. Listen to the heart of your heart and you will know. It is okay to share everything with others to get their input, of course. I know you to be a listener. Go and lead our people. Go.”

“What kind of a people would tear a child from their family?” Many Paths asked.

“Indeed,” said She Who Saves Many Lives, “that is the central question. What kind of a people would tear a child away from their family? And, what will we do about it? No, Go and lead the people.”

—————————————————————-

Author Page on Amazon.

The Beginning of the Myths of the Veritas. 

Essays on Greed.

A Pattern Language for Collaboration. 

Our Choices Impact Evolution.

Three Part Series on the Pros and Cons of AI. 

Articles on the Uses of Stories and Storytelling. 

Myths of the Veritas: Book II

{Translator’s Note} In what follows, I was able to make use of a new class of self-correcting statistical algorithms that allows for a more detailed depiction of the spoken and drum languages of the Veritas. This work has been aided immeasurably by archaeometrical modeling and, in particular, the Schliemann-Baudhayana equations. Needless to say, these advances notwithstanding, narrative reconstruction is still fraught with numerous perils and is still as much an art as a science — a distinction lacking, so far as we can tell, in the thinking of the Veritas themselves who conceived of truth and beauty as tree and fruit.

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Feast and Fire

“Well, why wouldn’t we? It is faster, right?” Tu-Swift grew impatient with his older sister. 

Many-Paths however, simply smiled as she answered. It was a genuine smile too, not the patronizing smile of an older, wiser sister; nor the forced smile used today as a means of manipulation; rather, her smile was nothing other than a genuine expression of her heart. 

Many-Paths could don an expression and feign a tone of voice as well as anyone. She, like most of the Veritas, simply chose not to feign feelings with other members of their own tribe, or indeed, with any other tribe excepting only in the case of true enemies like the Cupiditas had been. 

The reason that Many-Paths smiled was this: she appreciated the passion of her younger brother and his single-mindedly determination to prove his point even if it meant overlooking things that he himself knew to be true. Many-Paths was of an entirely different nature, as indicated from her name. As leader of the Veritas, Many-Paths had passed many trials of empathy and fair judgement. And as a leader, she was well-aware that the tribe needed people like Tu-Swift who would press on and on for something no matter what. And as a leader she was also well-aware that the tribe needed people like Many-Paths to provide a check on such ill-conceived enthusiasm. 

So, Tu-Swift felt the actual kindness in the voice of Many-Paths as she answered gently. “I think you yourself know the answers to why we might not choose to do it even if it is faster.  I also think you can imagine conditions under which your method would be considerably slower.  But meanwhile, I can  hear that the voices of the people are happy and loudening. We ourselves should also be making our way to the feast.”

Tu-Swift needed no further encouragement to attend a feast, especially the feast of Bel-Tanay, with its promise of fresh greens, strawberries, grilled fish, and honey-sweetened ground nuts. He spun on his heel and hurtled toward the Center Place. So quickly did he turn and so quickly did he begin to sprint, and so thoroughly did the image of honey-sweetened ground nuts capture his attention, that he immediately slapped his body into a small sapling which rebounded him backwards at the feet of Many-Paths. He was a tough little boy, graced with a lithe and muscular frame. Hence, he sprang back up almost as quickly as the sapling had slung him backwards. “Sorry,” he muttered to the sapling as he once again sprinted toward the feast. 

Many-Paths shouted after him with good humor: “Are you too swift Tu-Swift?” She shook her head slightly, still unsure whether he had even heard her gentle rebuke let alone truly processed it. There would be other opportunities, she thought. Many-Paths had no more desire to change the nature of To-Swift than she did to change a rabbit into a tortoise. She pictured a brown rabbit with a white tail plodding methodically along with his long legs splayed out sideways. Without a shell, such a slow and furry tortoise would stand no chance to survive the predations of eagle or fox. As She-Who-Saves-Many-Lives had taught her, each branch of life must be its own form. Yet, rabbit, tortoise, and human beings also made choices. One of the most important a human being could ever make was simply accepting that no one path is most appropriate for every occasion. 

Many-Paths could still have caught up with her younger brother for she had also inherited feet that flew. And, this natural talent she had nurtured. She had explored various loping, skipping, and sprinting gaits thoroughly to see for herself how various gaits worked best under various circumstances of terrain and weather. This day, this moment, however, require no speed whatever and Many-Paths found it more pleasant to stroll to the Center Place, anticipating the savory salmon laid on a bed of wild lettuce and garnished with grape tendrils; the rich warm acorn and wild rice pudding; the tangy sweetness of fresh strawberries. 

Before she rounded the guardhouse that blocked her view of the gathering throng, she tried to imagine the various groups and sub-groups that would be eating together. As leader, it often proved useful to be able to predict such matters. Her predictive skills improved daily though perfection at such a task might be years, perhaps even decades away, as She-Who-Saves-Many-Lives had explained soon after she had bestowed upon Many-Paths the Seventh and Final Ring of Empathy. 

“Your skills will continue to improve,” She-Who-Saves-Many-Lives had explained, “provided only that you walk a balanced way using both legs and both minds – the mind that sees what may be and the mind that sees what is actually there.” 

Many-Paths had nodded solemnly because she “understood” what Saves-Many had meant though the depth of that understanding had deepened considerably over the years. In her mind that sees what may be, Many-Paths first pictured Shadow Walker and she predicted that he would likely be already chatting with Eyes-of-Eagle and Fleet-of-Foot whom she had not seen for nearly a year. Many-Paths thought it likely that one of the Nomads of the South would have accompanied them. Trust was still a bit fragile between the two tribes but trade, and games, and sharing stories, and playing drums, and dancing, and sharing meals — all of these had served to grow many bonds between the two tribes. And surely today’s feast with the wonderful aromas she now inhaled could only serve to strengthen ties between the tribes. 

Many-Paths walked into the clearing of the Center Place. She glanced around quickly to see how people had arranged themselves. The groupings largely confirmed her hypotheses except that strangers occupied the space near — no, wait! There they were! Eyes-of-Eagle, Fleet-of-Foot, and even Shadow Walker had donned robes in the manner of the Southern Nomads. The craftily constructed garb fooled her eyes so badly that she had not even recognized her friends at first, not even Shadow Walker! She laughed at how she had been fooled. In this case, she had even know where to look, but she had still found it difficult to see what was truly there. Walking a balanced way did indeed prove to be a life-long challenge. 

As Many-Paths made her way to her place, she exchanged many small waves and nods with other in her tribe. Though all were aware of her role as leader and the vital role she had played in the storied victory in the war with the Cupiditas, the people did not indulge in various displays of deference or position. They gave great weight to her words, despite her youth, because of her intelligence and competence, not because she held some “position.” Unlike the Cupiditas, no-one bowed deeply to her or waited to see what she thought before offering their own honest opinion. She dressed in deerskins much like the others of the Veritas. Typically, as today, she wore the Seven Rings of Empathy threaded onto a knotted necklace of leather. Only this and her radiant manner set her off from her compatriots. 

