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Knowing Ignorance
Knowledge and ignorance are closely related concepts.
One thing I’ve found puzzling for many years already is to what degree awareness is also involved.
In my opinion, it seems unfathomable how anyone could know something and at the same time pretend to not know it. Yet followers of Freud apparently consider this to be so commonplace that denying this obvious fact of life seems equally unfathomable.
What I wish to focus on today, however, is not so much a matter of psychology, but simply a matter of defining “ignorance” — what does it actually mean to “ignore” something?
Is it necessary to first become fully aware and conscious of something’s actual existence in order to subsequently deny it and thereby to ignore it?
Or is it possible to (for example) simply “sleep through” something (like a storm that simply blows over and then disappears) and thereby to have never become cognizant of the fact’s existence at all?
Personally, I feel that would not be ignorance per se, but rather something like innocence or simply uninformedness — we can have “no knowledge” of something, and we can also have “no information” about something without being ignorant … or not?
If we know that the moon has a spherical form, and that we only see one side of it from Earth, do we “ignore” the other side? Or if I am aware of the existence of another language (one which I don’t understand), do I ignore everything spoken or written in that language, simply by refusing to learn that language?
If some company can make a pretty penny by tricking some user into clicking on a link, is the user behaving out of ignorance or from some other motivation?
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Does Google Own the Internet?
For the faithful [1], the answer is almost certainly a resounding “YES!”
Yet before jumping to conclusions, let me take a step back in time.
A long time ago, messages (i.e., “dialog boxes”) like this were quite widespread. I think they were seen as confusing, and gradually gave way to other question-and-answer combinations. What I wish to draw attention to here is the “Abort” option.
To answer the question “Does Google Own the Internet?” I think this is the kind of option chosen by the vast majority (whether faithful believers or concerned skeptics or whatever). By choosing “abort” the user can exit the question — apparently without committing to any answer at all.
This choice allows the question-answerer to completely sidestep the issues involved in addressing the question at all. My hunch is that this choice is chosen primarily to avoid dealing with the problems associated with a clear “YES” or “NO” answer.
Both answers come with problems.
With “YES” the problems abound with issues like “Should Google choose your next president?” (see “Google Campaigns Against Donald Trump’s Re-Election in 2020 Campaign as President of USA (vs Joe Biden)” [ https://campaign.politics.blog/2020/11/14/google-campaigns-against-donald-trumps-re-election-in-2020-campaign-as-president-of-usa-vs-joe-biden-2020 ]), or your next employer? your next customer? your next business partner or romantic partner?
With “NO” the issues mostly revolve around the obvious lack of literacy skills among most Internet users today. Most Internet users are completely overwhelmed by having to choose an alternative to Google, and therefore they prefer to put complete blind faith in the company that controls how they live their lives (or not).
[1] Here I thinking primarily of the type of “fans” who might say something like “I welcome my AI overlords” (without being very clear about what the concept “artificial intelligence” might actually refer to); See also “If Google is the Pope of the Internet, Then Who Are You & I?“.
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Whose Language?
Let me start with a little English lesson. English has many homonyms, other languages also have many homonyms. Sometimes I try to wake people up to the fact that there are many words in their own language that sound just like something completely different in other languages.
I often have to think twice about the difference between “whose” and “who’s”. The apostrophe is normally a sign used to indicate “possession” in English (especially in the most common apostrophe+”s” form), and yet with both “who” and “it” — which are also both very common words — the apostrophe is used to indicate the contraction of “who is” and “it is”. Whatever — never mind.
But this excellently raises the topic I actually want to talk about — namely: who controls this language (or any language)?
A few weeks ago, I discussed the way Elon Musk seems to be coming across as if he were in control of something, but that he is actually not in control at all (see “What’s X?“). Indeed: for many years already, “twitter.com” has probably become the template case for showing how we the people are still in control of language. The string “twitter” no longer refers to an English word, it now simply means something like “a platform for propaganda“. You might still argue that those two meanings are perhaps not very different from one another, yet if you also add in the “bot” activity and also other bullshit such as check-marks and advertising (which was “kicked off” by Opra Winfrey and similar celebrity / star engagements, including recommendations and similar “influence”), the whole business was really nothing short of a farce long before Elon Musk supposedly paid some money for it.
I think the string “twitter” may have now left the English lexicon forever.
