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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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Human mind will always be weak link in communication technology

By David McElroy · May 20, 2012

I’ve been talking a lot recently with a woman who’s from Europe. She lives in this country, so her English is excellent. Still, since English isn’t her native language, there are times when there are tiny gaps in communication between us — enough that it’s prompted me to think about how people use words to communicate.

There are times when I might use a particular word or phrase and she will interpret it as something entirely different from what I intended to convey. It’s not that she’s misunderstanding the words themselves. It’s simply that English words can mean so many different things in different contexts.

I’ve noticed from talking to her that some things we say — that we understand to mean certain things — can mean entirely different things if you interpret the words literally and don’t have decades of experience in learning the cultural context.

Even simple things can be confusing. She was going through something potentially difficult this past week, so I sent her an email to encourage her and say that I’d be “thinking about you” as she went through the issue. She had to ask — just to be sure — whether “thinking about you” means something different from “thinking of you.”

The whole experience has given me a new appreciation for how difficult English is to learn for someone who doesn’t grow up speaking it.

As I’ve pondered how language works between us — how it sometimes facilitates communication and sometimes impedes it — I’ve thought about why miscommunication of all kinds between humans is so common and why it seems to be so hard to improve.

The limitations of language mean that perfect intent can’t be conveyed, because words are imperfect symbols of abstract thoughts and feelings (which are really subconscious). So some meaning is lost when I choose my words and when you interpret my words back into the native “abstract code” of your “inner brain.” (When we move communication online — with no cues that come from tone of voice and facial expression — the “signal loss” can be even greater.)

We also have to factor in the unconscious bias that both the sender and receiver of a message have — bias about certain words and about the meanings themselves — which change perceptions of the words ever so slightly.

Another important variable is ego. When I communicate to you, I’m not just communicating my overt message. I’m also (usually unconsciously) trying to project an image of who I am. I’m trying to get you to see me the way I want to be seen, so I unconsciously do it in ways that will be consistent with what I want you to think of me. In the same way, the listener’s ego gets in the way. The listener can hear what she wants to hear (or doesn’t want to hear), depending on what the emotional need of the moment is.

Through it all, the sender of a message is likely to believe he’s been completely clear. The receiver is likely to assume she’s correctly interpreted intent. With all of this “signal loss,” what percentage of real original intent makes it through?

Why are we usually so unaware of the gap between sender intent and receiver understanding?

The more I think about it, I’m amazed that human communication works as well as it does, but improving it substantially seems like a pipe dream.

One of the saddest things about our limited ability to communicate is that humans crave real communication with others, in multiple ways. To really understand someone else and to be understood creates a feeling of intimacy unlike almost anything else in the world. For many of us, not having that is akin to feeling starved — and it leads to deep depression.

We humans might be terrible at communication. There may be tremendous “signal loss” when we try. But we keep doing it, not just because it’s pragmatically useful, but because connecting with others defines who we are. If there’s someone you can make a real connection with, that’s worth more than most people realize — and it’s worth fighting past the stumbling blocks.

That’s because we need real connection with another human for emotional and psychological survival — just as much as we need food and water for physical survival.

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I received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday — and I’m happy to report that I’m neither dead nor a zombie controlled by Bill Gates and Co. Eligibility was recently opened in Alabama to everyone who’s 16 or older, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine at a site run by a local university. I know this is a political issue for a lot of people, but that honestly baffles me. We can disagree about whether such a vaccine should be mandatory — which I’m against — but as a voluntary choice, it seems like an easy choice now that it’s been safely given to millions of people. Is it a perfect preventative? Of course not. But the decision seemed obvious to me when looking at the statistics and evidence. I haven’t had any of the side effects that some people have experienced, but that’s supposed to be more of an issue after the second dose, which I’ll get on May 3. In the meantime, I’ll let you know if I grow a third arm — or if the secret microchip kicks in and someone starts trying to control me remotely. All kidding aside, getting the vaccine seems like a rational voluntary choice to me.

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What’s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien — the tagline at the top of each page here — it never occurred to me that I’d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email — such as the one above from a few months back — from someone who seems to think I’m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I’m an alien, because … well … it’s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I’m just as earthbound as you are. It’s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that’s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.

After Tampa Bay, Fla., musician Colt Clark had all of his gigs canceled last year for months on end, the entire family felt trapped at home as most of the world was on quarantine lockdown. His wife, Aubree, had an idea that would let Colt make music and involve the whole family in making music videos to share with their friends and family on Facebook. Aubree is a photographer and homeschooling mom to a daughter and two sons, who range in age from 6 to 11. After their friends started asking to share the videos, they made the performances public — and a few of them are now on YouTube, where they go by the name of Colt Clark and the Quarantine Kids. The younger son, Becket, is on drums. The older boy, Cash, plays keyboards, strings and guitars. Dad supplies lead vocals and plays guitar, while 6-year-old Bellamy mostly dances but sometimes does backup vocals. There’s even a dog who makes an occasional appearance. The Clark family has just raised the bar for what I need to create with my future children. And best of all, they seem to be having a great time together. I hope they make you as happy as they make me.

Have you ever wondered how the social media world works for so-called “influencers”? I find it comical, so I thought I’d share with you. I frequently get offers such as what I’m about to describe. And if I’m getting such offers — as a relative nobody in the online world — you can only imagine what people with huge audiences are offered. It starts with an email appealing to my ego: “We came across your online presence and we LOVE your style. We’d love to have you as one of our Brand Ambassadors. To celebrate our new [Brand Name] collection, we want to give you a FREE Watch so you can post a picture of you wearing it and drive more exposure to our brand.” Did you hear that? They love me. They want me to be seen wearing their cheap $59 watch so other people will think, “If this amazing influencer wears that, surely I should buy one.” They even offer me commissions on the watches sold from people clicking from my site. So the next time you see some alleged “influencer” touting something online or on social media, remember that this is what it’s probably all about. It’s laughable.

Modern culture is going insane. The latest evidence comes from the effort to redefine children’s author Dr. Seuss as a racist whose books should be banned. Why? Because a few images in those books don’t meet modern political standards. The drawing you see here is one of those “dangerously racist images,” and it comes from the Dr. Seuss classic, “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” The book catalogs all the wild diversity seen by a child on one street, including the offending drawing of a Chinese boy. What’s racist about it? Apparently, it was racist to show the boy eating rice, wearing a funny hat, using chopsticks and (worst of all) having eyes represented by a slit. (The bearded man near him has dots for eyes, but that’s apparently OK.) In other words, the stereotypes are considered racist today. (Oddly, the culture warriors who fret over such things are never concerned if a white southerner is depicted as ignorant trash living in a trailer. Some stereotypes are great, especially if the left hates those people anyway.) Theodore Geisel — the name of the real-life Dr. Seuss — was a product of his time and nobody at that time would have seen any of this as racist. Using stereotypes and exaggerations is how artists depict differences in simple ways. You can argue that it’s better to achieve the end result in a different way, but it’s insane to pretend that everybody from the past should have his work erased because it doesn’t match the preferences of modern leftists. Unfortunately, the company that publishes Dr. Seuss books has caved to the insane people — and six of his popular works will no longer be published. The world has simply gone insane.

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