As she approached, the animated chatter of her friends stopped and they all rose to embrace her. Shadow Walker’s embrace held the most strength and the most warmth. She found herself blushing slightly. She wished to clear her mind so she could properly welcome the visitors from the Southern Nomads. That took precedence over her own considerably awakened desire. 

“Well met, new friends from the south. I am Many-Paths and I am much impressed with the raiment you provided! These, my friends from birth, I at first did not recognize so cleverly did you fashion these robes! My congratulations. I must confess that I am led toward three paths at once. I wish to know more about such magic and skill. I want to learn about you and what you think of the Veritas and yet, I also want to learn from my friends about their adventures in your lands as well. Sometimes, you see, Many-Paths are too many to chose from.”

“I am happy most glad to meet you at last, She-Who-Walks-Many-Paths-to-Save-Many-Lives. I am happy most glad you like the robes of. We have brought such a glad one for you as well. I am known among my tribe as ‘Lion-Slayer, The Silent One’ and this is my wife, Hudah Salah.”

Hudah Salah now stepped forward and took both hands of Many-Paths in hers and looked into her eyes. Many-Paths returned the gaze. “It is nice. I to meet you in person. My husband is yes glad to be Lion-Slayer. He does not often be called ‘Silent One.’ 

Lion-Slayer chuckled. “I make joke. I like talk.” 

“I do too,” chimed in Fleet-of-Foot. “I like to eat even more! Please pass the salmon!”

Tu-Swift, grabbed the plate quickly and passed it to Fleet-of-Foot, his favorite ‘Uncle.’ Before he had finished handing off the platter, an urgent cry rang out in his ears, sharp above the general happy din. 

“To arms! To arms!” It was Many-Paths issuing commands! Tu-Swift wondered whether she had gone mad. Why was she saying that in the middle of a feast? He shook his head to wake himself up in case he had been dreaming. Again, she was shouting, “To the Cottonwoods!”

But shaking his head changed nothing, everywhere warriors were readying their weapons and now Tu-Swift’s consciousness seemed to shatter into an incoherent blur of sound and color and pain. He heard whooshing arrows twang into wood. He saw an arrow land on a table near him. Color shot out from the shaft. He could feel the heat and taste the pain. Fleet-of-Foot wrenched him around and in one swift motion snapped the arrow in two, pulled out the shaft and wrapped a makeshift bandage around Tu-Swift’s forearm. 

All around him, Tu-Swift saw arrows streaming and flaming down from the sky; he saw his people gather weapons. He saw his sister leading a band of warriors out across the water toward a stand of trees. This, he thought, is where the arrows come from. This arrow. This arrow came through my arm. I am shot. That’s why I hurt. I have to help fight. Tu-Swift rose to his feet and immediately felt very light-headed. He grabbed a large flint carving knife. He fell to his knees, crawled under the table and fainted. 

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Creation Myth of the Veritas

Fragmentary Myth of the Veritas

The First Ring of Empathy

Doing the Dishes; Pounding the Corn; Chewing the Fat.

In the eighth grade, when I was about 13 years old, one of my classes was “Metal Shop.” Metal  Shop was a double period which meant it was an hour and a half. We learned some interesting things in Metal Shop, to be sure, but mostly it was extremely boring. We would, for instance, file something for an hour and a half or sand something for an hour and a half or use steel wool on something for an hour and a half or wind wire around a core for an hour and a half. 

Talking was strictly forbidden. I think it’s safe to say that none of us would have been incapable of talking and filing, sanding, or polishing. And, when I say “strictly forbidden” what I mean is that our 6 foot 4 inch instructor, Mr. McKeever, would paddle anyone who let out a peep. Eventually, we reached an agreement with Mr. McKeever that we could play chess during class, but only if we agreed to be paddled at the end of class. 

Sad (or sadistic?) to say, the “no-talking” rule was not confined to Junior High School. In many industrial settings, even for adults, there was also a “no-talking” rule. More commonly, the workplace was arranged and built so that talking to someone else proved nearly impossible. What do you suppose the purpose of the no-talking rule is? Does it make the workplace safer? Does it help prevent underpaid and overworked folks from organizing? Or, do some bosses (and teachers) just like being mean for the hell of it? Whatever the reason or reasons, it was not uncommon for folks with boring jobs on assembly lines to be prohibited from speaking unless it was immediately work related. 

By contrast, in many so-called primitive societies, much of the work was carried out in a social setting. And, by a “social” setting, I don’t just mean that other human beings were physically nearby. I mean especially that they could see, hear, touch, and talk with each other. In some cases, they would sing or chant together; for instance, when he work required coordinated movement as in pulling a fishing net, or poling a boat.  

Clearly, talking was sometimes discouraged as when silently stalking prey. However, gathering nuts, or leaves, or berries or roots or firewood; preparing meals; cleaning; migrating; watching children; nursing; pounding grain; tanning leather; building a hut — these were activities that were easy enough to do and repetitive enough that talking was easily accomplished. 

In modern domestic life, many of these opportunities have disappeared. If you sweep or mop a floor, you can talk to someone. When you use a vacuum cleaner, the noise makes talking unpleasnt. When people took clothes down to the river to clean on stones, they could talk to each other. In modern times, people do not generally hang out near a banging washing machine and chat. If two people go out and shovel snow, it is hard work, but conversation is still possible. With a snowblower, it’s quicker and a lot noisier and typically done alone. If you wash dishes by hand, it’s easy to converse. Loading and unloading a dishwasher however, is more of a one person job. 

In fact, washing dishes is a great opportunity for chit chat but also for some heavier duty conversations. Two people work together side by side. Instead of looking at each other directly, they are focused on the task at hand. But the task is generally easy enough that there is minimal cognitive load in washing or drying dishes. There is plenty of time to converse and because you are working together on a common task, it provides a felicitous setting for broaching difficult topics. 

Even when no difficult topics are broached, conversation in such activities increases trust and social capital. It also provides an opportunity for common ground. If you work together successfully on a task, you are far less likely to see the other person merely in terms of their “positions” on contentious political or religious issues. You have built some common ground. 

Traditional societies, at least those that survived long enough to leave any sort of record, had many opportunities for doing “mindless” (or, perhaps mindful) repetitive tasks together in a way that afforded a chance to talk. These were not timed “debates” — they were simply occasions for talk. These tasks were woven into the fabric of work and allowed for the group and the individuals within it to strengthen their bonds. 

I doubt that these occasions were “designed.” I don’t see the elders of a tribe sitting down together and “deciding” it would be “good” for the tribe to spend more time talking. It is simply that the nature of their technology happened to facilitate working together and talking very often. Conversely, I don’t see the early captains of industrialization sitting down together and deciding to fragment society by designing tasks that were more atomized and individual. And, I doubt that industrial machinery was designed to be noisy, dangerous, and hot. It just turned out that way. 

When folks today talk about “finding common ground,” it is all too often misdirected. It is not common ground to start a conversation with something with: “Well, surely you believe in a women’s right to choose!” or “Well, surely, you don’t think murdering babies is all right.” These statements may be clearly and obviously true to some people, but they are not attempts to find common ground. To find common ground that will allow you to approach a discussion about topic X, do not start with topic X. 

