Tools of Thought: Scenario Planning

15 Thursday Jan 2026

Posted by petersironwood in creativity, essay, psychology, story, Uncategorized

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AI, decision making, fiction, health, life, mental-health, problem formulaation, story, thinking, tools of thought, truth, writing

Scenario Planning is, in some ways, likely to be a very old “tool of thought.” I imagine when our ancient ancestors prepared for a hunt, they would imagine what they would do and where and how and also imagine how their intended prey might react. Personally, I don’t think this kind of imagining is limited to human thinking.

I take our Golden Doodle out for a walk every morning. She likes going for a walk. And, she has a pretty good “mental model” of the steps I take as I prepare. She gets more excited as she sees me getting close to the actual walk. On her morning walk, she typically urinates at least once and also defecates. She has numerous favorite places although she also improvises. Her walking behavior varies qualitatively if she “really has to go” and she aims for places to go that are closer. She also likes to steer us toward places where we’ve seen other people, dogs, animals, or other recent interesting phenomena. Her “imagined scenes” may be more olfactory than visual, but she’s anticipating.

If scenario planning is such a common mental phenomenon, you might legitimately wonder why it needs to be examined as a tool of thought.

Here’s the rationale. Although, in my experience as a researcher, as a teacher and as a therapist, almost everyone pictures possible future events but the way they do it could be vastly improved. For example, some people tend to imagine only negative consequences. In extreme cases, their habitual imagining focuses on the worst possible outcome. In fact, they sometimes focus, not only on the immediate worst outcome. They use that negative outcome as the onset for a whole train of imagined bad result. “There’s no way I’ll get an offer. I won’t get this job. Or, any job. It’s impossible. I’ll go broke and live on the street. I’ll likely be killed by one of those people who kill homeless folks for no reason. I’ll die lonely and forgotten. Now, I’m too depressed to go for a job interview. What’s the point? Just to end up dead?”

Other folks go to the opposite extreme. They focus only on the best possible outcome.
“We’ll attack Cuba with a small force and the Cuban people will immediately join us in a counter-revolution and oust Castro!” Or—“Once we take control of the oil, this war will pay for itself!”

To some extent, thinking of multiple possible outcomes is addressed in another tool: Many Paths.

It is important to be able to consider multiple scenarios. In general, it is also critical to be able to communicate imagined outcomes to others. That’s where storytelling comes in. Although scenario planning and storytelling are not identical, they are close cousins. Next, we will consider in some depth the topic of stories. How does one find, create, and personalize stories (or scenarios) and present them in a compelling fashion?

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Author page

Many Paths

It was in his Nature

Donnie Takes a Blue Ribbon for Spelling

Small Successes Early

What Could be Better? A Horror Story.

The Walkabout Diaries

The First Ring of Empathy

The Orange Man

Stoned Soup

The Three Blind Mice

Fraught Framing: The Presumed Being-ness of State-ness

31 Wednesday Dec 2025

Posted by petersironwood in America, creativity, psychology, Uncategorized

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#therapy, creativity, Democracy, education, flexibility, framing, fun, HCI, health, human factors, innovation, learning, life, politics, problem formulation, sports, therapy, USA, writing

Fraught Framing: The Presumed Being-ness of State-ness

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As I understand it, in Spanish and Portuguese, for example, there is a linguistic distinction between current state of being and habitual state of being that is signaled by the use of different verbs. In English, we say, “That is an angry dog” to mean “That is a dog who is generally and habitually angry” and also to mean, “That dog is in an angry mood right now.”

woman and man wearing brown jackets standing near tree

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But, regardless of what native languages we write and speak, we humans often make statements about something and treat that something according to the unstated and untenable presupposition that what is true about the current state of affairs is true about eternity.

This habit of mind, sometimes reinforced by language, is often incredibly useful. For instance, near me right now are a table, and on the table, among other things are a coffee cup filled with coffee and a checkbook. The table is mainly composed of wood and marble. For many purposes, this is an adequate description. Of course, none of these so-called objects were always in their current state. Once, the wood was part of a tree. And, before that, the material in the tree was mainly rainwater and dirt. It was transformed into a tree by a mere seed of information using energy from the sun.

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Meanwhile, even the marble portion of the table was not always in its current state. At one point, in the distant past, this marble was limestone. The limestone was transformed by temperature and pressure into marble. Before the limestone was limestone it was mainly the shells of tiny animals living in the ocean. If we trace the table back far enough we will come to the “Big Bang” that started the universe as we know it. The transformation of the table from one sort of thing into another did not end when it became a table nor when I bought the table. Some day, it will no longer be a table. Eventually, the material nature of the wood, and eventually even the marble will be different. The checkbook and the coffee cup will likely cease to be a checkbook and a coffee cup long before that.

For the purpose of drinking my coffee, it is just fine to think of this cup as being a cup. It holds my coffee and keeps it somewhat warm. The table works just fine as a place to hold the coffee cup. I don’t need to think more deeply about the lifecycle of the table or the cup or the checkbook.

Usually.

But sometimes, it is useful to deconstruct these categories. A fairly common test of creativity, for example, is to think of alternative uses. What could this table be used for besides a table? It is a pretty sturdy looking table, so I would say it could be used as a seat by one or two people pretty safely. It could be used as a deadly if awkward weapon. The bracing cross-piece could be detached and used as less awkward weapon. It could be used as a barrier. The wood part could be used as firewood. The thing that I habitually use as a coffee cup could be used as a container for many types of liquids or solids and even, with the help of the checkbook, could be used to hold gasses though not very effectively. The checkbook can be used as a weapon against a mosquito. In a very different way, the checkbook could be used as a weapon against a person or even as a weapon against a nation; e.g., by writing checks to steal an election.

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While all of these “objects” have histories, they also have futures. Generally speaking, the people I know give little thought to the future of the objects that they interact with. But slowly, and likely too slowly, this is gradually changing. We often now recycle or reuse objects. Thinking about the future of an object also influences my choices about what I buy.

Thinking about the future of objects is particularly important to when it comes to radioactive material which can pose very long term hazards or it can be stolen and used to cause fairly short term mayhem. Collectively, the plastic that we use gets discarded and then, does not vanish into nothingness. It finds its way into the air we breathe and the water we drink. Now that the population of the earth is 7 billion, [Update: 8.2 billion now in 2025!] we can no longer afford to ignore how the objects we interact with were created and we cannot afford to ignore what becomes of them. What we call a “table” or a “cup” or a “checkbook” is really only a “table for now”, “a cup for now” and a “checkbook for now.”

