Critical Thought

Hi Team, (5/30)

My skills profile is very spiky. R1, he knows who he is, has a great many skills that I do not have. He suggests that I add in 'stories', from my own life, to add interest. So here is one that I could easily have added into the transportation blog.

One very wet morning travelling in to work on a small capacity motorcycle, affectionately known as a slug, I noted incredibly long lines of stationary cars. I progressed to the front of the queue, police were directing traffic straight up the M1 towards Leeds. For my American readers, the M1 is a super multi lane highway with barely a vehicle on it, with no speed limit. Well, it was in the sixties. Things change.

Now dear readers, I wasn't about to travel on such a road on a bike with a single digit horse power. I had plenty of time to scan the area and parked the motorbike on the inside edge of the roundabout and got off, removing my helmet. ' You can't park there.' Said a girl policeman. I replied with a good morning and asked, politely, what was happening. ' You are getting on your bike and riding it up the motorway.' Said the girl policeman. From the point in time I was scanning what was happening, I was critically thinking and I carried on doing the same throughout. 'No.' Was my response delivered without emotion but to be honest I almost laughed as I had thought she knew me and was making a joke. We then repeated the same conversation another three or four times until a boy policeman appeared. He repeated what the girl had been repeatedly saying but in a deeper voice. I changed tack, 'No. What is the alternative because I am not riding that on a motorway.' No American will believe this story but bear in mind our cops aren't armed. Well, nothing particularly serious. The boy cop was puffing his chest up a little, either attempting to intimidate me or impress the girl. At this point two rather large policeman looked in our direction and asked if there was a problem? Law was on their side. Laws and rules are how the few 'big boys' control the many. Justice was on mine. I had given the boy and girl every opportunity to behave like human beings with an allocated role to play within a civilised society. I said nothing. For whatever reason, boy cop gestured gently with his hand and said that they were fine, not once taking his eyes off me. At that point on, girl cop was quiet and demure. Boy cop, with some guidance, chose to be a human being with a designated role to play and I broke some laws with the assistance of the boy cop.

I don't see what the above adds but like I say, my skill set is spiky. I have to justify to myself, not deleting it. So here goes. Once sufficient numbers of you can determine when to expend your efforts critically thinking, you might believe that you will be able to do what I do. No, when sufficient numbers of you can do what I do, we won't have to.

The four policeman were doing a relatively straight forward task. None of them had critically thought about what they were doing. Their immediate response to someone who had critically thought about it was repetition and aggression. They had been there 30 minutes and I had been there 30 seconds. If they had critically thought about dealing with small capacity motorbikes and scooters, I wouldn't have needed to make suggestions as to how I expected them to behave.

Anyway, back to the Ordinary Level Critical Thinking course.

Last week I mentioned being a better human being due to previous critical thought. I do believe that human beings enjoy and crave social interaction. The ones that don't are considered odd by all the others that are. The majority makes the rules, at least in this instance. (A subject for advanced critical thinkers to think about.)

Today, probably, Mr Trump or Kim Kardashian said something outrageous and on Friday morning people will be talking about how they feel about what they said. This will be a short conversation and a new topic will be required quite soon. Luckily, 'celebrities' say and do outrageous things regularly. So another conversation can soon spurt into life before quickly dying.

What if a celebrity mentions something that we have previously given some critical thought to? In this instance conversation does not die out so soon. A general debate erupts. The conversation becomes much more engaging. Much more enjoyable.

What if two people have given it some prior critical thought? I have no idea. I'll let you know. (That was what I consider to be a joke.)

Should the UK stay in the European union or leave? I don't know. I haven't given it any critical thought and neither has virtually anybody else. Yet somehow we will get to vote on it based on our feelings about what somebody important feels about it.

I strongly suggest the world would be a better place if when Trump said something we spent ten minutes discussing the issue rather than our feelings about the issue.

You take care

P.S. Well done to 83 year old Dennis Skinner for standing up to dodgy dave Cameron. Pity we all don't have the necessary minerals to do the same. Dodgy dave Camerons witty reply was that Dennis was old.

I overheard a conversation yesterday between a young boy and his father. The boy said that he wanted to be in organised crime when he was older. The father asked, public or private sector.

You all have fun