Another Spectrum

Personal ramblings and rants of a somewhat twisted mind

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The Lens We Don’t See

A Small Jolt of Surprise

I was genuinely surprised when I read Scottie’s recent post and discovered that electronic shelf labels are viewed with a degree of caution in the United States. Here in Aotearoa, they feel so ordinary that I barely notice them — part of the quiet background hum of supermarket life. Or at least, that’s what I assumed. It wasn’t until I went looking for confirmation that I realised my certainty was built almost entirely on my own patch of the country, where ESLs are everywhere. Step outside the lower North Island and the picture becomes more uneven. It was a small but useful reminder that even the most mundane beliefs — like how common a price label is — are shaped less by the world itself and more by the cultural lens we happen to be looking through.

That small jolt of self‑correction made Scottie’s point land with unexpected force. If I could so easily mistake my local experience for a national one, how much more might entire cultures do the same? And that, in turn, made me look again at the American reaction he described. What struck me wasn’t just that US shoppers view electronic shelf labels with suspicion, but that their suspicion made perfect sense within their cultural frame. The same technology that feels mundane, even reassuring, in my corner of Aotearoa can look like a tool for surveillance or price manipulation when filtered through a different history of banking, retail, and trust. The labels haven’t changed — only the lenses through which they’re read.

Two Countries, Two Lenses

What really struck me, once I started looking more closely, was how differently the two countries arrived at their present relationship with retail technology. In New Zealand, trust in digital infrastructure has been quietly accumulating for decades. We were early adopters of electronic transactions — known locally as EFTPOS, or Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale — and early adopters of nationwide ATM networks and a centralised clearing system that made electronic banking feel safe, predictable, and almost invisible. Even today, it’s perfectly normal to give your bank account number to a business, a friend, or the neighbour who owes you for firewood — a gesture that astonishes many visitors.

Our whole payments ecosystem grew up inside a framework of cooperation and interoperability, so electronic transactions came to feel like an extension of everyday life rather than a leap into the unknown. In the United States, the story unfolded very differently. Their banking system is fragmented, their retail environment more adversarial, and their history with digital payments far more uneven. It’s hardly surprising, then, that a technology which reads as “convenience” in New Zealand can read as “surveillance” in America. The difference isn’t in the technology itself, but in the cultural soil it lands in.

The contrast becomes even sharper when you look at how these different histories of trust and mistrust play out in something as ordinary as supermarket technology. In New Zealand, electronic shelf labels tend to be read as a small but welcome improvement — tidy, accurate, consistent, and refreshingly free of the little pricing ambiguities that paper tags sometimes encouraged. They sit comfortably within a wider pattern of digital systems that have generally behaved themselves.

But in the United States, the same labels carry a very different emotional weight. There, a long history of fragmented banking, opaque fees, and corporate experimentation with things like dynamic pricing has primed shoppers to see any instantly changeable price as a potential threat. Add in loyalty programmes that track purchasing behaviour in far more detail than most New Zealanders would tolerate, and it’s easy to understand why an ESL might look less like a convenience and more like a tool for surveillance pricing. Even self‑checkout — which Americans adopted earlier than we did — is interpreted through this lens: a sign of cost‑cutting, automation, and the steady erosion of human service. The technology is the same on both sides of the Pacific, but the stories wrapped around it are not.

The Lens We Don’t See

What all of this brings into focus is something much larger than supermarket technology. The way New Zealanders and Americans read the same devices isn’t really about labels, scanners, or checkout lanes at all — it’s about the deeper stories each culture carries about trust, institutions, and the likelihood of being treated fairly. We don’t approach new technologies as blank slates. We approach them with a lifetime of accumulated expectations: what banks have done in the past, how retailers behave during crises, whether regulators step in when things go wrong, whether systems generally work as promised. Those expectations become the lens through which we interpret whatever sits in front of us.

And once you start noticing that lens, you see it everywhere. It shapes how people read scripture, how they interpret silence in a Quaker meeting, how they understand words like “Christianity” or “truth”, and how they react to ideas that challenge familiar patterns. It shapes memes that refuse to evolve, definitions that harden into dogma, and assumptions that feel like facts simply because they’ve never been questioned. The supermarket aisle turns out to be just another place where the same old human habit plays out: we don’t see the world as it is — we see it as our culture has taught us to expect it to be.

