Information Age or the Age of Anxiety?
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| Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay |
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny — the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.
"The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible." -Arthur C. Clarke
I've written about truth before.
{So where are all the links?}
Links? What links, Dana?
{Do you think that your memory problems might be the result of some form of dementia?}
I hope not, but what are you...
{You've looked into this. The Goog loves links, the more links you post to something that has something to do with truth, the better the chance the Goog will offer up your column when some "user" out there in cyberspace types in the word truth or a phrase that includes the word truth.}
Oh that, no I remember that. I just don't care anymore. I think there's something wrong with your memory. I've made it clear that company policy is to only link to stuff that is absolutely necessary and fundamentally purely factual.
You know what? Company policy has just changed, right this second. Going forward the only things I'm linking to are my charming personal glossary and things I think a given gentlereader might be interested in checking out.
No more linking to stuff that's common knowledge (or should be in my semi-humble opinion)...
{Snob.}
...or that can be investigated by a given gentlereader if they're truly interested. Until relatively recently, the world has gotten by with information delivered via the dead trees format. No links.
My biggest fan reads my stuff on paper, doesn't own a computer, and uses his cell phone as a phone. He's led a decent life, is enjoying his retirement, and compared to the average H. sapien these days is quite well adjusted thank you very much.
{But this is the Information Age! Links link information to information that links to...}
Yup, and that's why nothing is true anymore. Sister Mary McGillicuddy taught me (60 years ago!) that mankind's personkind's collective wisdom lags far behind personkind's technical achievements.
{Hoo-boy. Here we go. Let the ranting at clouds commence!}
Abasabalutely! But let us remain relatively calm, and logical, and not forget to smile.
Permit me to sum up the point I was trying to make, in one form or another, in all of the columns I wrote about truth that I'm not linking to: All truth is provisional but that doesn't mean truth can't be true enough.
That is to say, a well-adjusted, fully mature H. sapien should cultivate pragmatism (but with an open mind) right up to the very day he/she/they are deleted. Everything we know is true is potentially subject to changes, major or minor — but what works, works.
As I write this the sun has not come up yet, but it will shortly. I know that it will rise in the east and several hours from now will set in the west.
I take this for granted even though I know that however unlikely it might be, some maladjusted, nihilistic teenagers from an ancient space-faring species could pass through our solar system today on a joyride in a stolen spaceship and decide to extinguish our sun for the sheer fun of it.
{You're nuts... But that would explain why we seem to be alone in the universe.}
My Mum told me that technically anything is possible but many things are highly unlikely.
I also know that the sun doesn't actually rise or set, that this is an illusion created by the fact the Earth (which is round, by the way) orbits the Sun. But until 1543 this illusion was considered common sense. it took another century or so before most people knew it wasn't.
And we still say sunrise and sunset — close enough.
"Given that Twitter [X] serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy." -Elon Musk
Failing to adhere to free speech principles does fundamentally undermine democracy, but Twitter, or X if you prefer, is not the de facto public town square.
The town square metaphor Mr. Musk uses refers to any sort of public meeting in which the locals get together to hash things out. (Hey, Dana, here's a link to a Wikipedia entry about the Norman Rockwell painting illustrating free speech that many of us geezers and geezerettes carry around in our heads).
{What about that ancient Luddite you print your columns out for?}
Fear not, no link is necessary.
A real public square, or more likely something akin to a public meeting of the Hooterville School Board, is a radically different venue/experience than Musk's concept of a virtual public square. The planet Earth doesn't have a public square, not even a virtual one.
When the Hooterville School Board holds a meeting the members of the board have been chosen by the citizens of Hooterville. Everyone knows who they are and where they live. Any given citizen who attends is an easily identified Homo sapien, especially that pain in arse Mr... never mind.
Anything that anyone says and/or claims is witnessed and verifiable (or debunkable), and minutes are kept.
Most of social media, and much of the worldwide web of all knowledge, consists of anonymous people (or bots, or trolls, or troll farms, or my-truthers, or hackers, or hustlers, etc.) tossing Uh-huhs! or Nuh-uhs! at each other.
Everything is true, and nothing is true.
{So what do we...}
Same as always, the best you can, one day at a time. Take a deep breath, and then take another, and then do what needs to be done. I find watching sunrises and sunsets helpful.
Poppa loves you,
