Rude Awakening: The New Rules of Rudeness
What does it mean to be rude in a world where the rules are changing faster than we can agree on them? In this Brains Trust Breakfast we explore how technology and social change are reshaping the way we relate to one another, and what that means for our ideas about respect and belonging.
What does it mean to be rude in a world where the rules are changing faster than we can agree on them? In this Brains Trust Breakfast we explore how technology and social change are reshaping the way we relate to one another, and what that means for our ideas about respect and belonging. Along the way, we’ll look at loneliness, dislocation and the rise of “non-places” (such as airports, shopping centres, online spaces and other environments where we increasingly encounter strangers without necessarily feeling connected to them). This is not a seminar about rewriting the rules of etiquette but one that explores ideas about attention, identity, community and the social contract. Over breakfast we’ll try to work out if we are really becoming ruder, lonelier and more disconnected, or simply learning how to live together in a radically different world.
Shift Happens: A World in Transition
This presentation shows how volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity have combined to create a world in transition. This new context, much more a ‘new abnormal’ than a ‘new normal’, places new demands on how we think about basically everything.
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Live at Lunchtime October 2026
Train from the comfort of your office or home with The Curiosity Company’s Live at Lunchtime course.This is a four-week online workshop delivered in weekly 90-minute sessions by New Zealand’s Crown Prince of Critical Thinking, Carl Davidson. These online courses are the same engaging high-impact content of our in-person programmes but designed for busy professionals from across the motu.This workshop explores why it so hard to think critically before introducing a range of tools to unleash your critical thinking, nurture your scepticism, and supercharge your decision-making acumen. It will benefit anyone with an interest in improving their thinking and decision-making skills, or in improving those skills among the people they work with.If you work with knowledge on a daily basis then this is the workshop for you.
Live at Lunchtime July 2026
Train from the comfort of your office or home with The Curiosity Company’s Live at Lunchtime course.This is a four-week online workshop delivered in weekly 90-minute sessions by New Zealand’s Crown Prince of Critical Thinking, Carl Davidson. These online courses are the same engaging high-impact content of our in-person programmes but designed for busy professionals from across the motu.This workshop explores why it so hard to think critically before introducing a range of tools to unleash your critical thinking, nurture your scepticism, and supercharge your decision-making acumen. It will benefit anyone with an interest in improving their thinking and decision-making skills, or in improving those skills among the people they work with.If you work with knowledge on a daily basis then this is the workshop for you.