Winston could not intermittently remember why the pain was happening. Behind his screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disappearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was trying to count them, he could not remember why. He knew only that it was impossible to count them, and that this was somehow due to the mysterious identity between five and four. The pain died down again. When he opened his eyes it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing. Innumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He shut his eyes again.
‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. You will kill me if you do that again. Four, five, six — in all honesty I don’t know.’
‘Better,’ said O’Brien.
A needle slid into Winston’s arm. Almost in the same instant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through his body.
1 +9 +8 + 4
10+10+10+10+10+10 =50
17 + 17 + 15 + 12+ 16 = 50 (except it doesn’t. It equals 77)
Went to an academic seminar on austerity and the possibilities and limits of movements v our old friend neoliberalism. There were some interesting bits – on a chap called Paolo Gerbaudo and popular identity, the details of what has been happening in Egypt since 2011, on how industrial relations is hived off academically from social movements, and on a new social phenomenon in South Africa called pexing – (a form of conspicuous creative destruction that’s the testicular equivalent of haul videos – the result of a three-way between Veblen, Schumpeter and Mauss.)
BUT the average/maximum limit for a human’s attention span is about 50 minutes. By the time you’ve been sat there 77 minutes you either
a) have to have left without being able to do more than be ego-fodder or
b) are not in the mood for creative thought and/or
c) are even keener than usual to get your speech-disguised-as-a-question off your chest.
What is to be done
Either have a time limit and enforce it, or DON’T have a time limit. There are of course consequences for both decisions, and for enforcing/not enforcing both. Here’s a touchy-feely and effective way of crowdsourcing the “stfu”.
Perhaps ask presenters to focus on “what lessons might we learn?” rather than give a description of what’s been going on. Description is (relatively) easy; analysis and drawing out (potential) lessons, not so much.
Offer people a chance/inducement/expectation that they talk to other people, either before, between, or after the speeches/before the questions. Ideally all of the above. That way we start to strengthen some of those weak ties that the Granovetter guy was going on about (sorta).
And this.
marchudson.net 
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