I distinctly remember my father telling me to watch TV once — or rather: strongly recommending me to sit down and watch it together with him (and whoever else in the family happened to be around). It was a very special event: PBS was doing a series with Milton Friedman, called “Free to Choose“. We… Continue reading Who is Free to Choose?
Tag: literacy
X did Y, and I don’t care
I am reflecting on my recent posts over the past couple weeks. Two weeks ago, I described how mainstream media uses “bait and switch” tactics to get suckers to look at advertising. [1] This is usually done with a headline that claims something sensationalist along the lines of “X did Y”. Last week, I went… Continue reading X did Y, and I don’t care
Do Not Read This
This image of Putin and Tillerson toasting a deal between Exxon-Mobil and Rosneft to collaborate on their engagement to develop oil drilling in arctic regions is a still from the movie “Merchants of Doubt” (2014). You have probably never seen it before — I don’t imagine it was a blockbuster at any local cinema. The… Continue reading Do Not Read This
Consumer Culture Technology, Cancel Culture Technology & Other Cultural Technologies (?)
It is now approaching two decades since the company now known as Alphabet started its attack against rational media [1], and at the same time started promoting its own brand names (such as Google). Other companies in the irrational media space have likewise fed mainstream consumers with similar myths regarding their own algorithms. All of… Continue reading Consumer Culture Technology, Cancel Culture Technology & Other Cultural Technologies (?)
Order + Dis-Order
My thinking about the complexity of the world was significantly influenced by a book recommendation I followed up on about a decade ago. It was summer, so one of my friends asked about influential books … and a friend of hers mentioned “The Social Construction of Reality” (by Berger & Luckmann). I decided to read… Continue reading Order + Dis-Order
Free Speech & Market Speech
I have been mulling over one of my long-held beliefs a lot lately … and the big puzzle for me is: why do so few people get it? I think the answer is a combination of several things — and that is a big part of why it seems to be complex, not simple, not… Continue reading Free Speech & Market Speech
Learning How to Code
You may recall that in my previous installment [ https://socio.business.blog/2023/04/09/reboot-2-0-are-we-ready-for-a-renaissance-in-open-source-information-technology ], I mentioned that one of the first “codes” to be made open source were Latin texts. Latin, however, was not one of the first codes to exist. The text / texts above is / are encoded using Cuneiform, which is generally considered to be… Continue reading Learning How to Code
A jumping off point for the truth
I listen to quite a few podcasts, and I have already mentioned some of them here before. Now I am going to mention an episode of “Factory Settings” (another episode of which I also mentioned a few months ago — see “There (but for the Grace of God) Go I“). In this new (or at least… Continue reading A jumping off point for the truth
Science vs. Technology
Believe it or not, this is where I want / need to address in a first step toward working out the “digital divide” concept I introduced in “More about Modes and Levels of Literacy>“. When I was young, I always thought science and technology were aligned, and that engineering was all about this sort of… Continue reading Science vs. Technology
More about Modes and Levels of Literacy
I have mentioned before that it is wrong to contrast literacy with illiteracy (see e.g. “Literacy = ! { an on-off switch }“). Instead, I believe there are many modes and levels of literacy. Take, for example, language written on paper. If someone were to call a person who could read either cuneiform written on tablets… Continue reading More about Modes and Levels of Literacy
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