I’m conscious, too, that my own relationship with digital payments colours how I interpret all of this. I’ve been effectively cashless since the early 1990s, ever since the local savings bank in Whanganui handed me one of the country’s first EFTPOS cards. For more than three decades, tapping a card has been as ordinary to me as turning on a light switch. Even at the Friday farmers’ market, where the stalls sit under canvas and the produce still smells of soil, electronic payments feel entirely natural. On the rare occasion a retailer doesn’t offer them, I simply go elsewhere. That long familiarity has shaped my expectations in ways I barely notice.

My sense of what counts as “normal” has also been shaped by the contrast with Japan, where my wife’s family lives and where I’ve spent a fair amount of time. When I last visited in 2017, it was still very much a cash‑based society. It wasn’t unusual to see someone stop at an ATM, withdraw a tidy stack of notes, do their shopping, and then deposit whatever remained on the way home. Even large retailers expected cash. Electronic payments existed, of course, but they sat at the edges of daily life rather than at its centre. For someone who hadn’t carried cash in New Zealand for more than two decades, it felt like stepping sideways into a parallel universe — one that was modern in every respect except the one I took most for granted.

My earliest lesson in how differently cultures handle money came long before electronic payments existed. When I married my wife in 1971, my wages were paid directly into my bank account — a perfectly ordinary arrangement in New Zealand even then. But for her, raised in rural Japan, it was quietly unsettling. At that time, it was normal — even expected — for a husband to bring home his unopened pay packet in cash and hand it straight to his wife, who managed the household finances. The husband would then receive a modest allowance for his own use. Despite the Western stereotype that Japanese men control everything, it was the wife who held the purse‑strings, and everyone understood this as the natural order of things.

Our workaround was simple and elegant: my wages were paid into her bank account, and an automatic payment transferred my pocket money. Happiness all round. But the memory stays with me because it shows how deeply financial habits are woven into cultural expectations. What felt entirely ordinary to me felt entirely foreign to her — not because either of us was wrong, but because we had grown up inside different systems of trust, responsibility, and social rhythm.

The same pattern shows up in my relationship with technology more broadly. I find AI genuinely helpful because it gives me a way to express ideas that bridge the autistic–non‑autistic communication gap — a kind of conversational scaffolding that lets me share concepts with far less friction. But I’m well aware that others see the same technology through a very different lens: as a threat to intellectual property, a generator of “AI slop”, or a sign that creativity is being hollowed out. The tool hasn’t changed; only the stories wrapped around it have.

Closing Reflection

Which brings me back to where this whole reflection began. The technology in front of us — an electronic shelf label, a bank card, a self‑checkout terminal, or even an AI assistant — is never just a piece of hardware. It’s a mirror that reflects the assumptions we carry, the histories we’ve inherited, and the quiet expectations we rarely notice until they’re challenged. Scottie’s post reminded me that even something as mundane as a supermarket price tag can reveal how differently people see the world, not because the world itself has changed, but because the lenses we look through are shaped by the cultures that raised us. And perhaps that’s the most useful reminder of all: we don’t see the world as it is — we see it as our culture has taught us to expect it to be.


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When Assumptions Meet Reality: A Few Quaker Anecdotes

Every now and then life hands you a moment that shows just how easily we mistake our own assumptions for universal truth. Some of these moments have nothing to do with religion at all — they’re simply reminders that the way we see the world is not the only way it can be seen.

Years ago, my wife told me she couldn’t eat a piece of fruit because it was “blue.” I looked at it. It was orange — a persimmon. Perfectly innocent. But in Japanese, unripe fruit is described as blue. The literal word didn’t carry the same meaning across cultures. Without shared context, the “plain meaning” wasn’t plain at all.

Or consider how in Māori culture mountains, rivers, and forests are understood as living entities. New Zealand law now recognises some of these as legal persons. Many Westerners misinterpret this as treating them as human, because they read the word “person” through a strictly Eurocentric lens. Again, the literal meaning isn’t literal at all unless you share the worldview behind it.

These moments remind me how easily we assume our own way of seeing is the only way. And nowhere is this more apparent than when people discover I’m a Quaker.

