Being Down to Earth is necessary to help others understand important concepts, key issues, and often what is considered factual or true information. We need to communicate with each other in an understandable way.
When I was an intern at LA County-USC Medical Center, working with my intern partner into the wee hours of the morning, I experienced those "in your face" moments that stay with you forever. One is relevant about the need to be clear in how we communicate. Peter W. was my intern partner, and we were attempting to care for an overload of patients during the flu epidemic of 1968 or 69. Patients were in gurneys lining the hallways. I was writing up my assessment of a patient when I heard Peter taking a medical history from an elderly woman.
"Do you have paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea?" he asked. His question took me some time to process in my fatigued state, but when I realized what he had queried, I became hysterical with laughter, pounding my desk in disbelief. Peter heard my commotion, and as he walked towards me, his appearance of frustration made me laugh harder. "Do you know what you just asked?" I said. We both had a good laugh.
So when Mike says, "As I’ve argued elsewhere, algorithmic addiction doesn’t just amplify pre-existing beliefs—it fragments the cognitive infrastructure required to form coherent beliefs at all." all I can respond with is WTF is algorithmic addiction and how many people reading this will know what this means.
But I can say, plain and simple, for a Democracy to exist, it must be in a setting of a citizenry that values Democracy and knows what its loss means, as well as what it is likely to be replaced with. When our public education system ailed, we did not fix it. When immigrants entered this country, we did not require a level of their understanding that led to understanding America and valuing democratic principles.
What we have in many millions of voting citizens is characterized by the acronym AIL.
Apathy. A desire to spend more time watching football then picking up a book, reading a magazine, going online and searching about anything. Not bothering to vote or discuss issues.
Ignorance. Americans have become a nation of ill-informed and mis-informed people. There appears to be an epidemic of stupidity in the US. I wonder how anyone could watch MSNBC for 30 minutes and then do the same and watch Fox News and not see the difference between more factual reporting and mis-representation of current events. I have seen this too with patients that are attracted to charlatans (despite their MD) and who clearly cannot discern the difference between real medicine and hucksterism. This ignorance is related to apathy and a disappearance or lack of curiosity, but it is also related to the "L" in AIL- to Laziness.
Laziness. Our country has become the modern day version of the fall of the Roman Empire. It's hard to find those with a work ethic that was once characteristic of Americans. In my neighborhood in Oregon, most homeowners have gardeners, and of those gardeners, 99% are Hispanic. It's great that the US is becoming more and more a melting pot of different cultures, but it seems to me that much of the population have become "infected" with lassitude, and that lassitude eventuates in outright laziness.
For any system to work, its constituency must be involved, must work, take part, and be part of the proverbial "hive." I have not seen a bee hive of late where the bees just hang around, drinking nectar and watching flowers. Bees work. They are committed to the welfare of the hive.
It is certainly true what Marshall McLuhan has pointed out, and as Mike noted:
"... McLuhan’s insight applied to epistemic collapse." Epistemology, the validation of information, is a stepping stone or perhaps a Rosetta Stone in reaching closer to the truth. To make valid, to invalidate, to ensure the truth of, is so crucial "to know" and acquire knowing or knowledge. Yes, one of the factors that has brought us into this mess is social media, but that is one manifestation of what has happened to this country over many decades. Think about our fast-food mentality. It applies not solely to McDonald's and the many similar eating "establishments" but to all of our society, and it was happening well before X, Facebook, etc.
My field is no longer "medicine" but McMedicine. Fifteen fucking minutes to evaluate a dynamic, intricate biologic system. Would you bring in our car to be diagnosed and expect a well-trained mechanic to always diagnose what's wrong in 15 minutes or less?
Social media is a late stage expression of McReading. Sex without foreplay is McSex. Much of what we see on TV that is supposed to be News is McReporting. You do not get the gist of something valuable or important when 5 minutes is spent discussing it. That's what candidates are given in debates. Now all the major news stations are 5 minutes of reporting followed by commercial after commercial.
So why not have a real dialogue on CNN or BBC or MSNBC about social media and its danger. Why not bring up the points made by Mike a la McLuhan:
A platform that rewards immediate emotional reactions, tribal signaling, and attention-grabbing provocations doesn’t just amplify existing stupidity—it systematically produces confident incompetence by destroying the conditions under which competence could develop.
I do not know about others, but I often cannot handle the entire load of dirty laundry that Mike puts into one washing machine load. It is too much for my less evolved brain. It is too painful and creates overwhelming despair.
My father spent little time with me, but he did relate some pearls along the way.
"Son, if you fix one thing here, another there, before you know it you have fixed the entire "car." Bernie to Stephen
Maybe the messy beautiful dance of democracy isn't really tiring at all. If we step out there and meet people where they are, we may discover that coherence resides in that dance. Well done, Mike!
But there is also this : when people reveal who they are believe them. I may be exposed to the same algorithm but am repelled by it rather than sucked in.
This goes deeper than social media. The people who didn't know Puerto Rico is part of America were failed by their local leaders and the education system. The techno fascists are just using that lack of basic facts to manipulate the populace as they will. I am so tired of people like the author you referenced. Nothing but half truths and specious arguments to sane wash a coup.
