Tag: Fait Accompli

Alice & Bob – Quantum Jobs

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Prompted by the answer to a question on University Challenge, I typed Alice and Bob into the font of paid for promotion previously known as a search engine. The Mecca of product placed wisdom came up with a French quantum start up called Alice and Bob. They have received 100 million series B funding. They also have a fairly extensive job vacancy list. It was a tad French and probably not overly attractive internationally except for those fond of Alice in Paris Francophiles. French job descriptions can be as rigid as a rigid thing. They do not travel well.

Maybe there is a general shortage of quantum savvy job applicants….

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It occurred to me that the Quantum hype has been drowned out by the deafening AI roar. Maybe it has gone submarine like AUKUS.

That Luddite Herr Trump has been threatening the Harvard intellectual property (IP) portfolio. What a great way to ensure the death of US inventiveness and technological superiority, discourage invention and application for patents unless they are handled by MAGA lawyers, toadies and sycophants!! Already the incentive to NOT have an idea whilst at a university is high, because contractually the university owns your IP. Best stifle ideas until you are a free thinker…

Sometimes holes can be difficult to get out of. That can include ways of thinking and playbooks.

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It looks like Herr Trump is going to try again to leverage Ukraine into accepting a fait accompli agreed with Vlad the Impaler in Alaska. This forceful manipulation is an old Trump play. If he keeps alienating people, he may find himself in a hole like increasingly Billy-no-mates Israel. Trump does not understand that “friend” has a different meaning in KGB speak.

Oh look another groundhog…where did that come from….

What is the first rule when you find yourself in a hole?

Human beings can be pig-headed and stubborn. Inventive people do not share the same deal or no deal mentality as realtors. They are easily discouraged and disincentivised. One day the straw goes on the camel’s back, one too many.

Sometimes that tired old play book simply does not work. Thinking the same way that gets you into a problem cannot help to get you out of it.

There is no point in trying to explain this to someone who is vehemently adamant that they know best. Advice is as unwelcome as a dose of antibiotic resistant syphilis.

Some people are obsessed at the notion of a “corporate” solution when none exists. They may get all their ducks in line to present someone with a fait accompli sure that such a thing is irresistible. Even so-called intelligent people like professors can think like this. They can seek within group consensus oblivious that people outside the Olympian Ivory Towers do not think like them. This may not occur.

It is quackers.

People often talk with the monkey and ignore the organ grinder completely…

Anyway…

Has AI killed off the notion of quantum computation?

Where will they put all the server farms?

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Is this what our future looks like?

Group Control and Decision Making

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

It is not unusual for groups of people to gather together and try to control what an individual outside of that group is doing. They may even have the illusion that said individual is keen or desperate to join their group as per the famous Garry Glitter song about gangs. Groups by their nature have real difficulty seeing and assimilating perspectives outside of the rarefied air of their Olympian group. We Gods know. The group may even believe that they know what is best for the “lucky” individual. Being quasi-corporate they can only see a quasi-corporate “answer” to whatever the imagined problem may be.

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They can get quite complacent if something approaching within-group consensus is found.

The problem is that they can be very mistaken and totally unaware. There is very little one can do when a group has made up its mind. Nietzsche is attributed this quotation.

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“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

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You can decide for yourself regarding some of the “sanity” currently coming out of the USA.

Groups may consider it sound to offer the lucky person a fait accompli. Having discussed only amidst themselves they may not consider how it might wash with an individual outside. Such a thing happened with the so-called peace efforts expecting Ukraine to suck it up and be grateful. The individual is then blamed and scapegoated for not accepting the divine arrogance of group omniscience.

“That pesky pleb should count his lucky stars!! He should be very grateful!!”

This phenomenon can be found on all sides in academia, industry, business, politics and amongst the righteous “they” down the pub.

Groups do not always make the best and most inclusive decisions because they cannot see outside their own Venn diagram walls. A collection of frogs at the bottom of a well, even though it may agree amongst itself, has not seen a pacific sunset nor has it gone on a silent retreat in the mountains for three years. It might imagine itself more knowledgeable and experienced than it actually is.

Groups with corporate mind always want to deal with other groups in which the socio-political hierarchy is known. They are obsessed with hierarchy and group positions. They struggle with even the notion of a non-affiliated individual. Group to group interaction can be even less inclusive. There are often power struggles and a great deal of negotiation. It is so often about power and preservation of status quo. It is about control.

The object of negotiation can be totally unaware of the blessings, he/she is about to receive.

People are people and the tendency is to do the same shit over and over.

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The Illusion of Communication

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Shaw suggested that the primary problem with communication was/is the illusion that it is taking or has taken place.

People rarely bear this in mind. They tend to imagine and assume. They can imagine communication to be good and effective when it is anything but.