SPICES and the Fear of Indoctrination

A few years ago, in a discussion about indoctrination, I mentioned that I had raised my children according to Quaker values. I used the word values, not beliefs. Even so, several people gasped as if I’d confessed to locking my children in a basement with a stack of tracts.

One person even blurted out, “You don’t deserve to have kids. It’s disgusting to indoctrinate children.”

It took a while to convince them that all parents pass on values — whether they name them or not. And that Quaker values are not a list of doctrines but a set of ethical commitments often summarised as SPICES: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Sustainability.

Once they realised I wasn’t secretly drilling my children in obscure theology, most of the alarm subsided. Mostly.

But it showed me how tightly some people equate “religion” with “indoctrination,” even when the reality is something quite different.

The Anti‑Religionist Interrogation

Then there was the social gathering where someone, after a few beers, declared that all religions are misogynistic, bigoted, intolerant, indoctrinate children, control people through fear of hell, and are a blot on society.

Normally I let such sweeping statements pass, but I was with a friend who has learned a fair bit about Quakerism from me. She bravely — or foolishly — interrupted and said, “That’s not true. Barry’s religion is none of those. Prove me wrong.”

I may have cringed.

The anti‑religionist, delighted by the challenge, began firing off yes/no questions.

“Does his religion have women clergy?”
“No.”

“Does it have gay clergy?”
“No.”

“Non‑European priests?”
“No.”

He smiled triumphantly. “See? That proves my point.”

My friend paused. “You haven’t asked whether they have straight cis‑male clergy.”

He frowned. “Well… do they?”
“No.”

At this point, his confidence wobbled. He moved on to doctrine.

“Do they teach original sin?”
“No.”

“The divinity of Jesus?”
“No.”

“The resurrection?”
“No.”

After a few more questions, all answered “No,” he threw up his hands and declared, “There’s no such religion,” and stomped off.

Some onlookers laughed — partly because he was known for his inflexible views, partly because he’d been outsmarted, and partly because they knew I’m a Quaker. Others looked confused, so I took the opportunity to explain the essence of Quakerism.

It was a funny moment, but also a telling one. For some people, a non‑authoritarian religion is literally unimaginable.

Homeopathy Christianity?

Another blogger once described Quakerism as “so watered down and diluted that it’s Homeopathy Christianity — totally ineffective.”

I admit I laughed. But it’s also wildly inaccurate.

If Quakerism is “ineffective,” it’s curious how much social change a few drops have produced: abolition, women’s suffrage, conscientious objection, restorative justice, LGBTQ inclusion, environmental protection. Not bad for something supposedly diluted.

But again, the assumption was clear: if a religion doesn’t tell you what to believe, doesn’t police your thoughts, and doesn’t threaten you with hell, then it must be meaningless.

Practice, Not Belief

All these stories point to the same misunderstanding: many people assume that religion is fundamentally about belief — about creeds, doctrines, and intellectual assent. And if a tradition doesn’t enforce belief, they assume it has nothing left.

But at the heart of Quakerism is practice, not belief.

Quakerism doesn’t ask you to believe the right things. It asks you to live the right things — as best you can, in community, with humility. And even here, there is no prescribed list of “right things.” There are guides that centre on relationships — peace, integrity, equality, community, simplicity, care for the earth — but ultimately it is left to each of us, individually and communally, to discern what right action looks like in the moment. It is a practice of continual listening rather than a rulebook of fixed answers.

And Quakerism isn’t unique in this. Many mainstream denominations — especially in Aotearoa — have branches that, in their own distinctive ways, also emphasise lived values over rigid doctrine. They, too, contain strands that are open to diversity, grounded in relationship, and wary of authoritarian certainty. Quakerism is simply one example of a wider truth: religion need not be coercive, dogmatic, or closed to interpretation.

Living peaceably is hard.
Living with integrity is hard.
Living simply in a consumerist world is hard.
Living equality in a hierarchical society is hard.
Living community in an individualistic culture is hard.
Living sustainably in a world of convenience is hard.

Quakerism doesn’t ask you to believe the right things. It asks you to live the right things — and to keep listening for what that means.

If that looks “wishy‑washy” or “diluted,” perhaps it’s because people are looking for doctrine where Quakers look for practice.