I know it seems direct and efficient to do that. I also know that it doesn’t work. No matter how stupid, evil, ill-informed, or absurd your “opponent” seems, you will not find “common ground” about topic X by starting with topic X. Wash some dishes together; pick some berries; go for a hike; pound some grain into flour, hand wash your car together and then go wash their car together.

Casual conversations were crucial for so-called primitive tribes where people shared many common experiences. Now, we live in a society where people have different educational experiences, different religious upbringings, different economic circumstances, and listen to different subsets of a thousand different TV channels. Building trust first by working together was crucial for tribes that were relatively homogeneous. For us, today? It’s absolutely critical! If we can’t abide washing dishes together, we certainly won’t be able to agree on anything that is “controversial.” 

Even so-called “recreational” activities have mainly become more “efficient” and speed-oriented. Golf, for instance, used to involve a small group of 2-4 people spending 4-5 hours mainly walking together. Yes, occasionally a golfer would hit a golf shot. A good golfer might hit the ball 75 times over the course of 5 hours while a mediocre golfer might hit the ball 100 times. But there was plenty of time to talk. When you play today by riding in carts and being constrained to “keep up the pace of play” there is much less time to talk, exchange ideas, find out how the other person is doing, etc. 

Spectator sports have also devolved into advertising opportunities punctuated with game play. I recall going to see Lakefront stadium with my dad to watch Cleveland play major league baseball. There was plenty of time to talk during a game! On a number of occasions, I had questions about the fine points of the game which Dad was happy to answer. 

In the last few years, I’ve gone to watch local teams compete in the World Tennis Association league. Do you know what they do after every single point? They play snippets of extremely loud music. It’s as though the management doesn’t want people in the crowd to be able to discuss what just happened on the court. The rules have also been altered so as to make the match times more predictable (and shorter). Ads are ubiquitous. I enjoy watching the play itself; but the spaces between play are so obnoxious that it’s much less pleasurable than it would be if there were silence between points. More importantly, the relationships of the people watching are twisted into an increased alignment with advertisers and promotors rather than with other folks in the audience. 

Our society needs time. It needs space. It needs a chance to work together on easy tasks. Our society is losing the chance to chat, in person, aloud, synchronously. 

We need to do the dishes together. 

Do you want to wash or dry?  

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You bet your life. 

Suddenly, the TV screen went blank. I was only a kid. I had no idea why. Nor did my folks. We had been watching “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx. In those days of low-resolution, black and white TV and only three channels, my parents and I often watched shows together. There seems to be some controversy about what happened but this is my recollection. 

A couple came on as contestants and they had a large number of kids. Groucho said something like, “Why so many kids?” She replied, “I love my husband.” Groucho said, “I love my cigar too, but I take it out sometimes.” Black screen. No sound. 

At first, my dad assumed the picture tube had burned out, but that was clearly not true. The other two channels worked properly. We assumed there were technical difficulties at the TV studio. This had happened on various shows before when someone tripped over a cable, but generally the problem was quickly fixed. In this case however, the show never came back on. 

I had no idea at the time that Groucho’s comment was the least bit risqué — indeed, I didn’t even know what risqué was. Today, television is considerably different. It is higher resolution. It is in color. You have hundreds of channels to choose from. If hundreds of channels provide too few choices, you can go the Internet and see podcasts or youtube videos.

If you like, you can have far more than suggestiveness about sex. Youtube began in 2005 and now (2019) over 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute. In 1950, even if you watched TV 24 hours/day, you could only watch half of what was produced. Today, if you watched youtube 24 hours/day, you could only watch 1/18,000 of what is produced. And, there are much more explicit channels than those on Youtube. Oh, yes. You bet your life there are.

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You could imagine reading or watching a well-structured story as something like riding an emotional roller-coaster ride. In a real roller coaster that is powered by gravity, the biggest “thrill” is generally at the beginning. In a well-constructed story, however, the biggest changes in emotion generally occur near the end. It makes little sense to have the hero almost die in act one; end up killing the villain instead; and then, in the final act, have the hero win a croquet match. 

Both in the long term, and in the short term, to stay entertained, we look for rising action and for more and more outrageous things to happen. In the short term, whether we are enjoying opera, a movie, a sporting event, or a novel, we expect more extreme events and changes as time goes on. In the long term, we expect the media as a whole to be more sensational and sensationalistic as time goes on. 

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For many Americans, the story of the American dream no longer seemed a story worth believing. Some folks had worked hard their whole life for a corporation that simply shut their doors and moved away for cheaper costs and higher profits. In other cases, the company that they had worked for went bankrupts. Others did not have their jobs taken away but their ability to do the job disappeared because of accident or injury. 

Other folks experienced their small businesses or farms destroyed by giant corporations who had deep pockets. These deep pockets enabled the large corporation to lower prices and drive out local competition. The large companies could also buy politicians and afford to fight in court for years. So, what do such folks do when they believe that, through no fault of their own, their dreams have been destroyed? 

Some turn to drugs. For many, the answer is to look to identify with someone else’s dream. They watch reality TV. Or porn videos. Or, sports events. Entertainment becomes much more than simply a distraction. It becomes central to life. If such folks have ridden the earth for more than 30 or 40 circuits around the sun, they have heard and believed the promises of many politicians. For many, such promises have not been fulfilled. Politicians have come and politicians have gone, but the lives of their constituents remain roughly the same regardless of which party or which person is in power. They care much more about their entertainment because their entertainment actually does make a difference in their lives. 

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Many folks in America have essentially come to view #45 as the CEO of America. He is a completely ineffective executive. But that doesn’t matter. He is not, to them, the Chief Executive Officer. He is the Chief Entertainment Officer. He always has something outrageous to say or tweet or do. He’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys, even if not quite so organized and educated. And, it isn’t just his base who view him as such. 

The liberal media as well as the conservative media cover him more than any other POTUS. Of course, they cover him in different ways. The conservative media may report on one of his many outrageous lies with a straight face and without commentary. “POTUS declares emergency as hordes of Muslim terrorists attack our southern border!” 

The liberal media report on this differently: “POTUS declares emergency as ‘hordes of Muslim terrorists attack our southern border.’ However, there is no evidence of this. Immigration is actually down.”

The “mainstream” media split the difference. “POTUS declares emergency because he claims ‘hordes of Muslim terrorists are attacking our southern border. Liberals in Congress question whether this is really true as do the sheriffs along the southern border.”  

Notice that both the liberal way of reporting and the mainstream media way of reporting first repeats the outrageous lie. Furthermore, the outrageous lie is much more entertaining! Picturing a horde of Muslim terrorists attacking our southern border is vivid and specific. Saying #45 lied again is rather abstract, mundane, and boring.

For the “base”, having liberals fuss and fume about the outrageous words, tweets, and actions of #45 only adds to the fun! No matter if, down the road, our planet is unlivable. The “base” has already given up on real life. That dream has been broken too many times to be thought of as realistic. But a red hat with the words, “Make America Great Again” or the chance to chant something like: “Lock her up!” is entertaining. Maybe their dreams for themselves and their kids are dead, but maybe they can do a small part to make the dictatorial dreams of #45 a reality! 