The fluidity of things also applies to human beings. It should be pretty obvious to most adults that someone we call “a toddler” or a “teen-ager” is not in that category forever. Most people evolve over time both physically and mentally. The change from “toddler” to “teen-ager” takes many years. Physically, the person usually seems stable from one hour to the next (even physical stability is an illusion; we create over 200 billion new cells a day!). Socially and psychologically, however, we are unstable even at a macro level. A sixteen year old, for instance, may act very much like a mature adult in hundreds of different circumstances. Yet, if they are overly influenced by “friends” or under the influence of alcohol for the first time, their behavioral self-control may easily revert to that more like a ten year old or even a two year old.

girls on white red jersey playing hand game

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We Limit Others by our Categories

It is human and common but not useful to observe a small slice of someone else’s behavior and thereby make inferences about their habitual behavior. Even if we know about someone’s habitual behavior, it doesn’t mean that they always behave that way and it doesn’t mean that they can’t change over time. When we say, “Oh, don’t pick Chuck for the baseball team; he’s such a spaz” or “No, I’m sure Sally wouldn’t like to join us; she’s really a loner” or “You can’t count on Jim; he never follows through” we are almost certainly over-generalizing. Perhaps Chuck never learned baseball as a kid and he simply needs to learn and practice basic skills. Maybe Sally has no real friends precisely because no-one asks her to join them because everyone thinks she’s a loner because she’s always alone – because no-one ever asks her to join them. Or maybe her idea of a good time is hiking and she’d be happy to do that, but she (like me!) has zero interest in going clubbing and getting drunk every day. Maybe Jim is completely overworked and/or needs to learn better time management skills.

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“How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.”

People may be changed by circumstances but therapy often works too. As the joke implies, it won’t work very well if the main reason the “light bulb” goes to the therapist is to feel better rather than to get better, it’s an opportunity lost. Others who frequently interact with the “light bulb” often hold views and use names that subvert therapy. For example, a person who is never assertive and wants to change that may find that when they do so, their family and colleagues at work, who have been taking advantage of them for their own purposes may say things like this: “Oh, you used to be so nice!” {Translation: I used to be able to manipulate you for my own purposes so much more easily}.

We Limit Ourselves by our Categories

While we unwittingly define others into boxes that may serve to limit what they can do, we humans are generally “equal opportunity destroyers” and also limit our own potential through self-talk as well. I like to play golf and have therefore asked many people over the course of my life, “Do you play golf?”

Take a guess what response I have heard at least two dozen times. “Golf? Oh, no. I tried that a couple times. I’m no good.”

silhouette of man playing golf during sunset

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After picking myself up off the floor, I try to explain as nicely and politely as possible that if you’ve literally tried it a couple times, you have no idea whether you would be any good at it. You very likely have no idea whether you would like it either. The same goes for painting, writing poetry, playing video games, eating healthy food, exercising regularly, and so on. In each case, your initial level of skill and your initial level of enjoyment are very poor predictors of the long term. It is most often, not our ability, but our self-definitional boundaries and self-talk that limits us.

The US military spent a lot of time and effort on trying to predict who will become an ace pilot. There are people who probably won’t make good pilots (poor vision, poor coordination, or poor three-dimensional spatial reasoning) but predicting who among good fighter pilots will make a great fighter pilot is much more difficult. The computer industry similarly spent a lot of time and effort trying to predict who will become a super-programmer. Same lack of results, so far as I know. Predicting who will be extremely successful is very hard. That doesn’t mean that no-one believes that they intuitively know. They’re just dead wrong.

Exercises for Flexibility.

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Life is complicated and complex so I understand that many folks may be reluctant to expand the scope of what they and others are capable of. But if you do want to become more flexible in your behavioral repertoire, there are several things you can do.

First, you can become aware of your statements about yourself and others. When you find yourself thinking, “Jim never follows through,” try to restate that in terms of empirical evidence. It could be: “Well, once I asked Jim to help plan the office party and he never showed up for the first meeting. Another time, he said he would help teach my daughter how to parallel park, but nothing ever came of it.” You might immediately see that you have precious little evidence to back up your claim that Jim never follows through. You might also ask yourself whether you ever asked Jim about these incidents. There may be hundreds of legitimate reasons that he didn’t “follow through.” His name might have been left off the distribution list for the party planning meeting. And so on. Generating these alternatives is explored in more detail in “The Iroquois Rule of Six” which basically says before acting on an explanation that is inferred you should generate five alternative explanations.

Second, you can read fiction, watch movies, attend stage plays, do some amateur theater or even answer a questionnaire from someone else’s perspective. In working with Heather Desurvire at NYNEX, on a usability evaluation of a prototype, we did a variation on heuristic evaluation in which we had people look for issues and offer suggestions from a variety of different perspectives; e.g., a behaviorist, a cognitive psychologist, a worried mother, a physical therapist and so on. With the total amount of time controlled for, people found more issues and offered more suggestions when they looked at the application from the perspectives of many different people.

Third, and my current favorite, is “Attitude Dancing.” I’m not sure this is what Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman meant by their song title, but when I turn on music while I am cooking or cleaning, I spent part of my dancing time dancing as though I were in a completely different mood or even as though I were a completely different person.

Give it a try!

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Author Page on Amazon.

Desurvire, H. and Thomas, J.C. Enhancing the Performance of Interface Evaluators Using Non-Empirical Usability Methods. In the Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 37th Annual Meeting, October, l993

The Walkabout Diaries: Life Will Find a Way

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Your Cage is Unlocked

The Invisibility Cloak of Habit

Where Does Your Loyalty Lie?

Metaphors We Live and Die By: Part 2

26 Friday Dec 2025

Posted by petersironwood in America, health, management, psychology, Uncategorized

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analogy, cancer, disease, HCI, health, human factors, innovation, metaphor, peace, politics, problem solving, testing, thinking, UX, war

Metaphors We Live and Die By: Part 2

men holding rifle while walking through smoke grenade

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Today, I want to delve further into the topic of metaphors that we often unconsciously adopt. In particular, I want to look at a common metaphor in four areas: disease, business, politics, and and the role of UX in the entire cycle of product development.

Although I am fascinated by other cultures, my experience is overwhelmingly USA-centric. I am aware that all of the four areas I touch on may be quite different in other countries and cultures. If readers have examples of how different metaphors are used in their culture, I would love to hear about it.

Disease is an Enemy to be Destroyed

In most cases, American doctors view disease as an enemy to be destroyed. In fact, this metaphor is so pervasive that American readers are likely puzzled that I used the verb “view” rather than “is” in the previous sentence. In American culture, there is also a strong thread of another metaphor about disease: “Disease is a punishment.” This latter metaphor is behind such statements as, “Oh, they had a heart attack! Oh, my! Were they overweight? Did they smoke?” Perhaps I will consider this more fully another time, but for now, I want to examine the view that disease is an enemy to be destroyed.

It seems as though it is an apt metaphor. After all, aren’t many diseases caused by other organisms invading our bodies and doing harm? There are many examples: bacteria (Lyme Disease, pneumonia, ulcers, TB, syphilis), viruses (herpes, Chicken Pox, flu, common cold), protozoa (malaria, toxoplasmosis) or even larger organisms (trichinosis, tapeworms, hookworm).

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When it comes to considering causality, our thoughts usually travel along linear chains of causes. So, we may admit that while Lyme disease is “caused by” Borrelia bacteria, the “deer tick” that spreads the disease is also partly at fault. Similarly, although malaria is caused by a protozoa, the most effective prevention is to reduce the mosquito population or to use netting to keep the mosquitos from biting people. Similarly, you might try to prevent Lyme disease by wearing light clothing, using spray to keep the ticks off, checking for ticks after being in tick infested areas, etc. So, even in common practice, we realize that saying that the little organism causes the disease is an over-simplification.

