Interview lemming

[ewx]

In case you've been hiding under a rock lately: if you want me to ask five questions say so in a comment, and I'll see what I can come up with; then you answer them in a new item and make the same offer to your readers.

marnameow asks...

1. If you could gain just one learned ability, overnight and as if by magic, to a competent level (not amazing genuis or best in the world, but still good at it, and better than average), what would that ability be, and why?

Tempted to say "maths" given my poor performance at degree level. But a better answer would be some language, since I'm interested in languages but only currently have good English, poor French and scanty German and Latin. Something non-indo-european perhaps - Turkish, say?

2. Would you like to be able to erase one memory from the minds of everyone else in the world (but not you)? If you did, would it be something connected with you, or something bigger? And (if you don't mind saying it here, given what I'm asking) what would it be?

Although having such an ability would be kind of cool I don't think I'd actually want to use it. Sure, some memories doubtless cause people pain and upset but I can't bring myself to think unilaterally tampering with other people's minds so directly can possibly be ethical. Perhaps if enough people specifically asked for the removal of some memory?

3. If you were offered the chance to live 100 years in the future for a week (fully mortal, mind), would you take it?

Absolutely, yes! I'd love to find out how things turn out. (And no, I wouldn't be able to resist looking up a few interesting things to bet on once I got back.) "Mortal" implies risk - doubtless even the safest of futures will have its unpredictable dangers - but it's one I'd certainly be prepared to take.

I think I'd make a point of not seeking out my own grave or whatever - I probably won't be alive 100 years from now but I'd rather not know for certain.

4. Why do you think good people do bad things? And do you think that the concepts of good and bad exist in reality?

I think they are cultural concepts, as opposed to existing in the real world. Obviously this is one of a number of possible positions at one end of the physics/religion debate.

Also I think they are cultural concepts as opposed to merely facts of individual experience (which might be another it's-all-physics position): what I think is good and what you think is good may differ, and society as a whole has something between a consensus and a compromise.

Anyway the above is why I think good people (or indeed any people) do bad things: everyone has different priorities and standards and the ways they differ intersect with the areas we think are covered by terms like "good" and "bad".

Hope that makes sense.

5. Can you remember the plots of any stories you wrote at school? If you can, would you summarise one or two here?

Yes, some. The earliest one I remember concerned someone called Jax going on some kind of quest, doing something and coming back home. I think it was probably written in a blue exercise book, and was made up more or less as it went along. I was quite proud that it was seven page long.

A later one was a shared project with a friend and was a sort of future history, influenced more than would normally be thought usual for a new work by the SF series we'd been reading recently. (The increasingly strange sex found in the books never made it into the school work, though.)

Perhaps this offers a hint to the kinds of books I read when younger l-)

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

1. Why did you take the job with Zeus, way back when?

2. First impressions matter - or reserve judgement for a bit?

3. Flowers or sunsets: you can't have both. Which do you keep?

4. Supposing you had children, what might they be called?

5. What would it take to make you move away from Cambridge? (AFAICT you're not fed up with the place and looking for an escape route...)