13 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
Despair, Cynicism, and Absurdism
Whereas modern cynicism brought despair about the ability of the human species to realize laudable ideals, postmodern cynicism doesn't — not because it's optimistic, but because it can't take ideals seriously in the first place. The prevailing attitude is Absurdism. A postmodern magazine may be irreverent, but not bitterly irreverent, for it's not purposefully irreverent; its aim is indiscriminate, because everyone is equally ridiculous. And anyway, there's no moral basis for passing judgme... 1 
notes
notesI often see the attitudes of self-proclaimed cynics as actually expressions of despair. When I find myself enjoying media that these cynics claim to enjoy for nihilistic messages, like Rick and Morty, my appreciation of the media comes from what I see as absurdity.
20 JUL 2017 by ideonexus
The Need for Moral Universals in Democracy
Working societies — if they are to endure, grow, and cohere, if they are to prosper, hang together, and really mature — need moral universals. Moral universals are simply things that people believe everyone should have. In the UK, those things — those moral universals — are healthcare and media and welfare. In Germany, they are healthcare and media and welfare and higher education. And so on.
Moral universals anchor a society in a genuinely shared prosperity. Not just... 1 notes
notes19 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Transclusion
Now, with respect to literature, authors are frequently faced with the task of re-explaining and restating background material that has been explained well elsewhere. If you could just borrow that material, those existing good explanations, and incorporate them (with automatic credit where due), your efforts could be spent stating what is new. We introduce the concept of transclusion to separate the arrangement of a document from its content. There is an underlying shared pool of contents, an...Folksonomies: communication conversation
Folksonomies: communication conversation
1 notes
notesFrom Mark S. Miller's "The Open Society and Its Media"
19 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Hyperlinks as Conversation
Hyperlinks are fine-grained, bidirectional, and extrinsic. Frequently, an argument is not with a document or chapter as a whole. It is with a particular point that someone made at a particular place in the text. For example, someone refers to the fourth law of thermodynamics, and someone else writes a criticism saying there is no fourth law of thermodynamics, linking it to the original. The fine-grained property allows the link to designate the particular piece of text with which one is takin... 1 notes
notesFrom Mark S. Miller's "The Open Society and Its Media"
12 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Autism as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Diseases and other medical conditions can also have this self-fulfilling property. When medical conditions are widely discussed in the media, people are more likely to identify their symptoms, and doctors are more likely to diagnose (or misdiagnose) them. The best-known case of this in recent years is autism. If you compare the number of children who are diagnosed as autistic64 to the frequency with which the term autism has been used in American newspapers,65 you’ll find that there is an a... 1 notes
notesAs the illness gets more attention, more people are diagnosed with it.
13 FEB 2012 by ideonexus
Information is the Power to Control
Information is a
part of all systems of power. Top bureaucrats try to control
information as part of their control over subordinates and clients.
Corporations try to control information through trade secrets
and patents. Militaries try to control information using the
rationale of “national security.” So-called freedom of information—
namely, public access to documents produced in
bureaucracies—is a threat to top bureaucrats.
In a society where not everyone can read and write, litera...
1 Where people can read, publish to media, and speak out against their employers, they have power.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Recommendations for Exposing Children to Television
1. Keep the TV off before the child turns 2. I know this is tough to hear for parents who need a break. If you can’t turn it off—if you haven’t created those social networks that can allow you a rest—at least limit your child’s exposure to TV. We live in the real world, after all, and an irritated, overextended parent can be just as harmful to a child’s development as an annoying purple dinosaur.
2. After age 2, help your children choose the shows (and other screen-based expos... 1 notes
notesNo television before age two, and when television is introduced, limit consumption and use watching television as a chance for interaction to have the child think critically about what they are seeing.
01 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Impact of Scientific Ignorance on Society
As a society, we walk a tightrope between limbo and extinction.
We’re on a threshold of survival, in a society threatened as never
before to find the way, with less and less margin for error. The
decades ahead to the year 2000 and beyond, as were the decades
just past, can be either interrogative, presumptuous, or insane.
And we have to create our own flight plan, because this Earth
didn’t come with one telling us how to get to the future safely.
The winds of change are blowing across th... 1 notes
notesAnticipating the future is the lesson of the past, and the modern world is increasingly disenchanted with the technological progress that makes life possible.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Skepticism and Wonder.
Both scepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and
practice. Their harmonious marriage within the mind of every
schoolchild ought to be a principal goal of public education. I'd
love to see such a domestic felicity portrayed in the media,
television especially: a community of people really working the
mix - full of wonder, generously open to every notion, dismissing
nothing except for good reason, but at the same time, and as
second nature, demanding stringent standards of evidence; a...Folksonomies: skepticism wonder
Folksonomies: skepticism wonder
1 notes
notesWe must cultivate both virtues.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
Limbaugh Attacks Science and Academia as
You know, folks, the two universes here -- The Universe of Lies, The Universe of Reality -- they don't overlap anymore. And this is even bigger than global warming, which was my point yesterday. It's about everything that the left is involved in. What this fraud, what the uncovering of this hoax exposes, is the corruption that exists between government and academia and science and the media. Science has been corrupted. We know the media has been corrupted for a long time. Academia has b...Folksonomies: irrationalism
Folksonomies: irrationalism
Science, academia, government, and media form four pillars of a web of lies in Limbaugh's world, while the world he describes, the world of conservative talk radio, Fox News, and Conservapedia, is reality.
