or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
[ 4 minute read ]
It's all relative
I spend a while watching YouTube videos, searching for the meaning of life! Now that YouTubers can make serious money out of posting videos there are a lot of ads in some videos. Because I never sign in to any Google, MicroSoft or Amazon product it is inevitable that the non-tailored ads are going to be a bit random on a 'hit or miss' basis. Of course, Google knows all about me somehow because there does seem to be a common theme to the rubbish ads I get. It seems though that they have no idea on my attitude towards climate change, and I shall not open myself up to discussion by sharing those views with anyone. In any case I always, always skip the ads as soon as I can but there is invariably something that gets through. Here is the opening statement that I heard yesterday morning, at the beginning of an ad :
‘All the problems with the planet, bar natural phenomena, are caused by human beings.’
What does that even mean? Take away humans and there would only be problems caused by natural events. I think the animals would like that but they wouldn't celebrate because they wouldn't realise that there are no humans to mess them up, because quite simply they don't have measuring devices, the internet and SmartPhones to compare environments with their family or friends abroad. Effectively, Earth would be merely a terrarium; nice to look at and discuss with visiting aliens.
I can't help thinking that we bash humans over the head a bit much sometimes. With square eyes I blundered into my local Co-op and mentioned to the checkout person that the mild Autumn in the UK is contributing towards 2025 being considered to be one of the warmest years on record. He may have thought, 'CLIMATE CHANGE!' and alarm bells may have rang. I realised my crass attempt at conversation wasn't working well so I offered him, 'It means that we are all using less energy to heat our homes.' Maybe he then considered humans in a more favourable light.
With two tins of tomatoes in my bicycle basket I went home and the YouTube algorithm sprang QI on me. You know, that quiz show hosted by Steven Fry and latterly Sandi Toksvig. Steven Fry told the studio that Ghengis Khan killed forty million people during his violent expansion. This, we heard meant that land that was formerly farms reverted back to forest. Ultimately, we have a murderous hero to thank for saving the planet (a bit).
Nature gets its own back to save itself in a different way than raising the temperature so we end up using less energy to heat our homes and thereby reducing carbon emissions. It releases its own carbon emissions so we don't have to. The volcano (Eyjafjallajökull) in Iceland that went off a few years ago (2010), I think spewed 300,000 tons of carbon into the air but by creating a huge ash cloud prevented aircraft flying, which would have contributed three million tons of carbon into the air. The numbers are not really important to me because this is not about climate change, aviation, or geological or Black Swan events. It is about relatives.
I have seen posts that express dismay that the contributor has missed an important historical site simply because they didn't realise that they were in fact standing at the important historical site. They did not 'perceive' the site. However, they have the photos, but only because something else interested them and so they took a photo. I also have experiences of reading modern opinions used as templates to understand historical customs. I can't discuss them though because everyone is doing their assignments.
Whenever we get off a plane, bus, or boat in Greece we are landing on a piece of land that is steeped in history; a history that is only relevant if we care to be interested enough to learn about it. I lived in Piraeus, Athens area of Greece. I think I might have been able to see the Acropolis from there but I also might not have; I remember seeing something but it might have been a picture in a book. I really wasn't interested at the time and can't remember ever going to it. I was more interested in the deer in a pen that had really long hooves that needed cutting years ago. Fortunately, I had the addresses for animal protection organisations in about nine different countries in my address book when I first came across the animal. (The French police scoffed at me after they threw my belongings across Forbach railway station and went through my address book on the French - German border, weeks earlier).
I hitch-hiked from Cambridge to London a long time ago, and got a lift from someone with a PhD in Romano-Britain. Somewhere around Royston on the A10 he suddenly said. 'There was a Roman settlement here.' All I saw were fields. Obviously, he saw something else. I didn't waste the opportunity though. Well actually I did because I didn't know enough questions to make good use of my time. I asked him why when the Romans went back to Italy the local populations here reverted back to living as though the Romans had never arrived.
'The Romans were really good at organising people.' he told me. We might have thought the oppressed people were merely stupid but it turns out they just weren't good at making plans. Maybe, sunny weather would have helped them figure stuff out. Or maybe, the damp Summers allowed ergot to grow on the rye they ate, and they were 'tripping' all the time, and pretending to be witches.
The point I am trying to make is: if we have no knowledge of something we can't overlay our sentiments on a circumstance or event. And yet, here in Britain we are surrounded by history that only the descendants of the original immigrants that went to Americaland now appreciate. I lived in a very picturesque village with a camp-site and one day met a girl from Clacton, a sea-side resort in Essex, England. i asked her why she came to my village for a holiday and she basically threw the question back at me by asking why I would go to the sea-side for a holiday. In growing up by the sea in a holiday resort she eschewed its attractiveness and sought countryside and river, and a slower pace to relax. It is all relative.
Whenever we step out of our homes in the UK, Britain, or one of the countries in the UK, we step onto historical ground, we just don't appreciate it as such. I have been to Norwich countless times and driven alongside the Roman wall that partially surrounds the city. I have been to London thousands of times and ignored the Barbican, and the Tower of London; the latter built by William the Conqueror. I ignore them because I grew up seeing them and I am not a tourist. My modern outlook sees them as just part of the scenery. The Tower of London was built to scare the locals and now it is a fun place to learn and visit.
In the picturesque village I once lived in with the camp-site, I saw a man walking quite quickly across the pasture field that was next to the camp-site; obviously a tourist. Nobody who lives in the countryside walks quickly across a field. Quite simply, there is only one reason a villager is in a field and it isn't to get to somewhere else in a hurry; we have cars now.