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What Is Christianity? (Revisited)

Back in 2018 I wrote a short piece reflecting on Lloyd Geering’s observation that Christianity has never been a single, unified belief system. At the time, I was mostly irritated by how often people — critics and believers alike — spoke as if “Christianity” were a tidy, coherent package with a single essence. I didn’t realise it then, but that irritation was the beginning of a much longer journey into understanding diversity: of belief, of interpretation, of culture, and more recently, of neurotype.

Recent conversations — including some lively exchanges with Ark and my reflections on LaMar’s videos — have brought that old post back to mind. What strikes me now is how much of my current thinking was already present eight years ago, even if I didn’t yet have the language for it. I was already pushing back against universalising claims, already noticing how literalism flattens complexity, and already leaning toward storytelling as a way of opening space rather than closing it.

So I’m revisiting that post here, not to defend Christianity (I’m long past that), but because it speaks to something broader: the value of diversity in how we understand the world, and the trouble we get into when we pretend that one interpretation — of a text, a tradition, or even a person — must be the only valid one.

Below is a lightly edited summary of what I wrote in 2018, followed by a few reflections from where I stand today.

2018: What Is Christianity? (Summary)

In that earlier post, I drew on Lloyd Geering’s argument that Christianity has never been a single, unified entity. From the very beginning, it has been a collection of communities, stories, practices, and interpretations — sometimes harmonious, often contradictory, and always evolving.

Geering used the metaphor of a stream of culture rather than a fixed set of doctrines. Christianity, in his view, is not a box of beliefs but a flowing current shaped by history, language, and human imagination. What counts as “Christian” in one century or culture may be unrecognisable in another.

I also pushed back against the familiar “baby and bathwater” metaphor often used by both fundamentalists and New Atheists. The idea that there is a single “baby” — an essential core of Christianity — that must either be preserved or discarded assumes that Christianity has a stable essence. Geering’s point, and mine, was that there is no baby. There is only the stream.

That was the heart of the 2018 post: Christianity is diverse, fluid, and culturally shaped. Treating it as a monolith leads to misunderstandings on all sides.

2026: Why This Still Matters

What I didn’t fully appreciate in 2018 is how deeply this insight connects to other forms of diversity — cultural, cognitive, and interpretive.

1. Diversity is not a flaw; it’s the natural state of things

Whether we’re talking about Christianity, Te Tiriti interpretations, or the way autistic and non‑autistic people communicate, diversity isn’t a problem to be solved. It’s a reality to be understood. Attempts to impose a single meaning — a “correct” reading — usually say more about the reader than the text.

2. Literalism is a modern invention

LaMar and similar critics treat the Bible as if it were a modern, literal, single‑voice document. But ancient texts were shaped by oral tradition, performance, metaphor, and cultural nuance. Reading them as if they were instruction manuals is like viewing a storyboard and assuming you’ve seen the film.

3. Storytelling creates shared space without forcing agreement

This is something I’ve only recently begun to understand about my own writing. I don’t tell stories to persuade. I tell them to create a space where understanding can grow — even if we don’t end up agreeing. That’s how oral cultures work, and it’s how I seem to work too.

4. Universalising claims shut down dialogue

When someone says “Christianity teaches X,” they’re not describing Christianity. They’re describing their Christianity — or the version they once knew. Dialogue becomes difficult when one person treats their interpretation as the only one available.

5. Revisiting old ideas can reveal how much we’ve grown

Looking back at my 2018 post, I can see the early threads of ideas that have since become central to my thinking: interpretive plurality, cultural context, and the importance of accepting diversity rather than flattening it.

A Closing Thought

I’m not reviving this post because I want to re‑enter debates about Christianity. I’m reviving it because it reminds me that diversity — of belief, of interpretation, of experience — has always been part of how I understand the world. And because it offers a gentle counterpoint to the universalising claims that still crop up in conversations today.

If there’s a “baby” in all this, perhaps it’s not Christianity at all, but the simple recognition that human beings make meaning in many different ways. And that our understanding deepens not when we insist on one meaning, but when we allow space for many.


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Superstition Saves Lives (and Other Unlucky Days You Should Probably Worry About More)

“Friday the 13th: where the sceptics stay safe, the superstitious stay home, and the reckless secure their Darwin Award.”

