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… Continue reading What’s X?

The further on I go, the less I know

Wittgenstein had a saying about “die Grenzen meiner Sprache”, namely that these correspond to “die Grenzen meiner Welt”. [1] In my not-so humble opinion, this quote misses something very fundamental about language: that it does not exist in any “particular individual” (see also the previous post, “Self Mythology“). Language is a technology that exists between… Continue reading The further on I go, the less I know

Lifetime Guarantee for How Natural Languages Scale

In the last episode, we looked at a few different scales — implicitly, from technology and product life cycles, through writing, biology and genetic information all the way across the universe back to the Big Bang itself. Seen this way, the irony of seeing writing and written langages as something permanent becomes crystal clear. Perhaps… Continue reading Lifetime Guarantee for How Natural Languages Scale

Rates of Evolution

Evolution is often thought of as a single thing. Yet’s it’s not even a thing at all — it’s a phenomenon, a figment of our imaginations, one way that we interpret the world we live in. It is perhaps one of our most abstract scientific concepts. At the same time, no one even just somewhat… Continue reading Rates of Evolution

Motivational Characteristics of Marketplace Participants

I have thought about issues related to “Motivational Characteristics of Marketplace Participants” for quite some time already. Although that title is already quite long, I think I need to narrow down what I intend to write about today even more. I want to contrast two instances of marketplaces — one from the past, the other… Continue reading Motivational Characteristics of Marketplace Participants

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

Reboot 2.0 — Are We Ready for a Renaissance in Open Source Information Technology?

In my opinion, the time is ripe for a reboot in open source information technology — yet exactly what that term “open source information technology” is supposed to mean might first need some clarification. There are quite a few possible misinterpretaions (“mis-” as in: “in disagreement with me” 😉 ). My point of view is… Continue reading Reboot 2.0 — Are We Ready for a Renaissance in Open Source Information Technology?

Routing Around Regulatory Bodies

Apparently, several centuries ago, William Shakespeare invented some new words. [1] Of course these words are less new now … some of them might even be considered rather ordinary or regular (or whatever). In contrast to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s supposition about how languages seem to limit what humans are capable of expressing, good ole Bill simply… Continue reading Routing Around Regulatory Bodies

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

Supply, Demand, Natural Language & Free Markets — Some Preliminary Thoughts & Ideas

Many if not most — or even all? — (educated) people have probably heard of supply and demand before — and perhaps also that they are the basic building blocks of free markets. Likewise, many may be familiar with the expression “supply creates its own demand” (which is a sort of shorthand for views expressed… Continue reading Supply, Demand, Natural Language & Free Markets — Some Preliminary Thoughts & Ideas

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