THE internal code of conduct here at Herald Towers is pretty standard fare for a modern office environment – a manifesto for beige conformity that asphyxiates creativity, homogenises thought and amplifies one’s inner scream to deafening levels.

Such casual totalitarianism generally operates under the delusion that without order, there is chaos. To avoid such disruption in the galleys, we’re told don’t drink, don’t drug, don’t smoke, don’t smell, comb your hair, put your genitals away, shave, turn up on time, keep your opinions to yourself, one minute for a pee, five for a poo, don’t hide your cans of Stella in the disabled toilet cistern and try not to kill anyone.

Human resources – such bleakly Orwellian terminology – remain the amateur anthropologists of capitalism, operating their unmalleable diktat under the false premise that employees are simply shaved apes, wired to cause havoc without someone else’s moral framework tattooed onto their brains. Moulding drones, then wondering why there’s no innovation or ideas, has doomed many a business.

Yet there’s one supposedly forward-thinking company that really believes our species is in need of hardcore reprogramming. In the future, perhaps, they’ll manage that ambition quite literally. But for now, omnipresent tech titans Google are so afraid of human fallibility that they actually state “don’t be evil” in their company handbook. Not only that, they made it the company motto.

In fact, so ingrained was this mantra within Google HQ in California that it also served as the wi-fi password on those wee bullet shuttles which transport employees from ballpit to think pod.

Despite a Jungle Jims work environment designed to infantilise and pacify, the moderation of discontent is currently not going to plan at Google.

More than 3,000 employees recently signed a letter in protest against the firm working on an artificial intelligence project for the US military, entitled Project Maven.

This controversial endeavour uses state-of-the-art image recognition software to sift through countless hours of drone video footage to identify “objects of interest” for the army. The whole stooshie has so far led to the resignation of around a dozen righteous employees.

In a strongly-worded petition, the more “woke” members of the workforce put their kale smoothies and phones down for long enough to write: “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war. This contract puts Google’s reputation at risk and stands in direct opposition to our core values.”

So did Google bow to internal pressure and call a halt to getting into bed with the US military? An act that seemed to directly contradict their “don’t be evil” ethos?

No – the motto was simply dropped from the firm’s code of conduct instead. No longer will Google workers be advised against evil.

Yet, with only 4,000 of the firm’s 90,000 employees signing the petition, we can safely assume the remaining 86,000 Googlers were not all that adherent to their former motto anyway.

STUDY SHOWS WE ONLY SEE WHAT WE WANT TO SEE

HITLER fled to Argentina. The CIA killed the Kennedys. Kubrick faked the moon landings. The royal family are shapeshifting aliens. Brexit is not an elitist powergrab. Left-leaning Scottish newspapers are unionist Trojan horses. It seems the more outlandish conspiracy theories are, the more of our precious time they can waste. Moderators at heraldscotland.com would certainly agree.

Let’s not be so quick to mock alternative perceptions of reality, however. No-one’s mind is perfectly tuned to the frequency of universal truth.

This is evident in day-to-day life when the masks that lubricate social interaction slip and we stand naked, expressing passionate convictions to others who are too polite to inform us that we’re completely mental. In public, that is.

On the internet, however, no masks or social niceties are necessary – the power of instant communication clearly exposes humanity’s true face as a particularly fractured Picasso.

This melting pot of simmering id stews a collective paranoia with zero nutritional value – one example being recent online accusations that Herald chief reporter David Leask is actually an MI5 plant. You may even have seen him on the telly last week denying it. Should have had a shave, Dave.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, though. That BBC appearance was all clever subterfuge. What you thought was The Herald hack defending the Fourth Estate was actually a self-aware hologram – one which truly believed it was the real Leask.

And despite this projection’s very plausable denials, Leask actually is MI5. For the simple reason that he is the only true consciousness in existence. It could be said Leask is every MI5 agent. He is also you and I, and the alpha and the omega. David Leask’s true form resides somewhere outside of space and time, where he watches all his cosmic artworks play – infinitesimal splatters from an inexhaustible palette.