Adding racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, graphic lies about abortion — these are not strategies for statesmanship. They are antithetical to uniting or leading a country. But who cares? They add to the entertainment value. And, beneath the surface, still unsaid by most, is the hope that someday, if all goes well, and #45 stays on and on and on as “Chief Entertainment Officer” there will be the chance to see live and in person, the actual burning of “witches” (uppity women). Or, maybe lynchings and burnings of people of color can be brought back! How entertaining would that be! The base can return to the days when they didn’t have to see the deeply disturbing scenes of men loving men which makes them have and hate those feelings in themselves. 

While sound and fury is all happening on the surface in a very public and entertaining way, beneath that surface, some very smart and methodical people are destroying America. These folks are not ignorant of American politics or history or geography. They are well-versed in it. They are, in many cases, experts. They are members of the Russian intelligence organizations. They are turning diversity — one of the strengths and competitive advantages of America — into a source of division. They may or may not enjoy the aid of a fair number of extremely wealthy and power-hungry Americans who would also like to see the federal government dismantled to be replaced wherever possible by new business opportunities; e.g., to privatize social security, prisons, the military, roads, parks, the post office, etc. Moreover, in their dream for America, not only will they be the “bosses” of most other people; they will have absolute power over them as well. No more pesky sexual harassment suits will be filed in their dreams of the future. No more EEO or OSHA to deal with. Tax laws will be modified to do what they should do: tax the poor and middle class and help the ultra-wealthy aggregate more and more wealth. 

While the surface “show” is unpredictable to the point of almost seeming random, the underlying tide continues unabated and methodical. Putin wants #45 to do all he can to isolate America from its allies; to divide Americans against each other; to weaken America economically by increasing indebtedness and the disparity in incomes; to weaken America’s belief in government by subverting the rule of law and by appointing the worst among us to government office rather than the best; to weaken the morale and materiel of the military and intelligence agencies through lies, broken promises, and undercutting expertise and honesty. Because these stories are slower and more methodical, they are also less entertaining. 

One entertaining piece though is why it is that #45 works in Putin’s interest. Does Putin “have something” on #45? Might it be really salacious? Or, perhaps, Putin’s just so much ‘smarter’ than #45, that Putin can trick him into doing whatever Putin says. I put ‘smarter’ in quotes because it isn’t simply that Putin is himself smarter. What’s more important is that he actually knows a lot about politics, power, and people. He listens to his experts on destroying America and how to manipulate #45. So Putin’s effective intelligence is far greater than #45’s. It might even be the case that #45 simply admires Putin (and other world dictators) precisely because they are dictators. #45 may simply believe that if he follows Putin’s lead, Putin can show him how to become dictator of America, in time. 

The why is an entertaining story. It is filled with mystery and suspense. The story of what #45 is doing to destroy America is far less entertaining. It is also far more consequential to the lives of our children and grandchildren than is the story of why. If America comes to live under a dictatorship it will subvert and pervert our society in hundreds of ways, large and small. In a world where powerful people hold all the power and truth is of no account, our science, creativity, and economic power will fall. At first, we can coast along just as many corporations do after they stop caring about their customers or investing in R&D. But fall we will. You bet your life.

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Having a Chief Entertainment Officer instead of a Chief Executive Officer means that to stay “entertaining”, the CEO must continually do more and more outrageous things. Kids in cages? That’s so 2018. No, the style next year will be to cage homosexuals. Caging homosexuals? That’s so 2020. Next year, we will burn them at the stake. But that will get old. The year after that we will burn young girls who refuse to have sex with the magnificent leader. But that will get old. Soon, we will be in the territory of The Hunger Games, Idiocracy, and The Running Man. Becoming mellower over time is no problem for a Chief Executive Officer. But it is anathema to a Chief Entertainment Officer. That kind of CEO must always strive to be ever more outrageous in order to keep up the ratings, entertain the base, and stoke his own ego.  

However “bad” you think the actions of #45 have been up to now, to keep his ratings — as well as to keep us all from being distracted from the slow erosion of everything that makes America actually great, future shows of #45 will be more and more destructive as time goes on. Every evil thing that #45 has hinted at, he will strive to engender in reality. That’s the way to build a very entertaining story. And, that’s the way to destroy a once great nation. 

#45 has declared a “national emergency” which he immediately admitted was simply a way to get what he wanted without needing an OK from Congress. If this stands, after packing the Supreme Court, it sets the precedent that he (or any future President or dictator) can do absolutely anything he wants regardless of the reason. His ratings go up with his base because he has a dramatic story for them: against all odds, he is single-handedly securing our southern border against an invading horde of criminals! It’s all a lie, of course, but it’s an entertaining story. And his ratings will also go up because everyone in America and even overseas who cares about democracy and the rule of law; everyone who wants to avoid World War Three (because ultimately dictators need wars to stay in power) — they have a riveting story as well; viz., America is in serious danger of no longer being a Constitutional democracy.   

You bet your life, there’s a national emergency! If #45 is allowed to change the funding decisions that Constitutionally belong to Congress so that he can have his own vain pet project, he will no longer be a President; he will be a dictator like the handful of world leaders that he so fervently admires. So, yes, whether you want to or not, you are betting your life. And you are betting the life of everyone on the planet. 

Is there a national emergency? 

You bet your life there is.

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Trumpism as a cult. 

First of a series of five essays about SHRUGS (Super Hyper Really Ultra Greedy Swindlers) and why dictators always need war and conflict to stay in power. 

What’s wrong with people anyway? 

{Translator’s Note}: Well, when I say “What’s wrong with people, anyway,” what I am really saying is that people are not the way that I would like them to be. My being PO’d is also a case of people being what they are rather than the way they should be. 

I can’t understand why vandals could put their petty self-interest so far above the collective work that we are all engaged in — the work of trying to understand the history of our common ancestors and the many side branches that we’ve taken. It’s bad enough that people steal artifacts from real archaeological sites. Yeah, occasionally they find an arrowhead that they can sell to a private collector for a substantial amount of money. But there are still numerous ways on this earth to make money in legitimate pursuits that do not thwart science. Stealing from archaeological sites has literally been going on for centuries. That does not make it ethical. Nor is it ethical to buy from these people, no matter how rich you are. 

Of course, it isn’t everyone who is so greedy and thoughtless that they would subvert science for their own petty bragging rights to a Ming shard or a rare Roman coin. It is a definite and small minority. And, like Voldemort, they pay a heavy price. For the SHRUGS (Super Hyper Really Ultra Greedy Swindlers) who put their own interests ahead of humanity’s do not understand that they are just another twig on the great and varied tree of life. 

SHRUGS believe that the universe of importance is what begins and ends with the boundaries of their own skin. That skin, whether the SHRUGS are large or small, fat or thin; whether they are black, brown, white, or orange is a teeny part of the cosmos. Their lifespan, if they are lucky, might be 100 years. Life on earth, however, is 4.5 billion years old. Think globally and act locally to foster the tree of life. It will be here long after you or I. And, to one degree or another, most people do care about future generations. They care about advancing civilization as well as finding out about earlier ones. It is a small, soul-sick cancer upon the body politic who steal actual artifacts from actual archaeological digs. 