> "This means teaching people to think coherently—not what to think, but how."
Good luck with that ... 😉🙂
Think I may have mentioned this before, a review by Richard Lewontin of Carl Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World":
RL: "Conscientious and wholly admirable popularizers of science like Carl Sagan use both rhetoric and expertise to form the mind of masses because they believe, like the Evangelist John, that the truth shall make you free. But they are wrong. It is not the truth that makes you free. It is your possession of the power to discover the truth. Our dilemma is that we do not know how to provide that power."
Though re-reading bits and pieces of Steven Pinker's Blank Slate, I see he wasn't terribly impressed with some aspects of Lewontin's work so that may have some bearing on Lewontin's review.
Methinks that thinking can be either coherent or incoherent, though the difference may be somewhat subjective or heavily biased. For example, "speaking in tongues."
But there's a Substack, of a philosophical bent, with the title or subtitle of "What is 'thinking'?" Good question, one of the hour in fact. On which my earlier reference to George Boole's "The Laws of Thought" probably has some bearing. Particularly since that book is the foundation for Boolean logic on which the whole computer industry and the Internet itself solidly rests. Unless you think it's just magic that we're talking together?
However, one aspect or "chapter" of Boole's book that is obscure or not commonly known is that while the laws of DEDUCTIVE logic are more or less inexorable, the conclusions that follow from the application of those laws is, at best, somewhat contingent on the premises one starts off from. Which are matters of inductive logic if not articles of faith which are often misplaced.
So that more or less implicit "incoherence" of yours seems more a question of contradictory or disordered thinking. Apropos of which, y'all may wish to consider the venerable "principle of explosion": "from contradiction, anything follows":
Lots to unpack in this essay… Is social media “fixable”? Such that it informs and enlightens more than it captures and extracts? Because it isn’t going away. More fundamentally, are enough citizens in our faltering democracy both willing and able to shoulder the burdens of an informed citizenry? Do enough of us believe and understand that the benefits of democracy exceed the costs? Such that if objectively accurate and informative social media discourse was merely a click away, and the addictive capture and extraction algorithms were no more, would we still habitually remain on our screens or would we step away and operationally engage with each other in the tiring messy beautiful dance of democracy without the choreography?
Being Down to Earth is necessary to help others understand important concepts, key issues, and often what is considered factual or true information. We need to communicate with each other in an understandable way.
When I was an intern at LA County-USC Medical Center, working with my intern partner into the wee hours of the morning, I experienced those "in your face" moments that stay with you forever. One is relevant about the need to be clear in how we communicate. Peter W. was my intern partner, and we were attempting to care for an overload of patients during the flu epidemic of 1968 or 69. Patients were in gurneys lining the hallways. I was writing up my assessment of a patient when I heard Peter taking a medical history from an elderly woman.
"Do you have paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea?" he asked. His question took me some time to process in my fatigued state, but when I realized what he had queried, I became hysterical with laughter, pounding my desk in disbelief. Peter heard my commotion, and as he walked towards me, his appearance of frustration made me laugh harder. "Do you know what you just asked?" I said. We both had a good laugh.
So when Mike says, "As I’ve argued elsewhere, algorithmic addiction doesn’t just amplify pre-existing beliefs—it fragments the cognitive infrastructure required to form coherent beliefs at all." all I can respond with is WTF is algorithmic addiction and how many people reading this will know what this means.
But I can say, plain and simple, for a Democracy to exist, it must be in a setting of a citizenry that values Democracy and knows what its loss means, as well as what it is likely to be replaced with. When our public education system ailed, we did not fix it. When immigrants entered this country, we did not require a level of their understanding that led to understanding America and valuing democratic principles.
What we have in many millions of voting citizens is characterized by the acronym AIL.
Apathy. A desire to spend more time watching football then picking up a book, reading a magazine, going online and searching about anything. Not bothering to vote or discuss issues.
Ignorance. Americans have become a nation of ill-informed and mis-informed people. There appears to be an epidemic of stupidity in the US. I wonder how anyone could watch MSNBC for 30 minutes and then do the same and watch Fox News and not see the difference between more factual reporting and mis-representation of current events. I have seen this too with patients that are attracted to charlatans (despite their MD) and who clearly cannot discern the difference between real medicine and hucksterism. This ignorance is related to apathy and a disappearance or lack of curiosity, but it is also related to the "L" in AIL- to Laziness.
Laziness. Our country has become the modern day version of the fall of the Roman Empire. It's hard to find those with a work ethic that was once characteristic of Americans. In my neighborhood in Oregon, most homeowners have gardeners, and of those gardeners, 99% are Hispanic. It's great that the US is becoming more and more a melting pot of different cultures, but it seems to me that much of the population have become "infected" with lassitude, and that lassitude eventuates in outright laziness.
For any system to work, its constituency must be involved, must work, take part, and be part of the proverbial "hive." I have not seen a bee hive of late where the bees just hang around, drinking nectar and watching flowers. Bees work. They are committed to the welfare of the hive.