We are but sparks thrown from the eternal flame of Leask, an endless succession of self-aware creations scorched onto the fabric of spacetime. Stars are his neurons firing, and black holes capture not light, but Leask Thoughts. The expansion of the universe is simply the grand tapestry of Leask rolling out across infinity like an endless J&W carpet.

This is all true because I believe it. And I don’t care how a new psychological study from the Zurich Institute of Public Affairs suggests my fallible human mind has misunderstood logical probabilities because it despises uncertainty. Apparently, my faith in David Leask is borne of a psychological desire to apply personal bias to explain unlikely and complex events without having any facts or evidence at hand.

Like a stopped clock, it seems Michael Gove could have once been correct – that the popularity of conspiracy theories proves we have truly had enough of experts and facts. That the only truth that matters is the one we personally cultivate, especially when these constructs are validated by other lonely voices searching for congregations in the digital fog.

The new study, published in journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, involved 2,200 participants and five rather interesting experiments. In one, folk were asked to read fictional news stories – behave – involving a journalist having a heart attack – again, behave. It was only a thought experiment, no hacks were harmed – so put down that meal deal Cava.

Different volunteers were told that the journalist either had a one per cent, 25 per cent, 50 per cent, 75 per cent or 95 per cent chance of having a heart attack. They were then asked to rate how likely it was that the journalist had experienced a heart attack or had been murdered.

And lo, the more unlikely the heart attack scenario was, the more participants believed that the journalist was somehow murdered. It’s stating the obvious somewhat to say that people often jump to the wrong conclusions, but to see this verified by professional observation is worthy of highlighting.

In a second experiment, the volunteers were told that this poor seeker of veritas and gatekeeper of democracy had recently reported on Government corruption. This time, even more participants believed that he had been murdered.

Again, a pretty obvious conclusion, but evidence that despite having limited or no facts, the dots still have to be joined in our minds. Suspicion of foul play often fills the gaps perfectly.

“The lower the probability of an event, the stronger participants embrace conspiratorial explanations,” the authors concluded in their study.

“Conspiratorial thinking potentially represents a cognitive heuristic – a coping mechanism for uncertainty.”

HOW NOT TO FIRST FOOT SOMEONE

IN the classic movie Whisky Galore, countless crates of Scotland’s greatest export since wedding day transvestism wash up on a remote island’s shore. More worthy recipients would have been the residents of British Columbia in Canada, who haven’t been so fortunate with the sea’s bounty.

Over the past few years, the traumatised locals have discovered 16 human feet washed up on their shoreline.

This modern-day mystery was rebooted last week when the 16th foot was discovered, like all the rest, macabrely entombed inside its former owner’s running shoe. Despite the frequency of these finds, local police never suspected foul play was afoot.

Exotic theories concerning gangsters, pirates, serial killers and even aliens belie the fact that eight of the feet were identified as victims of drowning. As there are seven million folk crammed along the Salish Sea, the death rate is apparently much higher than in similar bodies of water.

But what has really perplexed investigators, however, is why it’s only feet that have been washed ashore. Until now, that is – with some smart lateral thinking by local scientists finally providing an answer. Decomposition takes place much quicker in the water – hungry fish also play a part – and with the ankle being one of the skeleton’s weakest joints, it quickly becomes separated from the leg.

Where the real eureka moment arrived, however, is with the simple solution to why no bodies have been found. Apparently, recent changes in the material running shoes are made from now cause them to float in water – where historically they would have been doomed to a fate on the seabed.

“Notice there are no feet washing ashore in stiletto heels or flip-flops.” said Gail Anderson, from the Centre for Forensic Research at Simon Fraser University. So it seems if you’re not wearing new trainers when you drown, you are likely remain a lost sole forever.