POLLING HUMAN FACES FOR METRICS OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT - SATURDAY NIGHT OUT WITH THE DOGS

Everywhere we go, everyone we meet, we look at faces to form an opinion about the feelings behind everyone’s phrenology [1].   

This is a Darwinian action - our self preservation relies on assigning dangerous - or safe - motives to everyone (everything) with which we come into contact.

Is the person I meet going to stab me?  Rape me?  Panhandle me? Offer me a job? 

We look at faces and make instantaneous determinations.

So when I came to Toronto and felt that there was an entirely different set of civic engagement mores here than in Cleveland, my first thought was “why can’t we develop a facial recognition system/software to quantify civic engagement”  

I tried this idea out on one of the fellows I met at the park.  It was 9:30pm and about 15 degrees.  Dogs were racing around after balls and cuzes [2] while everyone socialized. 

The fellow, David, turned out to be a clinical psychologist.  He thought I was nuts. At first.