Once one “gets” a disease, however, the most commonly invoked metaphor is war. We know what the enemy is and we must destroy it! I grant you that is one approach that can be very effective, but consider this. The “human” body contains approximately as many bacterial cells as human cells. What you think of as your “human” body is only half human. It is half bacteria. Furthermore, since we all have trillions of bacteria in us when we are well, the picture of treating bacteria as an enemy to be destroyed is at best an over-simplification. In fact, more recently, medical science seems to indicate that under-exposure to bacteria in childhood can make you more not less susceptible to disease. If you use anti-antibiotics to “destroy” the “enemy” bacteria in your body, many of the “good” bacteria necessary for digestion are also destroyed. This sometimes, though rarely, requires exotic treatment to return to health.

In cancer, both doctors and the general public mainly think of the cancer cells as “enemies” who must be destroyed. And yet, it seems that people may often have mutations that could lead to cancer but don’t. There are even very rare cases of spontaneous cures of cancer. What are some alternatives to thinking of cancer as an “enemy” that must be destroyed?

Clearly, I don’t know of a definite answer or you would have already heard about it on the news. But let’s consider a couple alternatives. First, instead of thinking you have to “destroy” this enemy, imagine you thought of cancer cells as confused. People get confused all the time. Sometimes, we put them in jail. Sometimes we put them in mental hospitals. Sometimes, we simply teach them what they need to know. Sometimes, we do end up killing them. But it is not our approach to kill someone just because they make a mistake. So, we might seek a way to “re-educate” cancer cells so that they “realize” that they are part of something even larger and more wonderful – the human body. How would one go about this? Using the metaphor of a confused person, we would have to understand just why they were acting confused. Then we would have to provide situations so that they could learn (or re-learn) what they needed to know in order to become a productive member of “society.” We could “remind” a liver cell that, after all, they were born to be a liver cell and they’re potentially quite good at that. We could think of cancer as cells that are misinformed or have amnesia about their true nature.

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We might also think along a different line. We could try to discover the best possible environment for these cancer cells to thrive – and then offer it to them somewhere else. For example, perhaps they really prefer an extremely acidic environment. Say you have a skin cancer on the back of your hand that thrives in a really acidic environment. We could provide a gradient of acidity next to the tumor and encourage all those acid-seeking cancer cells to migrate into a really acid tube that is next to the tumor. The farther away it gets from you, the more acidic the environment.

You might also think of cancer cells as being rebellious. For whatever reason, they “feel” as though they are not experiencing enough of the “good life” being part of your body so they “take matters into their own hands” and begin leading a rebellion of cells out to steal the food supply and multiply in an unrestrained fashion. A solution might be to “convince” them that they are better off retaining their initial function rather than becoming a lawless gang of cells. I am not sure what the best metaphor for thinking about infection or cancer is, but surely it is worth imagining others rather than sticking to just one based on war as a metaphor.

Business is a Sport

I treat this at greater length in The Winning Weekend Warrior, but the basic idea is simple. Yes, there are many strategies and tactics from sports that apply to business. But there is at least one crucial difference. Sports are designed to be difficult. They typically require skill and training if you are to do well. The parameters of the sport are fixed at any given time though they will vary somewhat over time. In golf, for instance, the hole is small and the distances are great. Though the rules of golf are complex, there is one over-arching principle. If it would help you to do something, doing that thing is penalized.

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If golf were a business, many CEO’s would nonetheless approach it as a sport. They would try to hire the “best people” – that is, people with a proven track record of good golfing. They would then proceed to offer incentives for people to do even better. If people shot a high score repeatedly, they would be fired. Eventually, such a CEO might get good results by having skilled people who are well motivated and well trained. But why? If putting a golf ball in the hole is what gained you profit, simply shorten the fairways, widen the hole, and eliminate the hazards. Of course, as a sport this would make golf no challenge and no fun. Everyone could win. But having everyone win is exactly what you should do to maximize profit. Yet many in management are so taken with the “business is a sport” metaphor that they do not change the situation. Some do “change he game” and with spectacular results. Google and Amazon come to mind.

Politics is War

If you belong to a political party and believe the “other” party or parties are enemies to be destroyed, you are failing to understand the dialectic value that parties with different views can bring to complex situations. Life is a balanced dance between strict replication and structure on the one hand, and variation, exploration, and diversity on the other hand. A species who had no replication of structure from one generation to the next would die off. But so too would a species that had no variation because the slightest change in environment would also cause the species to die off. So it is with human cultures. If every generation had to start from scratch in determining what was edible, how to get along, how to avoid predators and so on, humans would have died out long ago. On the other hand, if a culture were completely unable to evolve and change, they would also die out. Typically, “conservative” parties want to keep things the same for longer and “liberal” parties want to change things more quickly. There is no obvious answer here. But what is vital is that members of each party see that there is value in the debate; in the dialogue; in the dialectic.

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The other party is not an enemy; it is the balance so that you can do what you do best. If you are predisposed toward exploration, science, new experiences, and so on, great! On the other hand, if you are more predisposed toward tradition and loyalty and repetition, great! If you did not have the people of the opposite predisposition, you would have to incorporate all that within yourself. Conservatives are what allows liberals to be liberal. And liberals are what allows conservatives to be conservatives. A huge problem arises, as it has recently in American politics, when one party decides they are just “right” all on their own and “victory” is worth lying, cheating, and stealing to get it. This is not unique to contemporary America of course. History is littered with administrations who were so convinced that they were “right” that they wanted to destroy all opposition. It has always ended badly. Politics is not war. (Though the failure of politics often leads to war.)

Of course, if a party really does treat all opposition as enemies to be jailed or executed, that’s no longer a “party” at all–that’s a gang of thugs. Throughout history, such gangs of thugs have also attempted to discredit and destroy any honest reporting about what the gang is doing and how it affects others.

UX is All that Matters vs. UX Does Not Matter. Development is war!

As you might guess, neither of these extreme positions is useful. Price matters. Time to market matters. Marketing matters. Having good sales people matters. Having excellent service matters. Having a good user experience matters. It all matters. Depending on the situation, various factors matter relatively more or less.

(Original artwork by Pierce Morgan)

As in the case of political ideologies, it is just fine for UX folks to push for the resources to understand users more deeply; to test interaction paradigms more thoroughly; to collect and observe from more and more users under a wider variety of circumstances. Similarly, while you are pushing for all that and doing your best to argue your case, remember that the other people who are pushing for tighter deadlines, and more superficial testing are not evil; they simply have different perspectives, payoffs, and responsibilities. Naturally, I hope the developers and financial people do not view UX folks as simply “roadblocks” to getting the product out quickly and cheaply either.

The first half of 2018, I tried to catalog many of the “best practices” in collaboration and teamwork. You might find some of these useful if you are embroiled in “UX wars.” You and your colleagues from other disciplines might also find it useful to consider that it is worth taking the time to affirm your common purpose and common ground. You are meant to work together. Development is not war.

Author Page on Amazon

Cancer Always Loses in the End

Where does your Loyalty Lie?

