29th Oct 2015: A Memory of Blood; Livestreaming and the Fall of the Mongolian Empire by Donald Carrick

Mongol Empire

Come along to The Counting House at 7pm to listen to Donald, share some food, and learn about the Mongolian Empire…

 

Title of Talk:

A Memory of Blood: Livestreaming and the Fall of the Mongolian Empire

Bullet Points of What You Would Like to Talk About:

  • The myriad narratives that could describe the aftermath of the rule of Genghis Khan
  • The conflict between those narratives, as real life does not conform to narrative and thus to the way we understand life. The inherent contradictions this illuminates in the human mind and our conceptions of the reality.
  • The fall of the Mongolian Empire after the death of Genghis Khan and the conflict between his children.
  • The conflict between our ingrained narrative thinking and the shape of the modern world. The dangers this poses to our sense of self and reality if not addressed.
  • The question of how history can be made use of in our conception of the current and future stories of reality we inhabit.

Read more…

24th Sept 2015: Evolving for Girls by Doreen Soutar

Question Evolution

Come along to The Counting House at 7pm to listen to Doreen, share a crust of bread, and listen to her ideas on girls and evolution…

 

Title of talk:

Evolving for Girls
 

Bullet points of what you would like to talk about:

A wry look at how evolutionary psychology currently narrates human evolution and the interaction between the genders in terms of mate selection. It will suggest that:

  • The current narrative of mate selection is a tad male-centred
  • The current mate selection model has some quite fundamental problems trying to explain what women are actually like
  • Some of these theories are highly amusing
  • A female-centred version of evolution might be a bit of a good idea
  • There are some quite good reasons for supporting a female viewpoint, including being a woman and preferring to have a say in mate selection theories about you.
  • A few suggestions for a female-centred model of mate selection will be offered up for consideration.

Read more…

24th Sept 2015: Power, People and Process; How We Make Decisions About What We Want For The City And Its Communities by Ewan Aitken

Decisions

Come along to The Counting House at 7pm to listen to Ewan, share a crust of bread, and hear his thoughts on power and people…

 

Title of talk:

Power, people and process – how we make deacons about what we want for the city and its communities
 

Bullet points of what you would like to talk about:

These days, there is a great deal of talk about collaboration, co production, devolution and communities leading their change; but is these really possible without a kind of revolutionary change in how we see power and accountability, process and transparency. Who gets to decide what, why is them that get to decide, what is it that they are deciding and who did they talk to before they reached their decisions….
Read more…

30th July 2015: We Control You; The Psychology of Obedience and Authority By Prof Ray Miller

Stanley Milgrams experiment

Come along to The Counting House at 7pm to listen to Ray, share a crust of bread, and learn about control…

 

Title of talk:

“We control you: the Psychology of obedience and authority”
No. 6 in the series “What has Psychology ever done for us?”
 

Bullet points of what you would like to talk about:

  • Are we really in control of ourselves?
  • Are our decisions individual or the result of group norms and pressures?
  • Can we easily be convinced to behave in ways we might normally find unacceptable?
  • Is there a ‘demon’ inside us that has to be controlled by Society and Civilisation?
  • How influenced are we by conformity, obedience and authority?

Read more…