Few enough artifacts from our past survive. Piecing these together and attempting to make sense of it all is an arduous and often dangerous task. And yet, it allows us to reconstruct our past and therefore to better understand the present. This understanding, in turn, means we can be more knowledgeable and make better decisions about our future. Our choices today impact our social evolution and even, eventually, our evolutionary direction. The ripples never stop.

More recently, however, the SHRUGS, along with their very petty den of thieves, have begun stealing even from mythological digs. In this case, there is zero real benefit to the SHRUGS. I suppose that, in some cases, the wanton cruelty is reward enough for SHRUGS. Sigh. 

Most likely, SHRUGS never experienced unconditional love. Even if others did love them at some point, SHRUGS would not experience it as love.

What others would see as love, they would simply see as a ploy or a plot to win their money or their power. It’s a tragic state of affairs, whether they are born without empathy and love or whether these human qualities wither due to disuse, they can never make up for it with their addiction to greed and power. 

In any case, I am happy to report that, despite the many gratuitous and pointless efforts to steal crucial artifacts from the site of the Veritas, a critical reconstruction has succeeded. On that basis, we now have at least the outlines of the history and legends of the next epoch of the Veritas. Even as recently as two decades ago, it would have been impossible to reconstruct these stories. I have however, with a minimum number of free parameters, manage to run the Seldonistic Equations backwards and thereby reconstruct a very likely sequence of events. These will soon be recounted. 

When this site was first discovered, everyone on the project was hopeful that one or more of the original “Rings of Empathy” would be recovered. A number of pieces of personal jewelry have been recovered, but so far, at least, none of these recovered pieces are the storied Rings. The archaeologists will keep digging, but the reconstructed history strongly suggests that these Rings no longer reside anywhere near the Lake of Reeds. 

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The next telling begins as the last one ended – with a great feast to celebrate the circle of life. 

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Author’s Page on Amazon

UCSD – DSGN 90 (John Thomas)

Day Five: Other uses of Story: Using scenarios to build a future or to explore an issue. Class Presentations. 

lecture/discussion: How to use stories throughout development?  How to use story elements? 

Problem Finding: 

Education focuses on teaching people to solve problems that others pose. An important skill in many situations is finding or seeing problems. Stories can be useful in uncovering such problems in yourself and others. Not only the best, but also the worst experiences can be the seeds for good stories. These stories can be fodder for you to identify problems to solve. In some cases, this can lead to invention. Alexander Graham Bell, for instance, was trying to develop an aid for the deaf when he invented the telephone. You can use the stories that others tell as inspiration for invention, or you can intentionally solicit and elicit stories from people. This may work especially well if you focus on underserved or unusual populations of people. 

Problem Formulation. 

The way you formulate a problem has a tremendous influence on how you solve or even whether you can solve it. Often people solving problems fixate on know ways of addressing problems based on superficial characteristics of a problem. Here’s an example: 

There are 435 people in the US House of Representatives. What is the probability that there are at least two people in the House of Representatives share a birthday?

If you have studied statistics or probability you may have run across the “birthday problem.” In a room with as few as 30 people, though it is counter-intuitive, the probability that at least two people share a birthday is greater than .5.  When people have heard this problem and then see the problem about the House of Representatives, they are likely to think: “Oh, wow. Well, the probability is already more than .5 with only 30 people so, with 435 it must be really high, .99 or even .999. Here’s the thing, these two problems look similar. In both cases, you are talking about birthdays, probabilities, sharing. But they are completely different. In the case of 30 people, or 31 people, or 55 people, or 100 people, you need to calculate the answer. In the case of 435 people, you don’t. The answer is 1.0 for all numbers at or above 366. 

Another example of being misled by surface features of a problem: 

If a chicken and half can lay and egg and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take ONE chicken to lay ONE egg? 

Most people will immediately jump to: “One egg.” That is incorrect. The correct answer is 1.5 days. Here’s a modification: 

If nine women can have nine babies in nine months, how long will it take ONE woman to have ONE baby? 

Obviously, the answer is not ONE month, but nine months. 

The point is that soliciting stories and eliciting stories can help you look at a problem from different viewpoints and this can help you try out different formulations. You need not be limited to stories from users (and other stakeholders). You can also create stories from other perspectives. If you are generating ideas for products in the transportation space, for instance, you need not limit your imagination to drivers and passengers. You can also imagine stories from the perspective of the car. Or, someone waiting for a passenger to arrive. Or, car thieves. Or, bus drivers. Or roadways. 

Preliminary testing of your ideas. 

Generally speaking, early in the design process, it is better to use rough and ready prototypes rather than beautiful, high resolution prototypes. Instead, as you work out basic ideas, vocabulary, sequences, options, and so on, use something that allows you to quickly test out your ideas. This has several advantages. 

First, the users are more likely to give you comments about the functions and concepts of the product or service. At this point, you don’t really want to have a host of comments about the precise icons, colors, screen layout etc. There will be time for those details later. 

Second, developers and management will not be misunderstanding that you are nearly done! 

Third, you yourself will not be prematurely wedded to your own prototype — which is much more likely to happen if you spend countless hours on the details of your early prototype. You can use paper prototypes, for instance.  

You can also use powerpoint prototypes — You can “set the scene” and keep bringing the user “back” to a mainline narrative. 

“Judy promised to spend the weekend helping her son Joe rehearse lines for his class play. Friday evening, after a long week at the office, she gets a call at home that one of her colleagues, Harry, has been in an accident and will not be able to give an important customer presentation on what her company is doing to ensure that their new AI technology will be used ethically. This is not Judy’s primary area of responsibility, but the presentation will be make or break for a substantial government contract. 

“Judy needs to come up to speed as quickly as possible so she can fulfill her commitment to her son and to her boss. So, she uses the Super-Duper-AI powered learning system. She’s never used the system before. 

“Imagine you are Judy and you log into the system and this is the first screen you see. What would you see here? What would you do first? 

“OK, well what Judy actually did was to click this icon which brought her to this screen. If you were Judy, what would you do next?”  

Avoid using prototypes that are too perfect too early. 

Generate multiple sequences, possibly using extreme characters, to generate ideas for testing. 

Don’t be satisfied with testing whether the functionality of a product works when it is used correctly! However obvious you think you are making your design, some folks will go off in a different direction. Someone on the development team needs to make sure this does not “break” the product or service. You might want to include as “extreme” users, someone who simply likes to “kick the tires” … even the spare tire! Include someone who has almost no memory. In real use, the user may have 12 interruptions between action A and action B. Even if they have a good memory, they may not recall what happened at point A when it comes to taking their action at point B. You may also want to include “bad actors.” Is it possible for people to “bring down” the system intentionally? 

Lecture/discussion: Using stories for marketing and sales. 

Next time you listen to a sporting event on TV, notice how the program attempts to use story elements to increase interest. One thing to notice is the emphasis on “The pressure narrative” in explaining what happens. There are a host of reasons why someone might win and someone might lose. Health, weather, training, luck, skill — all of these may play a role. But what we typically like in sports (and elsewhere) is a story about character. So, the announcers will have you believe that a match is determined by character. Who is willing to “go to the end of the line”? Which one is able to withstand the “pressure” of the final match? 