A part of our language may very well have been sold to a corporation in Silicon Valley .. and did you or I get a single penny? I know I didn’t. I also have even more egregious examples up my sleeve; if you want to learn a little bit more, then let’s chat over a cuppa coffee or a glass of wine or whatever.
For now, I would like to stay focused on our language.
“Propaganda Information Technology vs. Indigena Information Technology — the Basic Idea“ When I refer to literacy, I usually wish to draw attention (at least in part) to the fact that many people still need to acquire skills in order to be adequately skilled in differentiating between language and such crap as trademarks, brand names, etc.
Beyond that, I also feel responsible for the languages I use (see e.g. “Sparring for Literacy” [ https://wants.blog/2023/12/03/sparring-for-literacy ] ) … and beyond that, that we all should feel responsible for the languages we feel we share. These languages are our responsibility (or at least one of many responsibilities). We should not allow some government to take away any part of our language and give it to some private corporation to use as they please … at their sole discretion.
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About: Technological Limitations of the Publishing Model as an Information and Communications Technology
I am currently on what has gradually become an annual retreat with a now nearly life-long debating friend in which we spar over various topics for small bouts that last ranging amounts of time, from two minutes to two hours to two years and sometimes even beyond that.
Yesterday we engaged in such a bout over a favorite bouting topic of ours — Woody Allen movies, and in particular yesterday’s bout revolved mostly around one aspect of the film “Vicky Christina Barcelona”.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) Overnight it occurred to me that this also revolves around a particular shortcoming of publishing technology — namely: it still requires an “outcome” (i.e. a “payout”) before it allows mere communication to take place at all.
More exactly, the problem lies with failures in the “traditional publishing” oriented educational systems which still exist on such a wide scale today. These old-fashioned educational institutions mostly (nearly universally) still consider mere publication to be the end game rather as simply a starting point to get the ball rolling in endless and ongoing games of information and communication. These more and more ancient institutions are failing societies by allowing infantile (and incoherent or even completely meaningless) marketplaces to function as arbiters of success and / or failure.
Basing outcomes on such one-sided (and nearly universally “confusing as mud“) communications is doomed to bring at best vapid (if not even completely vacuous) results.
Producers and recipients are not allowed to meet and engage in exchanges before all payouts are already paid out and then everyone goes to sleep.
Most (if not all) traditional educational institutions still fail to produce literate adults capable of literally motivating publics to engage in literal dances of information and communication. They deserve an “F” for failing to teach enough — i.e. adequate levels of literacy for the information and communications technologies of today.
The “going concerns” of today require different flows of information and communications technology, they need to be adapted to longer range information and communication flows and exchanges, rather than short-changing by paying out little bits and pieces before even setting out and even just testing the waters of more or less scientific hypotheses being carried out on a daily basis in broad daylight.
I expect natural language needs to be more widely introduced and utilized (and probably also administered and adapted in a more scientific manner) in order to reap greater profits in future generations of information and communications technologies.
In case you missed it: that is a very central topic throughout the entire Socio.BIZ “social business” project.
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Mainstream and / or Main Stream?
Modern English and Modern German are closely related languages. Generally, when linguists say something like this, it mainly means something like “there once existed another language which was neither Modern English nor Modern German, yet which is common ancestor of both languages”. Of course something as complex as a language can hardly be described in great detail, but this way of speaking about language / languages is common practice (and is also perhaps not very widely, but at least somewhat generally known).
One distinction between Modern English and Modern German is very much a development of the influence of written language norms. Back in the Middle Ages, Latin was usually written without much attention to the separation of individual words. This may have gradually changed over time, but both Modern English and Modern German are very distinct from the Latin predecessor(s) in this respect. Of course Gutenberg’s printing press (and of course also later printing presses) were very influential in this development in written language.
And yet there is also a significant distinction between Modern German and Modern English regarding the spacing between words, which seems to have little to do with “information and communication technology” (such as the printing press) and much more to do with things like regulations which are usually not interpreted as technological matters but rather as matters of language, nationality, … and generally social norms. [1]
Modern German is a very strongly regulated language. I wish to completely sidestep addressing which regulatory bodies are involved in “organizing” the regulations, but in contrast Modern English seems rather unregulated and chaotic. One such difference in regulation has to do with word boundaries (predominantly in written text). Since Modern German is regulated by rules (i.e. algorithms), it is possible to create words algorithmically — quasi “on the fly”. So (for example) while in English language countries the concept “Main Street” is quite widespread, in German language countries the algorithmic approach is so widespread that the single word “Hauptstrasse” is completely regular and accepted as the norm.