Cultural Relativity
All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551
or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
[ 4 minute read ]
It's all relative
I spend a while watching YouTube videos, searching for the meaning of life! Now that YouTubers can make serious money out of posting videos there are a lot of ads in some videos. Because I never sign in to any Google, MicroSoft or Amazon product it is inevitable that the non-tailored ads are going to be a bit random on a 'hit or miss' basis. Of course, Google knows all about me somehow because there does seem to be a common theme to the rubbish ads I get. It seems though that they have no idea on my attitude towards climate change, and I shall not open myself up to discussion by sharing those views with anyone. In any case I always, always skip the ads as soon as I can but there is invariably something that gets through. Here is the opening statement that I heard yesterday morning, at the beginning of an ad :
‘All the problems with the planet, bar natural phenomena, are caused by human beings.’
What does that even mean? Take away humans and there would only be problems caused by natural events. I think the animals would like that but they wouldn't celebrate because they wouldn't realise that there are no humans to mess them up, because quite simply they don't have measuring devices, the internet and SmartPhones to compare environments with their family or friends abroad. Effectively, Earth would be merely a terrarium; nice to look at and discuss with visiting aliens.
I can't help thinking that we bash humans over the head a bit much sometimes. With square eyes I blundered into my local Co-op and mentioned to the checkout person that the mild Autumn in the UK is contributing towards 2025 being considered to be one of the warmest years on record. He may have thought, 'CLIMATE CHANGE!' and alarm bells may have rang. I realised my crass attempt at conversation wasn't working well so I offered him, 'It means that we are all using less energy to heat our homes.' Maybe he then considered humans in a more favourable light.
With two tins of tomatoes in my bicycle basket I went home and the YouTube algorithm sprang QI on me. You know, that quiz show hosted by Steven Fry and latterly Sandi Toksvig. Steven Fry told the studio that Ghengis Khan killed forty million people during his violent expansion. This, we heard meant that land that was formerly farms reverted back to forest. Ultimately, we have a murderous hero to thank for saving the planet (a bit).
Nature gets its own back to save itself in a different way than raising the temperature so we end up using less energy to heat our homes and thereby reducing carbon emissions. It releases its own carbon emissions so we don't have to. The volcano (Eyjafjallajökull) in Iceland that went off a few years ago (2010), I think spewed 300,000 tons of carbon into the air but by creating a huge ash cloud prevented aircraft flying, which would have contributed three million tons of carbon into the air. The numbers are not really important to me because this is not about climate change, aviation, or geological or Black Swan events. It is about relatives.
I have seen posts that express dismay that the contributor has missed an important historical site simply because they didn't realise that they were in fact standing at the important historical site. They did not 'perceive' the site. However, they have the photos, but only because something else interested them and so they took a photo. I also have experiences of reading modern opinions used as templates to understand historical customs. I can't discuss them though because everyone is doing their assignments.
Whenever we get off a plane, bus, or boat in Greece we are landing on a piece of land that is steeped in history; a history that is only relevant if we care to be interested enough to learn about it. I lived in Piraeus, Athens area of Greece. I think I might have been able to see the Acropolis from there but I also might not have; I remember seeing something but it might have been a picture in a book. I really wasn't interested at the time and can't remember ever going to it. I was more interested in the deer in a pen that had really long hooves that needed cutting years ago. Fortunately, I had the addresses for animal protection organisations in about nine different countries in my address book when I first came across the animal. (The French police scoffed at me after they threw my belongings across Forbach railway station and went through my address book on the French - German border, weeks earlier).
I hitch-hiked from Cambridge to London a long time ago, and got a lift from someone with a PhD in Romano-Britain. Somewhere around Royston on the A10 he suddenly said. 'There was a Roman settlement here.' All I saw were fields. Obviously, he saw something else. I didn't waste the opportunity though. Well actually I did because I didn't know enough questions to make good use of my time. I asked him why when the Romans went back to Italy the local populations here reverted back to living as though the Romans had never arrived.
'The Romans were really good at organising people.' he told me. We might have thought the oppressed people were merely stupid but it turns out they just weren't good at making plans. Maybe, sunny weather would have helped them figure stuff out. Or maybe, the damp Summers allowed ergot to grow on the rye they ate, and they were 'tripping' all the time, and pretending to be witches.
The point I am trying to make is: if we have no knowledge of something we can't overlay our sentiments on a circumstance or event. And yet, here in Britain we are surrounded by history that only the descendants of the original immigrants that went to Americaland now appreciate. I lived in a very picturesque village with a camp-site and one day met a girl from Clacton, a sea-side resort in Essex, England. i asked her why she came to my village for a holiday and she basically threw the question back at me by asking why I would go to the sea-side for a holiday. In growing up by the sea in a holiday resort she eschewed its attractiveness and sought countryside and river, and a slower pace to relax. It is all relative.
Whenever we step out of our homes in the UK, Britain, or one of the countries in the UK, we step onto historical ground, we just don't appreciate it as such. I have been to Norwich countless times and driven alongside the Roman wall that partially surrounds the city. I have been to London thousands of times and ignored the Barbican, and the Tower of London; the latter built by William the Conqueror. I ignore them because I grew up seeing them and I am not a tourist. My modern outlook sees them as just part of the scenery. The Tower of London was built to scare the locals and now it is a fun place to learn and visit.
In the picturesque village I once lived in with the camp-site, I saw a man walking quite quickly across the pasture field that was next to the camp-site; obviously a tourist. Nobody who lives in the countryside walks quickly across a field. Quite simply, there is only one reason a villager is in a field and it isn't to get to somewhere else in a hurry; we have cars now.