There’s something gloriously ironic about Friday the 13th—it’s supposed to be the unluckiest day of the year, yet statistically, it’s one of the safest. Yep, you read that right. Superstition, it turns out, is a brilliant safety net.

Think about it: the people who normally fling themselves headfirst into risky situations suddenly decide to dial it back for the day. The bloke who usually speeds through intersections takes an extra second to look both ways. The thrill-seeker who was definitely going to try wingsuit flying reconsiders their life choices. And those of us who aren’t ruled by superstition? Well, we reap the benefits of a world that’s momentarily being more careful. Cheers for that, irrational fear!

But here’s the kicker—Friday the 13th isn’t the only day people panic about. Different cultures have their own doom-laden dates, and some of them are even stranger than ours. Let’s take a tour of global bad-luck days, shall we?

Tuesday the 13th – Spain & Greece’s ‘Hold My Sangria’ Moment

We Kiwis tend to think of Friday the 13th as ominous, but Spain and Greece say, “Nah mate, it’s Tuesday the 13th you’ve got to watch out for.” Why? Because Tuesday is ruled by Mars, the god of war, and if history’s taught us anything, it’s that war rarely goes well. Combine the fiery energy of Mars with the number 13’s chaotic rep, and you’ve got a recipe for absolute carnage (or at least a mild case of existential dread).

What do people do about it? Well, they generally avoid important life decisions, air travel, or risky investments—so if your Spanish mate suddenly cancels a meeting on a Tuesday the 13th, don’t take it personally. They’re just dodging cosmic catastrophe.

April 4th – China & Japan’s ‘That’s a Bit Grim’ Day

Now, this one isn’t about an unlucky weekday—it’s about the number four itself. In China and Japan, four (四, shi) sounds eerily similar to the word for death (死, shi), so naturally, people are a little wary of it. Hospitals often skip Room 4, apartment complexes sometimes avoid a fourth floor, and don’t expect to receive four of anything as a gift—it’s just not done.

Now, you might think, “Hey, what about seven (shichi)? That kinda sounds like shi too, right?” Well, some Japanese folks do avoid it for that reason, but it’s nowhere near as feared as four. Plus, Japan has the Seven Gods of Luck, so seven kinda balances out its own dodgy pronunciation.

Would this superstition make April 4th statistically safer? Maybe! If enough people stay home or avoid risky behaviour, you end up with fewer accidents. But let’s be honest—if fate’s got it in for you, it’s not going to check the calendar first.

September 9th – Japan’s ‘Double Trouble’ Day

If four (shi) is considered unlucky in Japan, nine (kyuu or ku) doesn’t get off lightly either. The word for nine (九, ku) sounds a bit too close to 苦 (ku, suffering or hardship) for comfort, making 9/9 a day that some people associate with misfortune.

Fortunately, this superstition isn’t quite as widespread as the fear of four, but it’s enough that some people avoid scheduling major events on September 9th. To balance things out, some prefer saying “kyuu” instead of “ku” to soften the association. Still, when your bad luck numbers are at both ends of the scale, it’s fair to say Japan’s got numerical superstition covered.

Friday the 17th – Italy’s ‘Rearrange the Numbers and Panic’ Day

The Italians don’t stress about Friday the 13th, but bring up Friday the 17th, and suddenly, everyone’s clutching their lucky charms. Why? Because in Roman numerals, 17 is written as XVII, which can be rearranged to spell VIXI—a Latin word meaning “I have lived”… which is basically the ancient equivalent of “Well, that’s me done.”

Not exactly the vibe you want when booking a holiday or going in for surgery, right? So in Italy, hotels sometimes skip Room 17, and some airlines steer clear of a Row 17. No one’s taking chances with symbolic death messages.

So, What’s the Takeaway?

Turns out superstition isn’t just about irrational fear—it actively changes behaviour. Whether it’s Friday the 13th making people drive cautiously or Tuesday the 13th convincing Spaniards to reschedule their business meetings, fear can be oddly productive.

Maybe instead of dismissing these dates, we should embrace them. After all, if believing in bad luck makes people act safer… maybe we could just invent Monday the Whateverth and trick everyone into driving carefully every week? Food for thought.

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