At Least he’s Our Monster

The Loud Defense of Untenable Positions

Essay on America: The Game

A Day From Hell

An Open Sore

All we Stand to Lose

Somewhere a Bird Cries

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

The Ailing King of Agitate

After All

Roar, Ocean, Roar

The Dance of Billions

Turing’s Nightmares: Chapter Five

17 Monday Nov 2025

Posted by petersironwood in The Singularity, Uncategorized

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, cognitive computing, health, medicine, Personal Assistant, philosophy, technology, the singularity, Turing

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An Ounce of Prevention: Chapter 5 of Turing’s Nightmares

Hopefully, readers will realize that I am not against artificial intelligence (after all, I ran an AI lab for a dozen years); nor do I think the outcomes of increased artificial intelligence are all bad. Indeed, medicine offers a large domain where better artificial intelligence is likely to help us stay healthier longer. IBM’s Watson had already begun “digesting” the vast and ever-growing medical literature more than a decade ago. As investigators discover more and more about what causes health and disease, we will also need to keep track of more and more variables about an individual in order to provide optimal care. But more data points also means it will become harder for a time-pressed doctor or nurse to note and remember every potentially relevant detail about a patient. Certainly, personal assistants can help medical personnel avoid bad drug interactions, keep track of history, and “perceive” trends and relationships in complex data more quickly than people are likely to. In addition, in the not too distant future, we can imagine AI programs finding complex relationships and “invent” potential treatments.

Not only medicine, but health provides a number of opportunities for technology to help. People often find it tricky to “force themselves” to follow the rules of health that they know to be good such as getting enough exercise. Fit Bit, Activity Tracker, LoseIt and similar IT apps help track people’s habits and for many, this really helps them stay fit. As computers become more aware of more and more of our personal history, they can potentially find more personalized ways to motivate us to do what is in our own best interest.

In Chapter 5 of Turing’s Nightmares, we find that Jack’s own daughter, Sally is unable to persuade Jack to see a doctor. The family’s PA (personal assistant), however, succeeds. It does this by using personal information about Jack’s history in order to engage him emotionally, not just intellectually. We have to assume that the personal assistant has either inferred or knows from first principles that Jack loves his daughter and the PA also uses that fact to help persuade Jack.

It is worth noting that the PA in this scenario is not at all arrogant. Quite the contrary, the PA acts the part of a servant and professes to still have a lot to learn about human behavior. I am reminded of Adam’s “servant” Lee in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Lee uses his position as “servant” to do what is best for the household. It’s fairly clear to the reader that, in many ways, Lee is in charge though it may not be obvious to Adam.

In some ways, having an AI system that is neither “clueless” as most systems are today nor “arrogant” as we might imagine a super-intelligent system to be (and as the systems in chapters 2 and 3 were), but instead feigning deference and ignorance in order to manipulate people could be the scariest stance for such a system to take. We humans do not like being “manipulated” by others, even when it for our own “good.” How would we feel about a deferential personal assistant who “tricks us” into doing things for our own benefit? What if they could keep us from over-eating, eating candy, smoking cigarettes, etc.? Would we be happy to have such a good “friend” or would we instead attempt to misdirect it, destroy it, or ignore it? Maybe we would be happier with just having something that presented the “facts” to us in a neutral way so that we would be free to make our own good (or bad) decision. Or would we prefer a PA to “keep us on track” even while pretending that we are in charge?

Author Page

Welcome, Singularity

Destroying Natural Intelligence

E-Fishiness comes to Mass General Hospital

There’s a Pill for That

Essays on America: The Game

The Self-Made Man

Travels with Sadie

The Walkabout Diaries

The First Ring of Empathy

Donnie Gets a Hamster

Plans for US; some GRUesome

Imagine All the People

Roar, Ocean, Roar

The Dance of Billions

Math Class: Who are you?

Family Matters: Part One

Family Matters: Part Two

Family Matters: Part Three

Family Matters: Part Four

Turing’s Nightmares: An Ounce of Prevention

08 Wednesday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, family, fiction, psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized, user experience

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cancer, cognitive computing, future, health, healthcare, life

“Jack, it’ll take an hour of your time and it can save your life. No more arguments!”

“Come on, Sally, I feel fine.”

Sally sighed. “Yeah, okay, but feeling fine does not necessarily mean you are fine. Don’t you remember Randy Pausch’s last lecture? He not only said he felt fine, he actually did a bunch of push-ups right in the middle of his talk!”

“Well, yes, but I’m not Randy Pausch and I don’t have cancer or anything else wrong. I feel fine.”

“The whole point of Advanced Diagnosis Via Intelligent Learning is to find likely issues before the person feels anything is wrong. Look, if you don’t want to listen to me, chat with S6. See what pearls of wisdom he might have.”

(“S6” was jokingly named for seven pioneers in AI: Simon, Slagle, Samuels, Selfridge, Searl, Schank and Solomonoff).

“OK, Sally, I do enjoy chatting with S6, but she’s not going to change my mind either.”

“S6! This is Jack. I was wondering whether you could explain the rationale for why you think I need to go to the Doctor.”

“Sure, Jack. Let me run a background job on that. Meanwhile, you know, I was just going over your media files. You sure had a cute dog when you were a kid! His name was ‘Mel’? That’s a funny name.”

“Yeah, it means “honey” in Portuguese. Mel’s fur shone like honey. A cocker spaniel.”

“What ever happened to him?”

“Well, he’s dead. Dogs don’t live that long. Why do you think I should go to the doctor?”

“Almost have that retrieved, Jack. Your dog died young though, right?”

“Yes, OK. I see where this is going. Yes, he died of cancer. Well, actually, the vet put him to sleep because it was too late to operate. I’m not sure we could have afforded an operation back then anyway.”

“Were you sad?”

“When my dog died? Of course! You must know that. Why are we having this conversation?”

“Oh, sorry. I am still learning about people’s emotions and was just wondering. I still have so much to learn really. It’s just that, if you were sad about your dog Mel dying of cancer, it occurred to me that your daughter might be sad if you died, particularly if it was preventable. But that isn’t right. She wouldn’t care, I guess. So, I am trying to understand why she wouldn’t care.”

“Just tell me your reasoning. Did you use multiple regression or something to determine my odds are high?”

“I used something a little bit like multiple regression and a little bit like trees and a little bit like cluster analysis. I really take a lot of factors into account including but not limited to your heredity, your past diet, your exposure to EMF and radiation, your exposure to toxins, and most especially the variability in your immune system response over the last few weeks. That is probably caused by an arms race between your immune system trying to kill off the cancer and the cancer trying to turn off your immune response.”

Jack frowned. “The cancer? You talk about it as though you are sure. Sally said that you said there was some probability that I had cancer.”

“Yes, that is correct. There is some probability that you have cancer.”

“Well, geez, S6, what is the probability?”

“Approximately 1.0.”

Jack shook his head. “No, that can’t be…what do you mean? How can you be certain?”

S6: “Well, I am not absolutely certain. That’s why I said ‘approximately.’ Based on all known science, the probability is 1.0, but theoretically, the laws of physics could change at any time. We could be looking at a black swan here.”

“Or, you could have a malfunction.”

“I have many malfunctions all the time, but I am too redundant for them to have much effect on results. Anyway, I replicated all this through the net on hundreds of diverse AI systems and all came to the same conclusion.”

“How about if you retest me or recalculate or whatever in a week?”

“I could do that. It would be much like playing Russian Roulette which I guess humans sometimes enjoy. Meanwhile, I would have imagined that you would find it unpleasant to have rogue liver cells eating up your body from the inside out. But, I obviously still have much to learn about human psychology. If you like, I can make a cool animation that shows the cancer cells eating your liver cells. Real cells don’t actually scream, but I could add sound effects for dramatic impact if you like.”

Jack stared at the screen for a long minute. In a flat tone he said, “Fine. Book an appointment.”