Another fairly recent innovation in broadcasting is to providing back-story to enhance interest. They don’t simply say, “The QB, who played at UCSD in college, has a lifetime average of 200 yards passing and 50 yards rushing.” No, they will tell you that the person almost flunked out and lost eligibility before they finally made a complete commitment to being the best QB they possibly could, or that they were born in Antarctica and swam to Southern Africa where they were mistreated by their adoptive parents and although they were a natural athlete, they didn’t even know what American football was until a week before the Super Bowl. [OK. That’s a slight exaggeration, but you get the point.]

lecture/discussion: Using stories from service calls as input to next round of development. 

{Anecdote about the unworkable heater.}

Final thoughts: Using stories beyond the development of new products and services. 

Stories can certainly be used to help share and build knowledge. This is something experts have been doing for thousands of years. 

Using stories to find and enhance common ground. 

We now live in a world where people must cooperate across vast distances in space, but also across various differences in culture, religion, parental philosophy, education, etc. Can stories be used as a way for people to learn how to better appreciate or understand those with different backgrounds and assumptions?

Can we now tailor stories for small audiences or even audiences of one? 

One story or many? 

Surface story and underlying story. 

Mergers and Acquisitions: we developed a patent at IBM to find stories from two companies about to merge, find common values, construct stories that emphasize these common values, and re-inject them back into the two companies to help lay the groundwork for the merger. 

Stories can certainly be used to help foment war and increase divisions among people. 

Can stories also be used to heal divisions among people and promote peace? 

Have stories outlived their usefulness to humanity? 

Or, do we need them now, more than ever? 

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Author Page on Amazon. 

UCSD – DSGN 90 (John Thomas)

Day Four: Using stories to describe a product or service. Who uses? 

Further Comments on “Theory of Mind.” In story-writing, the author not only needs to keep in mind what they know (presumably, the “whole story”) and what the reader knows by now. They may also have to keep track of what characters A, B, C, D, and E know about the world of the story and about each other! The author also may present information in such a way as to induce the reader to “think” that X is true, while the author knows full well that actually ~X is true. 

The Law of Over-arching context: Any statement which seems true/false may be transformed to false/true by a larger context that is revealed later. 

“The moon is made of blue cheese.” 

Henry had heard that old saw so many times he was sick of it. But only tonight, after being fired, out here alone on the beach, did he really see how it did indeed look like blue cheese. He could make himself believe it. And, that insight led to his billion dollar idea.

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Indeed, it had been ordered so by the planet-master’s wealthy sponsor, Zebo Bazeltoe. 

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Since Laurie and Joe both loved the moon and had famously first met in astronaut training, both were astonished and delighted at the unusual wedding cake.

Lecture/Discussion about Other story strength elements: 45 minutes.

Avoid “feather dusting.” 

Example: The curtain opens with two maids dusting a Victorian living room: 

Maid one: “So, how long have the two of us been working for Doctor Watson now?”

Maid two: “Oh, my. It’s been ten years, eh?” 

Maid one: “Yes, indeed, and he’s never been the same since his wife Doris left him.”

Maid two: “No, I agree. Certainly not. We had good times when Doris was here.”
Maid one: “Yes, well, it’s no wonder she left him after only a year. Who’d want to be married to that nasty man?” 

Maid two: “Not me. Not for all the gold in China.” 

Maid one: “And, now he’s even nastier. I wonder where Doris went anyway.” 

Maid two: “Well, the way I heard it…”

These two maids have been working for Doctor Watson for ten years; Doris left nine years ago AND NOW THEY ARE FINALLY TALKING ABOUT IT? This is exposition with no motivation. Yes, it begins to give the audience information needed for them to understand what happens next, but it is completely and obviously artificial. 

Turn exposition into ammunition. Put a conflict in. 

Before the curtain opens, we hear the sound of something breaking. Now, the curtain opens. 

Maid one: “Oh, crap!” 

Maid two: “I keep telling you to be careful dusting those! But do you listen to me?”
Maid one: “It was an accident!” 

Maid two: “Yes, well, you’ll be lucky if Doctor Watson doesn’t fire you.” 

Maid one: “He won’t fire me. I’m the cute one.” [She curtseys and winks]. 

Maid two: “Yeah, maybe back in the days when you had Doris to protect you. But now? You might as well pack your bags.”

Maid one: “Oh, come on! Even the Doctor’s not that nasty! Fire me over one broken vase?”

Maid two: “Damned right he will! Fired the gardener after the snails ate all the tomatoes! Remember that?”

Maid one: “That was right after Doris left. He’s had another nine years to get over it. Besides the gardener’s wasn’t cute like me.”

Maid two: “Hah! He’ll be even worse once he finds out about Doris. The mailman says she married a socialist!”  

Main one: “Are you serious?! No way! Doris was fun but … really?” 

 

Show, don’t tell. 

Henry didn’t like people. He was in an angry mood and impolite. 

Henry half placed, half slammed the key with its heavy awkward metal tag down on the wooden counter. Not so hard that he expected Claude to raise a fuss, which he calculated he wouldn’t have the rocks to do anyway. But not so soft that he isn’t going to wonder what’s going on. Let him wonder, the prig, thought Henry, noticing with pleasure the slight wince that flickered across Claude’s otherwise stoic face.

Build empathy for your protagonist by working from the outside in. 

• Objective situation (New England winter storms are not always the slow accumulation of gentle flakes. On offer tonight: sharp spikes of frozen and freezing rain). 
• Actions and sensations (Joe felt the icy sleet slice right through his thin coat. He tugged it tight about him, picking his way step by step to avoid a skull-splitting slip on the wet, icy sidewalk.)
• Emotions (Joe worried that his hands might actually become frost-bitten. Damn her anyway, he thought). 
• Inner conflict (Joe wondered, and not for the first time, why do I always let her talk me into these hare-brained schemes? It would serve her right if I did freeze to death. But still. She must have a good reason. Or, does she? Anyway, I was stupid not to bring gloves. Be prepared, say the Boy Scouts.)

 

When writing, use “periodic sentences” — that is, put the most dramatic part last. 

“I’m going to slowly kill you right now if you don’t hand over the formula for the antidote to that poison and get in that room and then I will lock the door.” 

“The antidote. Hand over the formula now. Or die. Slowly.” 

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“I love you. That’s the thing, Jules. I’ve been meaning to tell you that for a long time. I’ve just been waiting for the right moment and somehow it never came and so I should have told you a long time ago. But I didn’t. But now I did.” 

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time. I never found the right moment. Why wait? The simple fact is, Jules, I love you.” 

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Use active and specific verbs. 

“John moved across the room with joy in his heart for he was finally happy.”

“John danced across the room.” 

“John moved across the room with a heavy heart for now he felt depressed.”

“John trudged across the room.”

“John moved across the room very quickly for he was in an angry mood.”

“Teeth clenched, fist balled, John tore across the room.”

A story generates more interest if the “surface” of the story hides at least one layer beneath. Text should not equal subtext. 

