I meet my youngest daughter for gym on most Saturday mornings. We then head off for a smoothie and more chattery. Recently we’ve been taking turns to ask ChatGPT to come up with 5 interesting and unusual questions that we take turns to answer.
For those of you interested, here’s the prompt I used this week:
“Having a smoothie with my daughter. We play a game where we ask you to come up with 10 fun and interesting questions to ask each other. I’m looking for unusual questions. And go…”
If Animals Governed?
One of the questions ChatGPT produced was: “If animals suddenly developed a government, which animal do you think would be president and why?“
We South Africanised the question to include only animals found here, and expanded the question to:
If all humans disappeared off the planet, and animals got together to form a government in South Africa:
- Which animal would you expect would become President (knowing what you know about politicians)?
- Which animal would you hope or like to become President (based on who would make a good President)?
It turned into a great conversation. So good we decided to expand our sample of 2, to a sample of as many as we could.
Whatsapps were sent out, conversations around braais were had, calls were made and we ended up with 31 respondents. It’s definitely not at all representative of the size and breadth of the fabulous diversity that makes up South Africa, but I can tell you that the 31 crossed culture, gender, age, colour, economic status, education, provinces and even countries.
Who We’d Expect to Rule
The first question was based on who we’d expect to ascend to power, based on what we know about today’s politicians. The results were unanimous in terms of types of animals chosen, as well as descriptors used by those who chose to explain the reason for their choices. Here are a few examples:
I think the animal that would become president (knowing what I know, and what I’ve heard) would be a scorpion or a baboon. A scorpion betrays allies, only thinking of themselves and their survival. A baboon being smart, social, aggressive and hierarchical, forming ‘alliances’ with other animals in order to keep their ‘top dog’ position.
My revolutionary mind gravitated towards George Orwell’s Animal Farm book, Pigs were my obvious choice for the presidency and governing, but then I realised how quickly they got corrupted after seizing power.
A male lion – predator, makes a lot of noise, notoriously lazy, selfish
Mosquito
– fucking irritating
– sucks the life blood out of you
– some kill you
– no value to man or beast, except the odd gecko
How do Politicians Sleep at Night?
Were you surprised by any of the above? I wasn’t. Surely politicians know that this is the prevailing general view of who they are and how they behave? I’m prepared to bet that it’s a global view, with few to no countries where the predominant view is the opposite.
To be honest, if I worked in an industry in which my customers / constituency took this view of me, I’d get out, move jobs, change industry. Unless…… (you fill in the rest of the sentence).
Here’s a word cloud of the final results:
Who We’d Hope Would Rule
The second question was based on which animal we’d hope would ascend to power, based on what we think would make a good President.
This time the results were far more unanimous. Here are a few examples of descriptors used to explain their choices, and the animals chosen below:
A dog or wolf would be my choice for president, due to their loyalty and relentless nature. I would then fill cabinet posts with all sorts of monkeys (intelligence) and elephants (strength)
My choice is the elephant, mainly because of the protection and the care of the family. Elephants are very strong around making sure that the bloodline of the specific family will keep living. And there’s a strong way elephants move in a pack. It’s very legacy based. I like that idea because it’s not just based on the now, but also on something that is beyond the matriarch that would be in the lead.
An animal I would hope to be President is an elephant. Wise, intelligent, working well in groups, have great leadership, thrive in community and look after their own.
Female Elephant
– powerful but does not abuse power
– caring of young and old
– respected by all
– treads very gently but don’t take shit
– feared by many – don’t cross them
– intelligent with long memories
– when there are too many of them they cause destruction!
The Elephant in the Room
There really isn’t much more to add. The word clouds, the votes, and the descriptors say it all. Except….
Except for the elephant in the room. The results of question 1, which I imagine you share, describe the people we put in place. That I put in place. They’re there because we voted them in. I voted them in. They didn’t get there on their own.
As I reflect on my own voting history, I can’t say I’ve ever voted for an elephant. I’ve always hoped for one, but I’ve never truly expected that the party and the people I voted for were going to be elephants. They certainly weren’t elephants during their campaign.
Nuf sed. There’s plenty in there for me to think about. Darn you ChatGPT and smoothie chattery 🙂
