The Fool On The Hill

 

I was hoping to post a bit of a 'doing' piece today, centred around the studio workshop; but I'm kind of scuppered by the results of the rather-too-enthusiastic garden maintenance work I engaged in yesterday. I really do need to learn to pace myself better, these days: my brain still insists on thinking I'm twenty-eight, rather than north of forty years older than that. Every one of my core back muscles is screaming "Fool!" at me today, so I've done bugger all else but read, consume YouTube stuff, and groan as sotto voce as possible.

Things I have picked up on today, in between bouts of wincing and self-medicating: a found copy of the frankly insane conspiracy 'newspaper', The Light, carrying an article on 'geoengineering'; the news that AI deep fakery is entering British party politicking just as The Labour Party conference kicks off [Starmer faked verbally tearing strips off staff - really? The guy is a bland and measured barrister, for fuck's sake]; a rather nice piece on Adam Savage's YouTube channel on fault-finding; and the news that Clapton's 'Fool' Gibson SG is going up for sale, probably to realize north of $2,000,000 at the upcoming auction.

As to the first, a review of some maniac theory enshrined in a film called "The Dimming" - which should refer not to its supposed subject, but to the credulity of its intended audience - that, rather than accept the scientifically and historically-established truth of man-made climate-change, seeks to offer the 'alternative truth' of a big state, New World Order conspiracy to alter and influence the climate via the spraying of various aerosols from high-flying jet aircraft. As is usual, why go for simple and logical, when you can wrap up reality in a totally baroque narrative? Go figure.

The second is probably the more worrying, especially as the global political and media bias is already historically broadly opposed to the Left and any real change in the status quo that has created pretty much all the world's problems as we know them today, climate change being the top of the list of infamies. Interfering in the democratic process is well established, but bias is usually easily called out: tools such as AI audio and video faking come dangerously close to fulfilling the Trumpian [sorry, that confers on the idiot too much gravitas] Orwellian aim of convincing the world that black=white, good=bad, truth=lies, etc., etc. AI could allow Newspeak an even greater currency than ever, with its apparent veneer of 'reality' to those whose critical engagement is, shall we say, slight to nought.

The Adam Savage video was, as is usual for him, a good exposition of basic common sense and working from sound first principles. In trying to fathom out why his lathe would not perform basic thread-turning tasks correctly, hitherto undiscovered because it had never emerged as a problem before, he set about working the issue out through the application of first principles and basic logic. Identify a problem. Name that problem. Assess the variables at play, and whittle the problem down to its logical point of interest. Test and iterate to prove/disprove theorem. If true, get it sorted. If false, move on. Critical faculties need to be taught, nurtured and daily engaged in everything we do: this applies to all aspects of life. Sadly, it is something that our passive, consumerist society actively discourages: bread & circuses yet again.

Which brings me to the last item: Clapton's SG. Like most celebrity guitar sales, you might rightly put it squarely within the bread & circuses category, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree; but that instrument, guitarist and his band Cream form the backdrop to my adolescence and leave me with fond memories of care-less and callow youth. Call me a Fool, but I'll brook no dissent on that one...