THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS
ST PANCRAS
COMMUNICATION
1 WORTH 1000 WORDS
It’s rare that a newspaper front page causes such a stir anymore.
But this one has.
It’s gone viral on social media.
People have taken photos of the front page of the newspaper and shared them on social media, and these photos have been reshared millions of times.
The image is shocking. It breaks the “rules” of journalism.
Many are outraged. They say that the newspapers have gone too far. They say that this is gratuitous. Some think it might be a tactic to make a splash, get talked about, sell more papers.
Others say that it is brave and admirable. They say it is a wakeup call; that by shocking the world, the newspaper has drawn attention to a cause that needs immediate action. Plus, the newspapers are just showing reality, if people are shocked by reality, they should do something about it.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
How does media - mass communication - affect a population?
How has the change in media (print to digital/social) affected how we collectively think about the big issues in the world today?
What do you think about big moments like this one? How important are they? What effects do they have?
If you were a journalist, how would you navigate the “rules” of journalism and your personal ethics?
SOURCES: BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
2 “COMMUNICATION SKILLS”
“Ed sighs and puts the CV back on the desk. He looks out of the window.
Every one of the applicants has put “Communication Skills” on their CV. But so did the last round of applicants. And so did all the people they’ve recently let go.
Ed’s job has become a lot more difficult recently. The government has outlawed the use of in person interviews because
“they are likely to give some candidates an unfair advantage - specifically, those candidates that are good at handling interpersonal stress.”
Without in person interviews, the only way Ed can evaluate candidates' ability to communicate is with a series of application questions.
He writes challenging questions, but the excellent answers he receives back don’t seem to correspond to applicants’ actual communication abilities once they’re hired.
He’s begun to suspect candidates are using ChatGPT to respond to the questions.
He tells one of his colleagues about the problem and they suggest:
“Just teach them basic communication skills when they get the job, how hard can it be to have a decent conversation with someone?”
Ed’s boss overhears this suggestion and agrees:
“That’s what we should do, Ed! Just teach them! You design a training programme and we’ll get some money for it. Communication is so important and it’s not rocket science, anyone should be able to do it with the right training.”
Ed sits at his desk and wonders how to start going about this task. He feels daunted.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
How feasible is Ed’s colleague’s suggestion?
If you had to teach someone ‘communication skills’, what would you include?
Who decides what ‘communication skills’ are?
How would you go about teaching ‘communication skills’?
How would you evaluate ‘communication skills’ if you didn’t have an in person interview?
How important do you think communication skills are in the modern world?
Do you think the government’s decision to prohibit in person interviews is sensible? Any merits? Any costs?
SOURCE: BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS group member
3 COLLECT BAD WINE AND TELL PEOPLE YOU LOVE THEM
Ric Elias survived the famous Hudson River crash in 2009.
The engines of the plane shut down and the captain told passengers to “brace for impact”. For 90 seconds, Ric was certain he was going to die.
Miraculously, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger landed the plane on the river and Ric survived.
Ever since, his view of the world has changed.
Elias now believes in “collecting bad wine”. He believes he should drink the best wine, because who knows what could happen tomorrow. Anything could happen at any time.
By the same logic, Elias believes that we should tell people the things that we would want to say if we knew it was our last conversation with them, NOW.
Simon is skeptical about this. He wonders:
“Let me play devil’s advocate a little bit here. BecauseI’m tempted to have that conversation with you right now and tell you how I feel as if this was the last time. And if it’s not the last time, do I have that conversation again? And then if I do it too much, if I do it every time for fear that this is the last time, does it cease to be special because it happens every time.”
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
What do you think of Ric’s perspective?
How important is it to communicate our true feelings before dying?
Do you think it is possible to apply the learnings of a near death experience without actually having had one?
What do you think of Simon’s perspective?
SOURCES: BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
A Bit of Optimism – a Podcast with Simon Sinek. (2020). Episode 22: On January 15th, 2009, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger… [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqgSqzaHgtk
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