Personally, I feel as though when two words are “mashed up” as one word, the meanings of the two-word phrase and single mashed-up word must be distinct [2].
This is also a concept widely applied in linguistics — usually referred to as a “minimal pair”. [3]
My hunch is that if there is indeed a distinction between strings like “main street” and “mainstreet”, then it vaguely seems to have to do with something like the distinction between “a” and “the” (i.e. “indefinite article” vs. “definite article; yesterday, I attempted to explicate this some more — see also “ONE WAY + Many Views” [ https://indigenous.news.blog/2023/11/24/one-way-many-views ] … haha, I’ve been thinking about this crap for quite some time already 😉 ).
Source: “ONE WAY + Many Views” [ https://indigenous.news.blog/2023/11/24/one-way-many-views ] Now I can finally get to (or “make“) my main point: when we say “mainstream”, do we mean “a main stream” or “the main stream”? I actually predominantly think of “mainstream” as an adjective — but that still doesn’t actually resolve the issue for me.
I guess that I still don’t know. [4]
[1] Yet compare also the work of Bruno Latour (whose influence via writing will hopefully not decrease since he recently passed from life).
[2] Note that I will also (for the sake of simplicity) sidestep the issue of “hyphenation” (in the above example, Modern German actually has two alternatives to “Hauptstrasse”, namely both “haupt Strasse” and “Haupt-Strasse” [let alone the possibility of the alternative orthography of “ß” vs. “ss”] ).
[3] I expect there are ample articles all over the Internet regarding the “minimal pair” concept (in the academic fields of linguistics), so I will not go into any detail here.
[4] Hat tips to Socrates (of course) and also to Lou Reed (cf. the song “Heroin”)
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Listening
A while back, I made a discovery.
Ironically, it happened while I had the radio on in the background, and I heard a recording of Rosanne Cash’s “Money Road” coming across the airwaves.
The irony probably has to be made clear though. I have long since been a huge fan of Frank Zappa — I think I have attended more Frank Zappa concerts than any other artist. FZ also released a bunch of live recordings near the end of his career, one of which was a recording of “Ring of Fire”, which Johnny Cash was also supposed to join in and sing along on … but FZ then announced this was not possible because “his wife got sick”. Well, to cut to the chase: FZ did the vocals … and then when he sang the first verse again (because there is only one verse in the song), FZ commented that repeating the same verse “is one way of learning English”.
Now back to my “aha” realization moment that happened while listening to “Money Road”. The phrase “Money Road” makes no clear sense, but it drove something home nonetheless. The vocabulary of music lyrics is very impactful, especially insofar as popular music is often repeated. I’ve also paid much more attention to the vocabulary of popular music — for example, how the Beatles mainly used words even a preschooler could understand.
Well, that is all a very long and roundabout way of introducing today’s topic — namely: listening. I checked my dictionary, and yet I am still not certain whether the word has a similar etymology (origin) to the word “list” (from “making a list”).
The reason why I wish to highlight listening today has been on my mind for several months (maybe even years?), and I feel that I need to finally break my own silence on it now.
The main reason the impetus to writing about this topic has been accumulating over such a long period of time is that I have had to sort of force myself to become aware of it.
On one of my other blogs (Wants.blog), I write quite regularly (generally 5 days a week) about stuff people say they want (see “I Want More Sharing of Experiences in Shared Languages” for a short description as to how this blog came into being).
Over the years, it has become ever more obvious to me that the vast majority of bloggers want (or even expect) that other people will read (i.e. listen) to what they have to say, yet very few bloggers are willing to actually read what other people are writing (i.e. saying).
Several months ago, the coin finally dropped: I distinctly remember becoming aware of how this is actually a violation of Jesus’ “Golden Rule” — in other words: we ought to listen to others, much in the same way that we want others to listen to us.
Ruler (source: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_905325 ) -
Who’s on Top?
I’m so broke I can’t even pay attention
Jimi Hendrix, “Taking Care of No Business”I don’t know whether I like this quote more because it’s funny, or maybe I love it so much because I believe it’s so profound.
Everyone can decide for themselves what they choose to pay attention to.
