📘 Part 3: Ideas

This episode's vocabulary

To operate (verb) - to (cause to) work, be in action or have an effect.

Hostile (adj.) - unfriendly and not liking something.

Agent of the state/state agent (noun) - a professional who is licensed by the state to perform their duties within that state.

Necessity is the mother of invention (idiom) - an expression that means that if you really need to do something, you will think of a way of doing it.

First principles (plural noun) - the basic and most important reasons for doing or believing something.

With/at the touch of a button - used to emphasize that something can be done very easily by pressing a button.

To undermine (verb) - to make someone less confident, less powerful, or less likely to succeed, or to make something weaker, often gradually.

Questions and Answers

M: Whose ideas and opinions are highly respected in your country?

R: Generally, people who have invested the time and effort in developing their knowledge. So people like professors, doctors and lawyers, especially those who operate at a high level or deliver a high quality of service to people.

M: When do children begin to have their own ideas and opinions?

R: Oh, good question. I mean, from one perspective, they get them as soon as they are born, because they have the idea of what they want. And it's usually food and shelter immediately. But in terms of expressing those things, when they start to speak and form coherent sentences and get creative and original in their understanding of the world. It could be before that, but I can't think of any way to measure that because there's... How would you know without some kind of psychic or telepathy machine?

M: Will children always have ideas and opinions similar to those of their parents?

R: That depends on how close the culture is. I mean, a closed culture will be hostile to outside ideas, and invest a lot of control in the parents and the family as opposed to agents of the state. So children are less likely to be exposed to outside influences.

M: What encourages people to come up with new ideas or inventions?

R: There's like a saying for this, I think it's necessity is the mother of invention. So when we need something to meet some specific needs, then someone invents it. So for example, with mobile phones, people needed some sort of portable communication, or portable means of communication. So it was created for them.

M: What can schools do to encourage creativity in students?

R: Well, that's easy. You provide an environment where pupils are presented with opportunities to create things that meet a need. It could be an open space with a tree and some boards and rope. And they might make a swing, for example.

M: How do inventors and philosophers come up with new ideas?

R: I should read something, somewhere about a thing called first principles thinking, which is when you question the assumptions underlying something just by asking, does it need to be this way? Or could we do something different? So in the case of mobiles, people asked if phones absolutely had to have a hardwired connection. And the answer was no. So that's one thing that could be done, I suppose.

M: Should people read the ideas of famous thinkers of the past?

R: I don't see why not. History has a habit of rhyming rather than repeating, it could provide an insight into what's been tried before and failed, and why, in addition to what I just said. And it might help us understand how people in a particular period thought about things, which is useful for gaining some perspective as well.

M: Do you think technology has helped or hindered creativity in society?

R: Oh, wow. I mean, well, that will depend entirely on the field we are talking about and who is involved in it. I mean, AI has helped or enabled people to create interesting works of art just at the touch of a button. But that's undermining the creativity of human artists by putting some of them out of a job. And the other thing is that the increased connectivity from technology has allowed us to share and combine ideas more easily. Though, whether that means we're being creative or rearranging things is up to you.

M: Hey! Thank you, Rory, for your ideas and opinions!