Stained Glass Museum – Ely
Did you know that there is such a thing as Information Warfare? You probably did, but you just didn’t know it had a name.
I was listening to the radio yesterday and the subject cropped up. That’s BBC Radio 4 in case you might be under the misapprehension that any other station is worth listening to. I listen to it for the 15-30 minutes it takes me to queue in traffic jams after dropping Julia off at woodturning. Otherwise, noise does not feature greatly in my life. I don’t need it to function and if I want to listen to the inane chattering of barely evolved humanoids (sometimes called DJs, presenters or, for phone-in purposes, “listeners” I can go and listen to monkeys in a zoo).
Sometimes I listen to music on You Tube, in case you are thinking I completely lack culture, but mainly, I don’t. I also like the words more than the music. And I like them to be English so I can understand them, so that cuts out classical music and opera. I suppose that’s why I’m a poet rather than a musician. Being tone deaf also plays a part.
Anyway, I digress. I have two ways to go now. One is to carry on discussing “malign influence” and the undeclared war between Russia and Europe. The other is to discuss the picture in my head, which is J D Vance as a monkey. I don’t really know why.
I’ll go with malign influence. It’s about the propaganda war between Russia and some of its neighbours, specifically Finland and Sweden. The Finn’s developed a policy of teaching their young people to distinguish between truth and misinformation by showing them how to evaluate information. Of course, we would never do it in this country because it might teach the population to think for themselves and spot political chancers.
It was part of a group of reports about how some countries are making progress in the modern world – updating medical systems, looking after the elderly in a more cost-effective way (or simply just looking after them at all), building better social housing and (in the case of Finland and Sweden) accepting that we are at war with Russia and that young people need to be taught to resist unreliable information.
That, of course, gets me onto one of my favourite subjects. Countries with low levels of raw materials and industry (like the UK, these days) have traditionally been big on education.
I’d like to see the UK getting to grips with educating people. I’d also like to see them teaching them how to use social media properly. That’s not by banning them from using it. How will you learn if you can’t use something. All you will learn is that there are ways of getting round things and that you don’t need to obey the law.
That’s not helping build a responsible and progressive world.
Sorry, I will try to avoid unseemly seriousness in future posts.
Angel with Spear, 1860s. By N H J Westlake or J M Allen. St Michael’s and All Angels, Derby
I hear you on all counts.
🙂
Sound thoughts, my friend
Sometimes I do have them. Mostly, as you know, I don’t. 🙂
They have a very good education system in Finland. It is very hard to persuade the people who’ve done well out of the ludicrously exam based system here to switch to a system that helps everybody rather than teaching most people that they are failures.
To be honest, I think that when we started to change our education system in this country the people involved really wanted to do what Finland has done. Decades later, they have achieved their aim and we have made a lot of poor decisions which have just made things worse. The main horror I saw when my kids were at school was “coursework” that was obviously being produced by parents and passed off as being done by children. That helped nobody.
I have heard that about Finland, too. It’s certainly not like that here in the United States. When anything happens, like, say, an assignation attempt on our president, it’s off to the conspiracy races. I know that sometimes the paranoid are being followed, but evidence and proof should always lead the way.
It has taken Finland decades to produce that system, which they are happy to admit. But they are also happy to declare that they now have a world-leading education sector. To tear it down, on the other hand, takes much less time.
Yes, to destroy is so much easier than to build. Unfortunately.
🙂 We mut keep trying.
Well, that was interesting! You made some very valid points. I am gobsmacked that Finland is teaching their young to think for themselves. I thought the object of goverment was to prevent that, as you say we’d spot the political chancers. It always baffles me that our government has about 7,000 Cruise Missiles at 2million a pop, and tells me to recycle my trash to save the planet 😂AI? That’s just Terminator movies without the warrior robots. I’m so glad I’m old 😂
“I’m so glad I’m old 😂”
Me too>.That is a thought I have on a regular basis. I’m also thinking that 7,000 doesn’t seem many considering what could be just around the corner.
Forgot to add – did you see the story of the old lady who was saved by the Ukrainian Army when they sent out a robotic dog to give her a ride home?
I didn’t see that, does it count as AI or is that Robotics?
I was wrong – when I checked again it was a delivery robot.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cpqpjw1zdvjo
I see that the US is testing robot dogs with rifles aimed by AI. A combination made in hell if there ever was one.
One small step for a robot and leap towards Armageddon 😂
there’s an article in the NY times today about how AI is helping with an aging population in Korea. We need to concentrate on what is good to make things better, while weeding out all the bad things. this only comes from a population that knows how to think
I’m sure there are good things about AI – we just need to find them. 🙂