Now Hear This!

In Applied Epistemology we specialise in what might be called ‘systematised folly’. Not people doing dumb things — everyone does that, even applied epistemologists — but the same dumb things over and over again.

Applied epistemologists are trained to identify when this is happening, diagnose why it is happening and suggest ways to stop it happening. Unfortunately applied epistemology is a new subject and we are largely ignored.

I’ll give you a trivial example that happened just half an hour ago — but it has happened multiple times in multiple different places recently.

I was listening to an interesting little snippet on the World Service about events in France, 1940. French people were telling us all about it. In French. The BBC had thoughtfully provided an English translation over the top. I could make out the English if I concentrated but it was unbelievably hard because the French people were speaking too. Not loudly, just enough to clash. I had to give up in the end, the medium had overcome the message.

* Everything had been finely calibrated.
* The listener had to be reminded constantly these are French people speaking for reasons of authenticity and immediacy.
* They had to be able to make out the English at all times too.
* The balance was brilliantly achieved!
* At the expense of the listener listening.