Generally speaking, you get what you pay for — and only a sucker would fall for a “free lunch” scam.
The really funny hard truth is not that “if you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product”, it’s that there are so many suckers out there who are willing to pay money to reach other suckers. Apparently, almost every member of the sucker community truly believes that another sucker will be willing & able to pay.
Wag the Dog (1997) “All the greater accomplishment” The poorest sucker is probably the one who is ready to actually trust an IOU signed by another sucker.
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What’s X?
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Source: Quoted by Adam Curry on “No Agenda” Show [Episode 1601, 32:20 https://www.noagendashow.net/listen/1601/shownotes ]These days, everyone seems to have their knickers in a knot about twitter, what was twitter, what is X, what is allowed, what’s unlawful, what’s just plain awful, or awesome, or awe-inspiring, or whatever.
Well, well, well — oh, well.
Perhaps one of the main sources of confusion is the way the media banter bandies about domain names. These mainstream influencers are all too willing to mention someone who might be willing to pay money as a sign of appreciation. They will place brands high upon a pedestal at center stage, shining in the limelight, all the while acting as if “twitter” obviously means twitter.com or likewise pretending that anyone who might have missed the memo that “X” obviously means X.com must be lost in cyberspace.
No. These inebriated dimwits simply cannot wrap their minds around how information is organized on the Internet. There is (first and foremost) one very simple principle: the top-level domain. Any institution or individual managing a top-level domain also manages all subdomains of that top-level domain — period. Any laws, rules, regulations, etc. which apply to the top-level domain’s managing institution or individual also apply to all subdomains of that top-level domain.
Source: https://twitter.com “X” means nothing. In mathematical language, it is the quintessential variable. If Elon Musk wants the last say on the meaning of X, he needs to be (or become?) the sole proprietor of the top-level domain X (and even then he would need to answer to the global organization that manages top-level domains).
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Be the Change
When Jim Morrison sang “I’m a change-ling, see me change” … who knows what he was thinking about? As we may think, he might have been alluding to the Godfather of modern views about change: Non-Nobel Peace Prize winner Gandhi, who apparently advised us all to “be the change you want to see in the world” (maybe without saying those words, exactly).
Very few people actually follow in his footsteps — unless perhaps people want to see global warming, mass extinction, nuclear war, … (to name just a few of mankind’s ungodly inventions).
It almost seems like the machines and technologies we all work so hard to develop and employ are all designed to annihilate humanity. The most modern case of this is so-called “Artificial Intelligence”, because if the algorithms ever were to get the idea that humans are sub-optimal (and maybe even problematical), then perhaps nothing would prevent them from cleansing the Earth of the primary cause of its present diseases.
Such AI-brained nonsense seems more plausible than ever these days.
Were I to bring forth an argument for how humans ought to react to this man-made threat, I might suggest revisiting the ideas of a 19th Century man named Malthus, who has been whole-heartedly ridiculed in the one or two centuries since he first proposed them. Or maybe the Luddite ideas of his contemporary Mr. Ludd.
Mr. Ludd (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite ) If we want to build a world that will sustain humans, then it needs to be a world in which humans and the nature of natural developments (i.e. evolution) can co-exist. The degree to which the targets in the sights of these two disparate goals are veering apart ought to be cause for alarm bells to be ringing loud and clear in every human mind.
Never mind — these problems will probably resolve themselves soon enough (see also “Inter-Reliance, Self-Dependence & Responsibility“).
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A Quick Note About Lifestyles
I was at an all-day event this past Saturday, it was mainly about health issues.
I have two quick key takeaways.
First: Health and medicine are (of course) big business.
Second: The keynote speaker argued vehemently how the healthcare (and pharmaceutical) industries revolve around keeping sick people alive, rather than improving the quality of life [1] for the lives of all people (whether more or less healthy). The result is basically that these industries prolong sickness rather than increasing health.
The reason for this mismatch is easy enough to comprehend: the businesses involved make more money more easily that way, because they can rely on very steady and recurring income.
It is regrettably a sad state of affairs, and yet if people were just to stop and think about it a little bit, they could perhaps solve some of the problems that cause it.
Such insights are quite in line with the central themes of the “Social Business” project (at Socio.BIZ 😉 )
[1] cf. the emphasis on “Quality of Life” @ quality-of-life.info
Social Business (WordPress weblog)
Socio Business blog 