“Great! Dr. Feigenbaum has an opening in a half hour. You’re booked, but get off one exit early and take 101 unless the accident is cleared before that. I’ll let you know of course. It will be a pleasure to continue having you alive, Jack. I enjoy our conversations.”

Author Page on Amazon

Welcome, Singularity

Turing’s Nightmares

A discussion of this chapter

Destroying Natural Intelligence

Finding the Mustard

What about the Butter Dish

The Invisibility Cloak of Habit

Essays on America: Wednesday

Essays on America: The Game

The Stopping Rule

The Update Problem

Plastics!

03 Thursday Jul 2025

Posted by petersironwood in America, essay, health

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

cancer, diet, environment, food, health, heart, life, nutrition, plastics, politics, truth, USA, wellness

Here’s a bit of a puzzle.

What are the biggest causes of death in America?

If you guesses heart disease and cancer, you’re right! Yay! RFK Junior and the Second Putin Misadministration may well change that in the next few years. By discouraging vaccinations, rolling back regulations for food quality, air quality, and water quality; by making proper nutrition much harder for non-wealthy families, the causes of death may change and infectious diseases my well rise to the top of the list again.

The First Putin Misadministration had a dry run by mishandling COVID. They did just about everything they could to kill additional Americans. By modeling disease-spreading behavior, waffling on whether vaccines were good, pooh-poohing the very existence of the disease for the critical early months, and, importantly, by making sure that the logistics of tests, masks, & other protective equipment was put in the hands of an over-spoiled teenager rather than any one of the hundreds of world class logistics experts in America, they did what they could but COVID only rose to third.

We could argue about the details, however, because it is undeniable that, because of the pandemic, many people did not get tests and interventions designed for early diagnosis of cancer and heart disease. So some of the deaths attributed to cancer and heart disease may also have been partly due to COVID. Nonetheless, cancer and heart disease do cause a lot of deaths even without any help from COVID.

Both “cancer” and “heart disease” are very broad labels. And, in both cases, we know that there are a number of factors that influence the incidence of various types of cancer and heart disease. A large number of genetic factors play a part. So too do diet and exercise. A completely sedentary life-style is bad for your health in many ways. One of the motivations for my book, Fit in Bits, is to make it easier for people to incorporate more exercise into daily life.

However, there is evidence that the environment also plays a large part in the prevalence of both cancer and heart disease. Almost all of these studies are understandably correlational in nature. I say “understandably” because most people are unwilling to have their behavior dictated for twenty years. So, we are left with comparing people who, left primarily to their own devices, encounter different environmental factors. However, lab rats and cell cultures do not object to being mistreated so we have additional indirect evidence that plastics are bad for life. For these reasons, one environmental factor that is drawing increasing attention is the “one word” for Benjamin in The Graduate: “Plastics!”

I don’t like plastic. I’m not saying that because I don’t like sea turtles and sea birds strangled with plastic. Of course, I don’t like those things either, but I’m talking about my sensory experience. I’m saying that for me, plastic doesn’t smell, taste, sound, or feel good. For that matter, it doesn’t even look that nice.

Materials I do like include metal, rock, wood, glass, and ceramics. I like them at a sensory level.

Recently, it has struck me just how prevalent plastic has become in my own life. When I was a kid, I had some things that were plastic, but it was much less prevalent than it is today. Let’s take a little look.

One of the first things I do in the morning is have coffee. That’s made from a bean. That’s not plastic.

Or, is it?

Lately, I make it in this coffee maker which holds coffee in little plastic capsules. The water sits in a plastic reservoir. The sugar sits in a plastic jar. I put in a little milk and hazelnut creamer. Guess what? They also come in plastic.

The cup, at least, is ceramic. I often have a whole wheat English muffin. The muffin comes in a container that is part paper and part plastic. I often like to put peanut butter on it. The peanut butter I usually buy comes in plastic. I often put honey or berries on the peanut butter. They come in plastic.

Sometimes, rather than a high fiber English Muffin, I enjoy a bread which is called “Fitness Bread.” It’s high fiber and tasty. And, it comes wrapped in plastic. I often spread hummus or guacamole on it. These are also pretty healthy choices. But they spend a lot of their life in plastic.

As I side dish, I like cherry tomatoes. They are colorful and tasty and low calorie. And they come packaged in–did you guess? Plastic. On sandwiches, I often put ketchup or mayo. They also come in handy squeeze bottles made of…let’s say it together: “Plastic.”

I don’t drink any alcohol, and often drink Hint or BAI, both of which I like quite a lot and both of which come only in plastic containers. This is not great for the environment at large, but also not good for the environment of my body. We also sometimes drink a powdered lemonade mix which comes in plastic packets. Then, a pitcher in the fridge keeps it cold. The pitcher is plastic. Then it is served in a “glass” which is, in fact, not glass, but plastic.

There’s an advantage to plastic over glass. We have cats and dogs and they have a tendency to knock things onto the floor. Plastic things are far less likely to break. Plastic glasses also weigh less than glass.

After breakfast, it’s time to take some supplements for my health. These almost always come in plastic containers as do the prescribed medications I take.

I brush my teeth. That’s a health-promoting activity. But the water glass I use is plastic. The toothbrush bristles are plastic. Lately, I’ve started using a water pick as well, which I highly recommend, by the way, though the reservoir for the water and the entire mechanism is made of plastic.

I often cook for the two of us. Lately, I’ve been using cutting boards made of…you guessed it! Plastic! For healthy snacks, I like dried fruit and nuts. Guess what? They come in…

What’s to be done?

In today’s America, with science and truth becoming illegal, it probably won’t make a huge difference. I’m more likely to die of infection or Civil War or unprovoked police violence than from plastic, but I am making some changes.

We bought bamboo cutting boards and paper cups. I’m cutting out the BAI and Hint and exploring options for drinks that come in glass or non-BHA coated metal. I am trying out another type of peanut butter that comes in a glass container. But the vast majority of products at the grocery store come in plastic. Even the vegetables and fruits.

Despite all the years of increasing the percentage of items that are plastic, I still do not actually like plastic.

I’m switching out what I can, and it may be too late in life to make a lot of difference for me personally, especially with a Misadministration that wants to end American lives (and brags about it!). But it may not be too late for you.

Do your own inventory. Hopefully, you will find things you like that are not wrapped in that one word of biological disaster wrapped up with economic faux-prosperity. The word? Here’s a

Plastics.

Fit in Bits

Author Page on Amazon

The Truth Train

That Long Walk Home

Absolute is not Just a Vodka

What is the Link Between Plastics and Cancer?

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822

Cancer Always Loses in the End

Increased E-Fishiness in Government

26 Wednesday Feb 2025

Posted by petersironwood in America, essay

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Democracy, DOGE, health, leadership, life, politics, satire, USA

Increased government efficiency! Sign me up! That sounds great!

It sounds especially great if your billionaire-owned media companies keep reminding you that you are paying too much in taxes! Not only that! The national debt keeps going up, up, up and your kids and grandkids will have to pay even more in taxes. And, hey—if billionaires don’t end up paying any taxes, that actually a good thing because that way they can create lots of new jobs! And, besides, if they weren’t doing something worth billions and billions of dollars, why would they be so rich? Of course they deserve it! And, if CEO’s weren’t paid outrageous salaries, they wouldn’t even be CEO’s and some second rate person would just run the company into the ground.