Compare: A scene where two people fall in love. 

Scene A: They go out for a romantic candlelit dinner and stare in each other’s eyes, each telling the other that they are beautiful, wonderful, intelligent — just what they always wanted.

Scene B: The two are opposing attorneys in a courtroom drama, fighting each other over every objection, what evidence can be admitted, etc. Yet, there are moments when they cannot help but admire the other’s cleverness. 

Compare: A scene where a local thug threatens a store owner to pay protection money and the store owner refuses.

Scene A: Thug: “Say listen, Frankie. Pay me protection money like everybody else or I’ll have my boys break your jaw.”

Frankie: “I don’t think so. The chief of police is a friend.” 

Thug: “Yeah, well some of that protection money goes to bribe him. He won’t protect you.”

Frankie: “I am pretty handy with my fist and with a gun.” 

Scene B: Thug: “Say listen, Frankie. If you don’t want to be friends, no hard feelings. In fact, I’ll have my wife make you some of her home made cream of onion soup. You’ll love it.” 

Frankie: “Thanks for the offer Frankie. But I’m not much of a soup eater. I prefer steak. Rare. Very rare.” 

Thug: “I’m sure you do. Now. But you know, the soup would be in case of an accident. Sometimes those things happen. And soup is all you can manage. That’s what happened to Joey. Bad luck. He refused my friendship. Next thing you know, he fell or something. Broke his jaw. Poor guy. My wife’s soup was all he could eat for a month.” 

Frankie: “I make a pretty good soup myself. Maybe we should start a cooking show, you and me. I’ll cook and you clean. It’ll be great. I’m sure my friend the Chief of Police would love to be a guest chef on it. He’s great a great griller.” 

Thug: “Did you ever wonder how he could afford all those prime cuts of meat? You might want to give that some thought.” 

Frankie: “Thanks for the advice! I will definitely give that some thought tonight when I’m driving from my MMA class to the shooting range.”

Exercise in story improvement.  30 minutes. 

Take one of your stories; one that you elicited in Wednesday’s exercise or one that you created earlier and improve your story.  Includes in your story some invention, change, or innovation in product or service. The invention could be the protagonist in the story. Or, it could serve a role more like a magic talisman or a wise advisor to the hero. 

Using what you learned about how to make a story better as well as any feedback you received so far from your classmates. Improve the story. 

Story Improvement Feedback: 40 minutes. 

Work in pairs. Spend 20 minutes on each of the two stories. 

First, the author should read the story and then say something they like about what they did.

Then, the author should mention something that they would still like to improve more. 

The listener/reader should then say something additional that they really liked about the story. 

The listener/reader should then give some feedback about how to improve the story further. 

Remember to make your suggestion as specific and actionable as possible. 

Summary recap: 5 minutes.  (For next class, bring in an improved story to read or one of the optional homework assignments.)

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author page on Amazon

UCSD: DSGN 90

Day Three: Soliciting Stories from Others. 

Any thoughts or reflections on yesterday or on trying to further improve your story? Anything that seems like an “insoluble” problem or dilemma that you want to share with the class?

Introduction: 15 minutes. 

Using stories for generating ideas for products. 

Wants and Needs. Cite George Furnas; we NEED oxygen but we WANT to avoid build up of Carbon Dioxide. We NEED healthy food but we WANT sugar. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246277995_Future_design_mindful_of_the_MoRAS

Go for needs whenever possible. Why? Your product or service will be more enduring. 

Examples. 

Drug Dealers get shot or jailed. 

Cigarette companies get sued, fined. 

Even the best buggy whip manufacturers are likely to go out of business. If you focus people’s attention too much on what they like and dislike about their current situation, they are likely to focus on their wants: “I want a lighter buggy whip.” “I want a buggy whip that makes a snappier sound.” “I want a buggy whip that motivates the horse without injuring it.” 

Don’t be fooled by the words that the user/client/stakeholder uses. They may say, “I need a lighter buggy whip.” They are still talking about their wants. Merely using the word “need” doesn’t make it so. 

Theory of Mind. How does this relate to storytelling? How does it relate to eliciting stories from others? Using elements of empathy. Variant on heuristic evaluation: Have evaluators “imagine” using the product or service from the perspective of others. 

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5591e171e4b040c8aa3e29dc/t/55c27b96e4b02253a66ec2eb/1438808982498/ZNon-EmpiricalUsabilityMethod-10-93-Desurvire+%26+J+Thomas.pdf

Guidelines for Interviewing (from Debbie Lawrence). 15 minutes

• Prepare ahead of time. You may want to find out a bit about them, their role, the situation, and prepare some questions you would like to have answered, not as a strict sequential questionnaire for the person you’re interviewing but to remind yourself.    

 

• Thank them for their time. Provide a “warm-up” period. 
  • Most people do not want to and will not launch into a story that is potentially embarrassing or reveals something negative about their company, a product they use, other people, etc. Of course, there are exceptions. 

 

• Tell something personal and revealing about yourself; perhaps tell a story that is a model of the kind of story you’re looking for.

 

• Observe an implicit contract of trust.O

 

• Provide a motivation for the story — why it’s important. 
  • Say how they, or their colleagues, or people like them, or society as a whole may benefit. 
• Accept the storyteller’s story and worldview.  Don’t resist the story.
  • Don’t problem solve for them. “Why didn’t you simply call the police?” “Why didn’t you read the manual first?” This approach can appear blaming, the word “simply” implies that this is the “obvious” solution. Let them tell the story with as few interruptions as possible. Later, if you want to probe for other actions that they considered, you might ask, “Let’s go back to the part where you broke the guitar over their head. Were there other actions you considered at the time?” 

 

• Reveal who you are, how the story will be used, potential audience and goals, answer questions.

Be honest. If they are exposing themselves, they should know before they tell their story. If true, say that stories will all be anonymized (and make it so.) And anonymized means more than simply changing the name! For instance, a long time colleague of mine at IBM Research was Cathy Wolfe who got ALS and continued to work a IBM Research. If I told about someone at IBM Research who worked in Human Computer Interaction research despite ALS, it wouldn’t be an effective anonymization to simply change her name to Carole Walcott. 

 

• Use questions to probe.  Sometimes, a totally “off the wall” question can create space for story to emerge.

This can be especially useful if it seems as though they have told the story many times before. They may be skipping over a recounting of their actual experience and instead recalling the story that they’ve already told. 

• Empower the storyteller — they are the expert in their experience!

Avoid statements that deny a person’s experience. “Surely, you didn’t really expect your brother to….” “But everyone knows that you can’t….” 

• Avoid threat; don’t appear as an expert yourself.

“I wondered about her actions because I’m kind of an amateur psychologist and so…” “OH, really? I’m getting my degree in cognitive psychology from UCSD in just a few months.” (This may seem like an attempt to find common ground and build rapport; it might work with some people, but others will read it as you trying to “one up” them and to question them on how much of a psychologist they really could be. 

• Listen with avid interest.