There is a big problem in groups. Communication within a group feels like communication has happened but communication outside of the group has not even started. That decided in a group is rarely discussed or conveyed outside the group. Acceptance and agreement is assumed outside the group because consensus has been arrived at in group. It can be a huge surprise that no inclusion outside of group has ever happened. It is a group-mind illusion.

We might call this the crony problem.

As a speculative example. It is possible that health care professionals are discussing my case amongst themselves and maybe one day, someone will have to present it as a fait accompli to me. I will not have been involved in the discussion and therefore very unlikely to trust or accept the fait accompli just because someone said so. If I feel by-passed or ignored then my response is unlikely to be compliant-acceptant. Because discussion has occurred within peer group the illusion of communication is solid and held to be true perceptually. There is in this case a national and language barrier to boot and add icing. Inter group consensus amongst the French is important to them as far as I can see. Foreigners are less important.

I have noted multiple variations on this theme over the years. Where “they” discuss me, maybe conclude and then never even mention it to me or check their understanding of me with me. I am not being paranoid. I have anecdotal evidence in a number of cases.

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Last Monday I had a CT scan of my chest and lungs prescribed by a lung specialist. Given my asthma, COPD and past history as a smoker, this is not a routine low risk screening. There are some results in my spirometry which need an explanation.

I am yet to receive the narration of the results from the consultant radiologist.

I have had a week in which to down load the images, start a loan of some medical CT imaging software and investigate the CT data. I have access to fibre broad band and can do AI image searches on CT snapshots. I have used the software to measure the dimensions of the (hopefully) bony growth on my thoracic spine and can see that it impinges upon my right lung. {This explains a slight niggle I have had there for a number of years.} I can read articles in medical journals like “The Lancet” and have a fair understanding of the gist.

I have watched videos of radiological grading of COPD, lung nodules and lung cancer staging. I have investigated diagnosis of the bony growth and it looks as though diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) is the best putative diagnosis. I already know that this growth cannot be reversed. I have identified one lung nodule and think I can see where my ribs, broken in a rugby injury, have healed.

 I have no idea who is meant to follow up, if at all. I am in a vacuum.

Any subsequent conversation is unlikely to be aware or informed by/of the scope of my investigations. I’ll speculate that it will not be assumed to be thorough.

Any initial point of subsequent communication will have assumptions on each side.

I have asked that if there is anything important someone gets in touch. Silence suggests that there is no problem. This assumption could be fundamentally flawed in a clinically significant manner. People are busy and in medicine often pressure prompted. The body on the table in front of you is more important that the one in a computer file and the end of a telephone line.

The whole thing, like so many things here grinds to a halt of inertia. Who knows who is responsible or is in charge of taking this forward?

Loose…means that balls get dropped…and then it is very hard to overcome the inertia once more…

Laisser tomber – BOF….

Talking Behind Someone’s Back and Fait Accompli

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

At the moment there is a bit of furore in the press that Trump et al. are taking with Putin et al. behind the backs of Ukraine, Europe and the UK. They are doing this in the Machiavellian home of Saud.

People seem not to like this yet they talk behind the backs of others on a regular basis. It is a play straight out of the forceful manipulation handbook / playbook, cobble together some cunning plan and then present it to the absentee(s) as a fait accompli. Should they not accept they are branded ungrateful and non-cooperative even if they have to bend over grab their ankles and take it up the arse without lubricant.

The praetorians always know what is best for the plebs. The plebs should thank their lucky stars.

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Behind closed doors cabals are not inclusive. They may pretend and profess to be, but that is bullshit.

These cabals are part of what is euphemistically termed “management practice”. The 1922 committee is an example of behind doors stitch up. I have been on the periphery of such behaviours and perhaps on the receiving end of fait accompli. It is a Don Corleone offer even without the nocturnal equine encouragement.

Wherever actual transparency as opposed to the public relations version of that is absent, gossip spreads faster than Covid 19 at a race meeting / piss up. I saw firsthand on Twitter / X how misinformation and BS spread faster than a Los Angeles wild fire blown by a warm breeze.

A forced “agreement” rarely has longevity. A contract based on gossip and hearsay lacks solid foundations.

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I have never myself appointed a spokesperson or port-parole so if any charlatan pretends to speak on my behalf, they are lying. If someone says behind closed doors that they know what I am after, what I might want / like they are delusional, mendacious and manipulative. Yet I could not stop anyone from casting themselves as such. People may speculate, that is at best inaccurate and at worst dangerous.

Many people are so sure that they know how to sort a situation out, how to bring it to a close. Such premature omniscience is rarely able to hold back adamant opinion. It rarely occurs to these that they may be wrong. One cannot change the view of an adamant dogmatic by persuasion.

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Do you talk behind people’s back?

Do you make cunning plans without inclusive consultation?

Are you a Trump mini-me?

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