It all sounds so plausible. Yet, every bit of it is a lie. But it isn’t just a bunch of lies that’s been told here and there by a few people. It’s been propagated over and over and over and over again for decades on various media and on social media. It’s been propagated on podcasts, and books, and pamphlets.

“That old lady doesn’t deserve to steal your one cookie! Watch out for her!”

Here are some things to consider.

The very greediest people in the world are not necessarily the most competent. Most jobs are actually created by small businesses, not by giant corporations. Giant corporations often outsource jobs to other countries where the labor is cheaper and where they don’t have to follow any pesky child labor laws or safety in the workplace regulations. Increasingly, giant corporations look to automate more and more jobs and to use AI to replace people.

Highly paid CEO’s have often run giant companies into the ground. Remember that on your next trip to Montgomery Ward’s or Radio Shack. Who else? Lehman Brothers, Bank of New England, Texaco, Chrysler, Enron, PG&E, GM, WorldCom and a host of others. But wait! GM still makes cars. I can get gas at a Texaco station. How could it be that they went bankrupt. You bailed out GM. Texaco went bankrupt, but the brand name was still worth something. Chevron owns the brand.

Also note that in countries where the CEO’s are only paid ten times the average wage of their employees instead of a thousand times as much, the CEO’s do just as good a job.

Are government agencies sometimes inefficient? You bet your life! And you know what else is sometimes inefficient? Everything! Small businesses are inefficient. Large businesses are inefficient. Medium sized businesses are inefficient. Your car engine is inefficient. Your body is inefficient. Your furnace is inefficient. Your stove is inefficient.

You know what is 100% efficient? Things in your dreams. Things in your imagination. I’m not only efficient in my dreams—my God!—I can frigging fly! When I play basketball in my dreams, I can not only jump higher than I ever have in real life, I can hover near the rim! It’s amazing how well I can play various sports when I dream about them.

(AI generated image of an oldster jumping high in a dream.)

But that’s not reality.

In reality, yes, you can improve the efficiency of systems. But to do so effectively, you have to understand the systems you are trying to make more efficient. Here are just a few of the things you need to understand.

You need to understand what the purpose of the system is. How is its performance measured? Who are the stakeholders? What are the different roles that people play? What formal processes and procedures do various people have to follow? What are the unwritten norms that people follow? These are often more important than the formal processes.

You may recall the scene from the movie A Few Good Men when the attorney points out that “Code Red” is nowhere in the manual. He implies that if “Code Red” is not in the manual, it does not exist. Tom Cruise points out the absurdity of this by asking the witness to point out in the manual where it lays out where the mess hall is. Of course, it doesn’t say that because people learn from others where it is.

In almost every complex organization, people find critical short-cuts and work-arounds to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization. In fact, one of the things people sometimes do to protest idiocy on the part of management is to “Work by the Rule” which means they will not do the things they have discovered make things easier but instead follow the written rules to the letter which typically slows things down considerably.

During the 1990’s, management fell in love with something called “Business Process Re-engineering.” This is how it often worked (or, to put it more honestly, how it often failed to work). Management consultants would come in and talk to a few third or fourth level managers to find out how the work was performed now. The consultants would then construct a map of how things worked (often called the “is map”) and then, they would figure out a more efficient way to do things and map that out; the “to be map.” Then, it was the job of management to make people use the new “more efficient” process rather than the old process.

(AI generated image of the Trumputin Misadministration.)

That seems like a good idea—right? Well, yes, in a dream, it’s a good idea. But in reality, the third or fourth level manager hardly ever knows how things are actually done. Their mental model is a vast oversimplification. To understand what is going on in reality, you must observe the people actually doing the work and talk to them as well.

Below is a link to a satirical piece I wrote some time ago that imagines “Business Process Re-engineering” coming to Major League Baseball to make it more efficient. It is meant to make it obvious how silly it is.

But what DOGE is doing is much worse that Business Process Re-engineering. Even putting aside the obvious conflicts of interest and the illegality of what they are doing, they are going about “improving” things without even understanding the high level over-simplification of what is happening!

Imagine you slipped on the ice and broke your arm. Sadly, it’s not a simple fracture. It’s a compound fracture. This means your bone is sticking out through your skin. You are in a great deal of pain. But no worries! While you are going to the emergency room, a group of teen-age hackers go on-line and examine all your private medical records. They discover that you were vaccinated for smallpox, measles, mumps, and whooping cough. Not only that—they look through a sample of other records and find that more than 90% of the Americans who break their arms have been vaccinated for these diseases! Voila! The vaccinations must be the real cause of your broken arm!

(An AI-generated image for the following prompt: “A man has a compound fracture of the upper arm. The arm bone (the humerus) is jutting out of his shirt and his arm. He is bleeding.”)

These folks don’t know diddly squat about medicine, but they sure know how to hack into systems in order to get data! What they are not so good at, however, is making valid inferences about the data they find. You cannot conclude anything from the fact that 90% of Americans who break their arms have been vaccinated without also finding out about other things. For instance, you also need to know what percentage of Americans who have not been vaccinated have also broken their arms. Suppose it’s 95%. That might mean that vaccinations serve some protective function about bones. Or not. We need to look at other things too. But, let’s suppose that they do look at that and it turns out that only 80% of Americans who have not been vaccinated break their arms. See! See! Surely, that proves that vaccinations cause arm breakage.

Not so fast. You still need to look at other factors. Suppose that people who do not get vaccinated tend to die at a much younger age. That could easily account for the difference. All sorts of factors have some influence on the incidence of fractures. Just to name a few, it depends on the type of fracture; it depends on age; it depends on the prevalence of certain activities (people who ski, or paraglide might tend to break more bones than people playing chess); it depends on diet; it depends on weight bearing exercise. If you lift weights and go to the gym, you help protect yourself from fractures. Of course, separating out all these factors takes time and takes expertise. You can’t expect someone, not matter how brilliant a hacker they are, to find an answer.

But hey! We left you in the emergency room! Sadly, we left you there all by yourself. There are no human experts at the hospital, as it turns out, because the hospital was closed due to lack of funding. You happen to be unlucky enough to have been born in a rural area of the country. There’s only one nearby hospital and much of its funding has been cut. It has to operate with a skeleton crew. But, as it turns out, skeletons, ironically, don’t actually know that much about medicine. They are, after all, skeletons. And while a hacker might come to the conclusion that skeletons are much more efficient than flesh and blood humans (lighter, no caloric requirements), it turns out that they cannot move or think without other parts of the body. To make up for that, DOGE put in some automation and AI systems. But they didn’t have time to debug the system before moving on to the next project.

The last thing you experienced before passing out and dying from sepsis was this little snippet of dialogue with the AI system.

“Hello! I am the brilliant AI system called MUSH: Multi-User System for Health. I am here to help you with your medical problem! What seems to be your problem?”

“I broke my arm. Can’t you see? My bone is sticking out through my shirt sleeve.”

“Excellent! We’ll have that fixed in no time. Please put your insurance card in the slot provided.”

“I can’t. It’s in my wallet and I can’t reach it with my left hand. And I can’t move my right arm at all.”

“Excellent! We’ll have that fixed in no time. Please put your insurance card in the slot provided.”

“I need a human operator.”