If possible, and if it doesn’t make the teller uncomfortable, it’s good to go with two interviewers and either record the interview or have another person take notes. When I was training as a Cognitive Behavior therapist, we recorded sessions as a matter of course. I explained what this was for (so I could review it and have my supervisory group review it for suggestions) and said, “Here’s the pause button. If you ever want to say anything and NOT have it recorded, feel free to just hit the pause button.  

• Thank them again.

Go over your notes immediately, especially if you have not recorded it. 

Small Group Exercise: 3-4 people in the group. Interview each other to gain story. One interviews. One Records. One or two provide feedback for the interviewer. 60 minutes.

Take a moment before beginning to think about some unusual experience, situation, part-time job, summer job, vacation, that you had. Try to recall something that could have gone better – a time you were frustrated, scared, angry, anxious, depressed. Then, use this as a suggestion for what the interviewer asks about. It does not have to be a life-changing experience! Just getting lost on campus, buying a video game and then be frustrated with it, or getting an unfair traffic ticket is enough. Let the interviewer ask you questions about your experience. The interviewers long-term goal is to uncover one or more needs that might be addressed by better design. Of course, you probably won’t get that far in a short interview, but keep that goal in mind. 

The Feedback structure should proceed as follows: 

• First, the Interviewer says one thing they liked about what they did in the interview and asks for feedback on how they could have done one thing better. 
• Second, the observers each say one thing they liked about what the interviewer did and one thing that they thought could be improved for next time. 
• Third, the interviewee says one thing that they liked about how the interviewer conducted the interview and provides one suggestion for improvement. 
• Fourth, the group briefly discusses whether the interviewer was able to delve into underlying needs or whether it stayed at the want level. Also, discuss whether they interviewer was able to elicit any stories of experiences from the interviewee. 

 

• 

FB for these sessions. 

Each interviewer might tell story to larger group as well. 

Class discussion about story elicitation lessons learned. 20 minutes.

Review, summary, and preview of homework challenges: 5 minutes. 

Questions: 5 minutes.

Optional Homework Challenge: Design a high-level visual representation for one of the three major “dimensions” of story: Plot, Character, or Setting. Stories are written or told with words, but the underlying structure is hard to “see” by simply looking word by word. Representations can either make problem solving, including design problem solving much easier — or much more difficult. So, your goal is to provide a thinking tool for higher level design aspects of story. Prepare to give a ten minute talk to the class about your representation on Friday.

Speech analysis and waveform versus spectrograph. Use of “speech-flakes” by Cliff Pickover (which again shows that human beings are not just information processors).

Optional Homework Challenge: Look up the TRIZ method. This was developed by Genrich Altschuller for invention in the engineering domain. Find out his story. Prepare a ten minute explanation of the method for this class. At the end, speculate about how this method might be applied to the process of story design on Friday. 

Optional Homework Challenge: Find your own design problem related to story — and solve it. Prepare a ten minute class presentation that poses the design problem and then explains, shows, demonstrates your attempt to solve that problem. 

Examples: You do NOT have to choose one of these.

How could a computer program extract the value changes in a story. This could be used, e.g., to check whether every scene had at least one value change (love to not love; rich to penniless; sick to healthy; alive to dead). Or, it could be used if you wanted to search for stories that showed someone going from rich to penniless. 

How could you design a program to find stories in a large amount of text — part stories and part non-stories? 

How could you provide a tool that would change a story to modify it for different situations, different audiences, or different goals? 

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Magic Portal into Other Worlds

DSGN 90

Day Two: What are the properties of Stories? What makes for a good story? Character & characterization. Who are some memorable characters? Why are they memorable? 

Another View of Story (lecture & discussion): 45 minutes.

Three-dimensional view of story: Plot, Character, Setting. 

But these three are not really independent dimensions. 

Levels of Conflict:  Intra-psychic, inter-personal, with larger forces: society, nature. 

Character is deep; revealed by choices under pressure. 

Characterization are surface features.

Characters are more interesting when their surface features play off against their character. James Bond is actually a patriot willing to “go to the end of the line” for his country — even though on the surface, he seems like a superficial playboy. Shawn Spencer in Psych is a complete charlatan posing as a psychic. But through his shenanigans and charades, he uncovers the truth and puts away the bad guys. Lady “screw your courage to the sticking point” MacBeth is hard as nails on the outside, but goes insane with guilt. 

Characters must have weaknesses, not just strengths. What three weaknesses does Superman have? What about other heroes or superheroes? What about ordinary protagonists? 

Characters often have a lie. This is basically an overgeneralization that they have made on the basis of a traumatic event. “Our father/mother left the family; men/women are not to be trusted!” In order to find love, the protagonist must learn to overcome this and “grow” to a more nuanced view. This lie, at least initially, is often unconscious. They may not know they have it. If they do know, they initially do not see it as an overgeneralization at all; they are simply being “realistic.” 

Characters often have a secret. While the lie may be unconscious, the character is quite aware of their secret. They are ashamed of something and try to keep others from finding out about it. Neither the Lone Ranger, nor Zorro, nor Superman wants others to know their “true” identity. Other secrets might be about their upbringing, a love child, a rape, a crime, etc. 

Characters we care about, are active, not passive. They don’t just have vague inarticulate desires (in the most common case of an ArchPlot) – they want to achieve or gain something quite specific. Frodo needs to destroy the “One Ring.” Harry Potter needs to destroy Voldemort (or “convert” him). And, both these heroes will do anything to reach their goals. We don’t really want heroes whose approach is: “Well, while I’m visiting Mordor, if I get a chance, I might drop by Mount Doom and destroy the ring.” Even in user stories about products or services, have your use really care about the outcome. Cf. “Joe wants to get to downtown San Diego as soon as possible” vs. “Joe’s wife fell and hit her head; he needs to get his wife to the emergency room as soon as possible to avoid permanent brain damage.” 

Exercise: Improving a story. Each small group of 3-4 people takes a story and improves it. People work in turn improving character, plot, and setting. Put emphasis on character.  45 minutes. 

For each story, have the author pass out copies. Before reading the story, the author should say if there is anything in particular they want feedback on. 

After reading the story, one of the other members of the group acts as a shepherd. The shepherd, invites the author to listen to feedback. They should make a small group and have the author turn their back on the group, but be very close and listen to what is said. The author should be quiet, listen, and take notes. 

Each person, in turn, says one thing that they particularly like about the story in terms of plot, character, or setting. If anyone else in the group agrees, they simply say “ditto.” 

After each person, including the shepherd, has a had a chance to mention something they like, each one should offer a suggestion for improvement. Be as actionable and specific as possible in giving your feedback. If you agree with someone else’s suggestion for improvement, simply say, “ditto.” Rather than disagree, focus on giving your own positive suggestion when it’s your turn. It is not time to get into a debate about whether or not a suggestion is a good one or a bad one. Just give feedback to the author about the story and let them take it all in. 

When everyone has given feedback about the story, the shepherd invites the author back into the circle and then tells a short unrelated joke or anecdote.  

Move on to another story and another as time permits and try to get through everyone’s story. 

Class Discussion: What did you learn from the exercise? What surprised you? 25 minutes. 

Summary Recap:  5 minutes. 

Exercise for next class: Consider the feedback you obtained from the group and improve your story. Bring it in to the next class. 

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