Alternative Boris Response.

“The gatherings referred to by the opposition as boozy parties did occur and I was present. I sanctioned them for respite from months of hard work and long days. Work that didn’t make the news, isn’t glorious but has been none the less vital and stressful. Even in No10 moral needs to be maintained. To set these events against the anguish and sorrow of people dying unable to be with their loved ones is to set up a surreal Punch and Judy show, a cartoon black and white picture of good and bad that is not the case. The opposition and the media make me extremely angry and frankly disgusted by people who choose to capitalise on this spurious juxtaposition for personal gain. Would you begrudge a doctor after a 12 hours shift having a pint with his fellow colleagues or a nurse sharing her stress with friends? No. We all have stress after two long years of this life changing pandemic. My team at No10 is no different and I make no apology for these events. These are my views and I will gladly continue or resign on the basis of them.” Boris’s actual speech and demeanour was very different. He seems unable to respond in anything other than what he learnt as a pupil caught smoking behind the bike sheds. First deny knowing anything, then deny being there, then suggesting it was some sort of misguided lung experiment and finally a pathetic apology based on a bigger boy making him do it. Boris is unfit for office not because of these meeting but because he hasn’t progressed from the age of twelve, where ‘his truth’ is telling you what he’d like you to believe. He hasn’t the courage to be honest or the guts and guile to fight his corner. He is not an adult.

The Offer. (a tale)

James demonstrated on a dummy head. “the two sensors either side of the temple by the hair line define a position in the brain, the left scans vertically and the right horizontally. Where they cross indicates the position of a single synapse firing. Three point triangulation isn’t necessary as each scan defines a line on its plane synchronous to the firing” and the machine works at 20 Mhz, fast enough to capture each firing discretely.” Gareth was amazed, “You can do that!?” “Well the brain is pretty slow compared with modern electronics. So the coordinates are logged as a succession of events that we can plot in 3D here.” The screen showed a crazy zigzag trace. “We can slow it down and run a video. Here a guy is recognising a cat. You can see the activity in this area, which stops and those two areas begin doing something else, possibly memories and feelings for other cats, that sort of thing.” “Wow.” “Before we could see activity but nowhere near in this detail.” “That’s amazing.” “Well that’s just the beginning. By exposing a subject to a wide range of stimuli we’re beginning to piece together the subject’s general processing synapse by synapse.” “So put those things on me and you’ll know.. “ “No, no. Experience is built individually. One subject’s patterning will be quite different to another's, but we can see many processing similarities. Here for example the subject is remembering a cat, imagining or drawing a cat. That synapse cluster is used in all of these, perception, memory, imagination and most probably dreams. It’s the go to cluster for anything cats. It also shows there's no difference between them, just one real-time process that does them all.” "You mean we don't actually remember things?" "Well there's no such thing as a fixed data bank we can refer to. We just piece together a narative from snippets like this cat cluster into something acceptable to our real time processing." “So what are you going to use all this for? AI or something.” “No we’re not interested in alien world domination.” “But it could?” “Most definitely. No, we’re interested in human intelligence. You see human cognition, though it is quite amazing and the brain even more so considering it size and power requirements, is flawed. Well not flawed exactly, rather there are many ways it can lead us astray. Good thinking is achieved rarely and after much work and experience. Our aim is to expand good thinking into the larger population.” “You’re going to tell us what to think?” “God no.” “Well that’s what it sounds like to me.” “No. We will be able to identify destructive patterns of thought that lead to unhappiness, anger, depression, violence etc. So many people are… “ “That’s control; it’s getting into people’s heads.” “But people go to therapists and get relief.” “That’s different.” “Would you rather we use it for AI then?” “Absolutely. That way ‘it’ will get super intelligent and we’ll be able to use it, learn from it.” “And it won’t control you?” “No, why should it? It’ll just be a tool like social media.” “But is that what you really want? Wouldn’t you rather learn how to think well for yourself?” “No, I think perfectly well as I am thank you.”

Still Playing the Drums?

On my afternoon constitutional; down Frazer, along Archer, through the woods by the railway line and back along Abby lane I was hailed by a friend I hadn’t seen in ages. In my defence constitutionals are meditative, moments where one’s mind flits around the universe of time and experience like a pinball satellite, and definitely not impending dementia that’s been impending since I was fifteen if not earlier. A woman with man attached was asking how I was. I landed on the nearest planet and in an effort to prove I did remember asked, “Still playing the drums?” She said no. Assuming she had relinquished the pursuit I commiserated. “No, no I’ve never played the drums. Oh this is my husband.” I smiled with a friendly nod but obviously didn’t disguise the fact he was definitely not the man my friend was last with. From there on he seemed to view me with some sort of suspicion. “St Wilfred's” she explained. Ah! And as if by magic I was terrestrial again. “Ah now I know exactly who I thought you were, you know the one who played the drums.” In retrospect this didn’t allay suspicions. Did I now know who ‘she’ actually was? and had his wife led a secret life playing the drums with a likeable guitarist? Of course I did and she hadn’t but clarification wasn’t exactly clarified. Well after our subsequent conversation I can now clarify that she is a very lovely person that I do know who lives with her husband in a house by the red car and quite probably doesn’t know that Pina, who did and now possibly doesn’t play the drums ever existed. And if you’re still confused, welcome to my world.