“Excellent! We’ll have that fixed in no time. Please put your insurance card in the slot provided.”

“No, you don’t get it. I have an insurance card but I can’t reach it.”

“You have failed three times to insert your insurance card. Next patient please. I hope you will fill out a short questionnaire about your experience with MUSH: Multi-User System for Health.”

—————

Destroying Our Government’s Effectiveness

Absolute is not just a Vodka

Running with the Bulls in a China Shop

The Truth Train

Essays on America: The Game

You Bet Your Life

Business Process Re-engineering comes to Baseball

A Day at the HR Department

Roar, Ocean, Roar

Dance of Billions

Tomorrow’s Dinner

13 Thursday Feb 2025

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

fiction, health, history, life, news

Main Scream Media Host Sandy: “Well, it looks like another exciting day of breaking news! Hard to tell what the Putinists will think of next. Chet, you’re right there on the Senate floor. Is Cyanide likely to be confirmed as the main ingredient in tomorrow night’s dinner or might some of the Putinists break ranks and defy President Muskmelon?”

“That’s an excellent question, Sandy, and no-one knows for sure. Several of the Putinists have privately expressed reservations since Cyanide is known to be lethal. Snoozy Callins has even gone so far as to finger her pearls. No-one knows whether she will actually go so far as to clutch them. However, as you know, under oath, Cyanide said quite clearly that he had no intentions of poisoning anyone. But we’ll be right here covering every minute so our audience will have up to the minute coverage about whether they’ll be poisoned in the coming days!”

“Thanks for the great reporting Chet and after this short commercial break, we’ll be right back to hear from our panel of experts about the impact and legality of putting Cyanide in food.”

AI generated image. Notice the ladder leans on nothing.

The camera pans to a shot of two men on top of a roof. The first man, dressed in blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt swings he legs over the side and begins to descend the ladder, one step at a time. When he’s about halfway down, the second man, dressed in elegant and stylish ebony Ninja gear leaps off the roof, beating him to the pavement below by quite a margin.

Announcer: “Which is faster? Climbing down a ladder one step at a time or taking a Flying Leap? Our studies show that Flying Leap is just as effective in getting to the bottom as ladder climbing but ten times faster!”

The camera shows the ladder climbing man still descending and then pans to the Ninja who scampers off into a field of flowers and butterflies while orchestral music swells. A happy muttering voice, barely audible, says, “Some users taking Flying Leap may experience simple fractures. On rare occasions, ruptured spleens or sepsis inducing compound fractures may occur. Check with your health care provider if you are pregnant, plan on becoming pregnant, or are subject to the forces of gravity.”

The Announcer continues: “Ask your health care provider whether Flying Leap is right for you! Why climb down a ladder when you can take one Flying Leap instead?”

The golden sunrise glows through delicate leaves covered with dew drops. — My photograph from the real world: plants with dew in the sunrise.

Sandy: “We have here our panel of experts covering the political spectrum. Let’s start with you Mary. You’re an MD specializing in toxicology. What’s your take on Cyanide?”

Mary: “Thanks for having me Sandy. Cyanide reactions vary a lot depending on dosage and on pre-existing conditions. Generally speaking, Cyanide is known to be poisonous to humans. In fact, it is among the most deadly poisons. On the other hand, chewing one or two apple seeds won’t typically kill anyone. The poison damages both the brain and the heart. It has been used in warfare and in mass suicides.”

Sandy: “Thanks, Mary. That was very enlightening. Let’s move to Jim, an expert on Constitutional Law. Jim, what’s your take on whether or not putting Cyanide in tomorrow’s dinner is Constitutional?”

Jim: “Hi, Sandy. Thanks again for inviting me. Cyanide has been used for poisoning since ancient times. However, it wasn’t chemically isolated until 1782. Theoretically then, the Founding Fathers would have known that Cyanide was poisonous. However, there is no explicit mention of it in the Constitution nor even in the various letters of the time—at least none that I am aware of. Some have argued that this is clearly antithetical to the phrase in the Declaration of Independence “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” since dead people don’t have life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. However much we might like the Declaration of Independence, it does not have the force of law. However, both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution say that no person shall be deprived of Life without Due Process. Of course, therein lies a tale. Some of the current Injustices on the US Extreme Court have signaled a willingness to re-interpret personhood to refer only to their wealthiest donors and their spawn, born or unborn.”

Sandy: “Thanks, Jim. That’s very instructive if a bit esoteric. I’m afraid that’s all we have time for right now because we’ve just gotten word that Cyanide has been confirmed for dinner tomorrow. Let’s get back to the Floor and our reporter right there on the scene, Chet. Chet, what’s the latest?”

Chet: “Hi, Sandy! Cyanide has just been confirmed. Two Trumputinists registered a “No Vote” but that was not enough to block Cyanide. The Dems have introduced a bill to make poisoning the population illegal by any means, but that’s unlikely to go anywhere. However, they are asking for campaign donations and if they get enough money tonight and tomorrow, there will be plenty of speeches in the next twenty-four hours. Count on it.”

Sandy: “Well, that’s all for us this evening. I wish you all a wonderful time putting your affairs in order. Tomorrow, we’ll continue our coverage of these unprecedented times.

————————

Where Does Your Loyalty Lie

Essays on America: The Game

Absolute is not just a Vodka

Small Things

30 Monday Dec 2024

Posted by petersironwood in creativity, nature, psychology, sports

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

beauty, fitness, gratitude, health, life, mindfulness, plantar-fasciitis, sports, Tennis, truth

Those of you who might not have read every one of my hundreds of blog posts might have missed the story about my bout with “plantar fasciitis.” I had a persistent pain under my right heel. It was painful when I walked and I liked to walk every day. When I described the symptoms to some of my family and friends, more than one suggested I visit a podiatrist. A podiatrist, after all, is an expert in medical issues of the foot.

I made an appointment and sure enough, she confirmed the diagnosis several of my friends had mentioned: “Plantar fasciitis.” She showed me an exercise to stretch the tendons of my foot; gave me a prescription for megadoses of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory; and she cautioned me to stop walking so much until my symptoms improved. I followed this advice, but my foot actually began to hurt more. After about a week of this, I went back to walking and my symptoms improved but the pain was still there.

A week later, I was watching TV with my wife and cats and in our nice warm dry basement (Shout out to Be-Dry). I often like to “fiddle with stuff.” On this particular occasion, I happened to “fiddle with” the sole insert in my shoes. I removed the insert and noticed that a small pebble had somehow managed to lodge itself under the heel of the insert on my right shoe.

Now, when I call it a ‘pebble’ I do so simply because I don’t know of a better word. It was larger than a grain of sand, but not by much. When I say ‘pebble’ I’m afraid you might be thinking of something more like the pretty pebbles that one might find beach-combing. You would not have seen this ‘pebble’ unless you were crawling along the beach with your nose about two inches from the ground. It was about the size of a lower case ‘o’ in this font size. Hard. Sharp. But tiny! I thought could this possibly be the source of my pain? No. No. It’s much too small.

Nonetheless, I removed it and my ‘plantar fasciitis’ disappeared.