It is certainly true what Marshall McLuhan has pointed out, and as Mike noted:
"... McLuhan’s insight applied to epistemic collapse." Epistemology, the validation of information, is a stepping stone or perhaps a Rosetta Stone in reaching closer to the truth. To make valid, to invalidate, to ensure the truth of, is so crucial "to know" and acquire knowing or knowledge. Yes, one of the factors that has brought us into this mess is social media, but that is one manifestation of what has happened to this country over many decades. Think about our fast-food mentality. It applies not solely to McDonald's and the many similar eating "establishments" but to all of our society, and it was happening well before X, Facebook, etc.
My field is no longer "medicine" but McMedicine. Fifteen fucking minutes to evaluate a dynamic, intricate biologic system. Would you bring in our car to be diagnosed and expect a well-trained mechanic to always diagnose what's wrong in 15 minutes or less?
Social media is a late stage expression of McReading. Sex without foreplay is McSex. Much of what we see on TV that is supposed to be News is McReporting. You do not get the gist of something valuable or important when 5 minutes is spent discussing it. That's what candidates are given in debates. Now all the major news stations are 5 minutes of reporting followed by commercial after commercial.
McLuhan is right in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. "You know nothing of my work." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ8tKRlW3E
So why not have a real dialogue on CNN or BBC or MSNBC about social media and its danger. Why not bring up the points made by Mike a la McLuhan:
A platform that rewards immediate emotional reactions, tribal signaling, and attention-grabbing provocations doesn’t just amplify existing stupidity—it systematically produces confident incompetence by destroying the conditions under which competence could develop.
I do not know about others, but I often cannot handle the entire load of dirty laundry that Mike puts into one washing machine load. It is too much for my less evolved brain. It is too painful and creates overwhelming despair.
My father spent little time with me, but he did relate some pearls along the way.
"Son, if you fix one thing here, another there, before you know it you have fixed the entire "car." Bernie to Stephen
Maybe the messy beautiful dance of democracy isn't really tiring at all. If we step out there and meet people where they are, we may discover that coherence resides in that dance. Well done, Mike!
But there is also this : when people reveal who they are believe them. I may be exposed to the same algorithm but am repelled by it rather than sucked in.
This goes deeper than social media. The people who didn't know Puerto Rico is part of America were failed by their local leaders and the education system. The techno fascists are just using that lack of basic facts to manipulate the populace as they will. I am so tired of people like the author you referenced. Nothing but half truths and specious arguments to sane wash a coup.
Is education then futile when it is so easily “hijacked” by the algorithms? Not unlike drug addiction hijacking the once coherent mind.
> "This means teaching people to think coherently—not what to think, but how."
Good luck with that ... 😉🙂
Think I may have mentioned this before, a review by Richard Lewontin of Carl Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World":
RL: "Conscientious and wholly admirable popularizers of science like Carl Sagan use both rhetoric and expertise to form the mind of masses because they believe, like the Evangelist John, that the truth shall make you free. But they are wrong. It is not the truth that makes you free. It is your possession of the power to discover the truth. Our dilemma is that we do not know how to provide that power."
https://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm
Though re-reading bits and pieces of Steven Pinker's Blank Slate, I see he wasn't terribly impressed with some aspects of Lewontin's work so that may have some bearing on Lewontin's review.
I don't think coherence is thinking, after all. It's heart-centered engagement. And it's out there if we just pay attention.
Methinks that thinking can be either coherent or incoherent, though the difference may be somewhat subjective or heavily biased. For example, "speaking in tongues."
But there's a Substack, of a philosophical bent, with the title or subtitle of "What is 'thinking'?" Good question, one of the hour in fact. On which my earlier reference to George Boole's "The Laws of Thought" probably has some bearing. Particularly since that book is the foundation for Boolean logic on which the whole computer industry and the Internet itself solidly rests. Unless you think it's just magic that we're talking together?
However, one aspect or "chapter" of Boole's book that is obscure or not commonly known is that while the laws of DEDUCTIVE logic are more or less inexorable, the conclusions that follow from the application of those laws is, at best, somewhat contingent on the premises one starts off from. Which are matters of inductive logic if not articles of faith which are often misplaced.
So that more or less implicit "incoherence" of yours seems more a question of contradictory or disordered thinking. Apropos of which, y'all may wish to consider the venerable "principle of explosion": "from contradiction, anything follows":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
A factor that applies as much to computers and AI as it may to the so-called "divine logos":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos
Lots to unpack in this essay… Is social media “fixable”? Such that it informs and enlightens more than it captures and extracts? Because it isn’t going away. More fundamentally, are enough citizens in our faltering democracy both willing and able to shoulder the burdens of an informed citizenry? Do enough of us believe and understand that the benefits of democracy exceed the costs? Such that if objectively accurate and informative social media discourse was merely a click away, and the addictive capture and extraction algorithms were no more, would we still habitually remain on our screens or would we step away and operationally engage with each other in the tiring messy beautiful dance of democracy without the choreography?