THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS
BERLIN
FRIENDSHIP
1 FRIEND.COM
2 PLATONIC PARADOX
3 GUARDIAN ANGEL
1 FRIEND.COM
You and three friends are having dinner.
One of your friends, Em is very excited about a new piece of technology.
She tells you: It’s a wearable device that hangs around your neck. The device is called a ‘friend’. The instructions say to:
“Talk: Speak your mind or gossip about what your friend overheard.
Pause: Your friend will think for a moment and come up with something good to say.
Read: Check your phone to see what your friend said.”
(Source: friend.com website)
Em is convinced that this new piece of technology is a guaranteed moneymaker. She tells you:
“The company just spent 2 million dollars for just the domain name “friend.com”! And the founder is committed to reducing loneliness. Just look at his welcome message: “friend is an expression of how lonely I've felt.”. I think we should all invest.”
Your other friend, Jak, scoffs:
“This will never catch on. Some stupid people just wasted a lot of money. Who wants to talk to a robot? I’m not going to invest.”
Vish seems disturbed by the ‘friend’ technology:
“I’m already overwhelmed by texts, and exhausted by the constant stream of information from my phone. I’m scared about how much of my life is online and analysable by AI. The last thing we need is to be more digitally connected, to spend more time on devices. This is awful!”
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
What do you think?
Which of your friends’ perspectives resonates with you the most?
Why do you think the domain alone sold for 2 million dollars? What do you think the investors envision?
Would you invest?
Would you want one of these devices?
If you answered yes to investing, but no to wanting one of the devices, who do you think will buy them?
How might this device benefit individuals/society?
How might it harm them?
SOURCES:
friend.com
BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
2 PLATONIC PARADOX
Enzo the Alien is still trying to make sense of humans.
His boss has given him a copy of Plato’s Symposium and access to Netflix.
From the comfort of his compartment on spacecraft X91Z72, orbiting Planet Earth, Enzo begins his research.
He starts with Plato’s Symposium. It takes him quite a while to work it out, but eventually he draws the following conclusions:
According to Plato, there are two types of love: “Vulgar Eros” and “Divine Eros”
“Vulgar Eros” is the lesser of two loves. It refers to love that is preoccupied with physicality and romance.
“Divine Eros” is love that transcends physicality and is more about the connection of souls.
Plato argues that humans should move away from Vulgar Eros towards Divine Eros.
Then, Enzo binge watches all of Netflix.
He notes:
Most children’s films and TV shows focus on friendship, the kindred spirit of souls, loyalty, trust…
Most adult’s films and TV shows focus on, or at least feature, romance and physical love…
Enzo reports a paradox to his superiors:
“According to Plato, humans should be moving away from physical and romantic relationships and towards soul to soul connections or friendships.
But according to Netflix, humans start out with an interest in friendship and grow up to be more interested in romance.”
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
What do you make of this paradox?
How do modern humans value these two types of love? Are they equal? Or is one ‘better’ than the other?
Has this changed over the course of history?
Many people have less friends as they get older; could this be because we live in a society that prioritizes romantic love over friendship in adulthood?
How do you feel about Plato’s perspective?
SOURCES:
Wikipedia on “Platonic Love”
BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
3 GUARDIAN ANGEL
You’ve just died.
You’re in an iridescent waiting room.
Your name is called and you step into a small, pearly office.
A person with a faint glow about them gently explains:
“You have been chosen for the Guardian Angel Programme!
Instead of commencing your afterlife straight away, you have the opportunity to be a Guardian Angel to one of the humans on our waiting list.
The glowing person explains that their job is to identify humans ‘in need of guidance in order to live happier lives’. They tell you:
This is where you come in!
If you join the Programme, your human will be Ian. You’ll find out a lot more about him if you go ahead, but Ian’s main problem is that he has very few social connections. We think he’d benefit from making more.
Your job will be to:
follow Ian
get to know him
do some research about possible opportunities for connection
come up with a plan to get him more connected
Your plan will be transmitted to Ian by what he will think are ideas/coincidences. He won’t ever know that you exist.
There will be no penalty if you say you’d rather just skip to the afterlife.
Take a few hours to think about it.”
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
How do you feel about this request/opportunity?
If you were to accept, how would you go about connecting Ian to more people?
Which kinds of connections should Ian prioritise?
How might your life experiences/biases affect the way you think about creating a new social life for Ian?
Have you ever thought strategically about how you might improve your own social life? Do you think this is a worthwhile thing to do?
How would you feel if you knew a ‘guardian angel’ was responsible for your friendships?
SOURCES:
BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
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