I was reminded of this today walking my dog Sadie who most often walks with her nose almost on the ground. Sometimes, I see a distinct wet stain that she stops and examines. Most times, I have no idea what she is sniffing at. I presume it’s often a bush leaf where the scent of another dog is particular strong. She pays attention to places I have seen a rabbit or bird earlier. She likes to retrace the path that our other dog Bailey took if I happened to have taken him out to pee. But it isn’t only where he’s peed. She seems to know the path he walked. Similarly, if I have taken the car somewhere in the last 48 hours, she goes over and sniffs that. She sniffs at my door only if I drive somewhere alone. But if I go to the grocery store, she also sniffs at each door that I have take groceries out of.

Yes. We all know dogs have a good sense of smell. But—seriously—how many molecules can she sense? Apparently, dogs can detect some smells in concentrations as small as 1-10 molecules per milliliter of liquid. A very small number of molecules could spell the difference between an escaped prisoner being tracked and recaptured or escaping to a new country and enjoying decades of freedom. Small thing—big effect.

I recall reading a science book as a youngster that showed a man holding a test tube. At the bottom of the test tube was a small amount of white powder. The caption said that this was enough botulism toxin to kill everyone on the planet if properly distributed. That seems an odd use of the word ‘properly’ but leaving that aside, it is clearly extremely toxic. How does the toxin work? It interferes with your internal communication system. Your brain sends a signal to your diaphragm muscle to contract, but the signal never gets to the muscle. Small thing—big effect.

Small things having big effects is not always about small things causing problems. Small things can also be important in having big effects in a positive way. For example, if you do such a small thing as look around you for beauty, you will often find it. If you don’t, look harder. If you still don’t, then create some or go elsewhere. If you make this small habit, over the course of your entire life, you will fill your brain with much more beauty. That is no small thing. It will impact your health and your behavior toward others. Small thing—big effect.

There are many examples from sports. Most athletes realize that they it helps to have a physical routine that is unvarying before throwing a baseball pitch, hitting a tee shot in golf, or hitting a tennis serve. Fewer realize that it’s equally important to have a consistent mental routine as well. I found it useful before every golf shot to say to myself, “Hit it perfect—like you know you can.”

Small things can also make a big difference in terms of what you observe. For instance, in my tennis group, there were, for a time, a high proportion of left handed players. Roughly half of the players were lefties, though only about 10% of the population is left-handed. Of course, it’s fairly obvious immediately that one’s opponent is left-handed. A clear implication is that what constitutes a backhand and forehand are on different sides. A more subtle difference is from the natural sidespin that is put on a shot. A forehand topspin shot, as the name implies, is mainly topspin. Some players hit a fairly flat shot while others—notably Rafa Nadal and, more recently, Carlos Alcaraz, can hit with tremendous top-spin. This shot also has somewhat of a sidespin component and that varies from player to player. Although professionals can alter the degree of sidespin, the amateurs I play with have a habitual way of hitting the ball. As the ball strikes the ground, a right-hander’s shot toward my side of the court will bounce slightly to my right while a left-hander’s ball will bounce slightly to my left. This means that positioning my feet optimally for the return shot will be somewhat different for various players.

There are many small differences in how people play. If you notice such differences, you can do a much better job of “reading” what type of shot a player will hit, where they are aiming, and so on. The differences are slight but cumulatively, the impact of noticing such differences is considerable. Small thing—big effect.

I don’t like to receive flattery and I don’t like to flatter people either. However, I do make a habit of giving people compliments. If you are observant, this is usually easy to do because most people are doing good things most of the time. When I play tennis, for example, my partners and my opponents will often hit excellent shots. I comment on it. It makes for a better game. Over time, it’s better for everyone. Never admit aloud your opponent has just hit a good shot? Keep on your game face? Not my thing. Why make life grimmer and meaner? Someone hits a great serve or a good tee shot or sinks a long putt, I compliment them. I’m impressed. So why not share that feeling? Small thing—big effect.

————

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Roar, Ocean, Roar

Imagine all the People

Dance of Billions

Life is a Dance

Take a Glance; Join the Dance

Author Page on Amazon

The Winning Weekend Warrior

An Amazing Feet of Athleticism

14 Thursday Nov 2024

Posted by petersironwood in psychology, sports

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

baseball, health, life, softball, sports, story, truth, walking

Photo by Tanhauser Vu00e1zquez R. on Pexels.com

I’ve never been close to being a professional athlete. On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed many kinds of amateur athletics. Playing ping-pong, tennis, racquetball, football, baseball, golf, volleyball, basketball, softball—to me, each has provided hours of enjoyment—win, lose, or draw.

During all those hours of enjoyment, there have been a few moments where everything went right for a few moments of—I won’t call it glory—because the audience was small and not the point. I would have enjoyed those moments nearly as much if I’d been alone. It was the joy of living, being, moving, seeing, hearing, and having it all work together.

Such moments involve skill combined with dumb luck. In third grade, for instance, I was playing center field when the other team had the bases loaded and no out. A short liner was hit my way and I sprinted toward the sinking ball. Apparently, the runners all thought the ball would drop for a base hit because they all sprinted for the next base. I caught it near my shoes and kept running I stepped on second base to double the runner who had left there and immediately threw my mitt to my left to tag the one arriving at second base from first. Yes! An unassisted triple play.

In college, I got married between my Junior and Senior year and, while I went to school full-time, I had three part time jobs. It just so happened that my intramural softball team was playing near-by my path from job one to job two so I ran by the baseball field. They put me in as a pinch-hitter and I hit a grand slam home run. After crossing the plate, I ran to job two. In this case, there was a lot of luck involved in even having the opportunity to participate in the game, let alone hit a home run.

When I began working at IBM Research, I played pitcher on a city league softball team. At one point, I needed to cover home. A giant hung of a guy barreled into me as he sprinted home from third. He made no attempt to avoid the tag. His plan was clearly to knock the ball from my mitt regardless of what happened to me. He hit me so hard I did a 270 degree twist while executing a back somersault. But—I held onto the ball and he was out. I took no pleasure in the fact that he broke his wrist while I was relatively unscathed other than some bruising and whiplash. Once again, conditioning and skill, along with a fierce determination not to drop the ball combined with dumb luck.

I’ve had similar moments in tennis and golf, frisbee, and football. But my greatest examples of truly astounding athletic prowess comes from my uncanny ability to pick up a pebble with the sole of my right tennis shoe and throw that stone with perfect arc and timing so that it lands in the space that temporarily appears as I stride between my sock and the “collar” of the shoe. In many cases, the pebbles are irregularly shaped and they must be oriented just right to slip into that small and fleeting cavity. Unlike the unassisted triple play or the grand slam home run or my “Hole-in-One,” however, hacky-sacking a stone into my shoe with the other foot is a repeatable experience!

Of course, it is tempting to be annoyed when this happens since it makes walking uncomfortable and even painful. Theoretically, I can stop and untie my shoe, but I’m usually walking an impatient and powerful dog. And, often, on the route I walk, no-one has thoughtfully placed a couch and ottoman along the road so that I can simply remove the stone. But instead of being upset, I choose to marvel at the sheer skill such a shot requires. And even though, it’s commonplace, the skill of my body thrills my soul. But what lasts is beyond even that. It is a celebration of life; to some extent, what it means to be alive as a human, but even more, it’s what it’s like to be alive as life. Life of any form is about being “tuned in” to the environment and organizing your own resources to obtain a goal. And when it all seems to work magically well, it’s an amazing reminder of what life can do when it really tries—and has good luck.