Reducing the Input

constant escape

winter withered, warm
That taking in more and more information often results in becoming less and less certain seems to be one of the big problems of our time and is exactly one of the reasons I decided to stop looking at the news. I've so little faith what I'm reading's reliable that I see no value in reading it.
Do you think this is worth brainstorming to find ways out of? Because I agree, in that it does seem to be increasingly common.

Even identifying this struggle seems to be a huge step forward. Not sure how much of a grasp other people have on it - it seems to be something that is more often felt than articulated.
 

version

Well-known member
If you're particularly fastidious... like Werner Herzog, you might extend that to watching celebrity big brother and love island and so on. Get a feel for the gestalt

Do you watch any television?

I do, I watch the news from different sources. Sometimes I see things that are completely against my cultural nature. I was raised with Latin and Ancient Greek and poetry from Greek antiquity, but sometimes, just to see the world I live in, I watch “WrestleMania.”

An unexpected choice.

You have to know what a good amount of the population is watching. Do not underestimate the Kardashians. As vulgar as they may be, it doesn’t matter that much, but you have to find some sort of orientation. As I always say, the poet must not close his eyes, must not avert them.

So you’ve been watching “Keeping Up With the Kardashians?”

I’m starting to discover it. I’m curious; that’s my guiding principle.
 

version

Well-known member
Do you think this is worth brainstorming to find ways out of? Because I agree, in that it does seem to be increasingly common.

Even identifying this struggle seems to be a huge step forward. Not sure how much of a grasp other people have on it - it seems to be something that is more often felt than articulated.

Yeah, I do. I'm just not sure there's a solution. You can't un-open Pandora's Box.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Yeah, I do. I'm just not sure there's a solution. You can't un-open Pandora's Box.
It seems like there is a major (hypothetical) alternative to media doing people's thinking for them. That alternative seems to involve arming/equipping the people with a potent and versatile ideological toolkit, one that can enable them to process more complex situations/phenomena.

Whether or not this alternative is feasible, I'm not so certain. I'm not even sure what it would entail, really. That said, I think the nearly impossible solution is a step up from the absence of a solution - provided we have the Sisyphian stamina that our era demands of us . From here, it is just a (long, long) matter of refinement.

Just like physical machines make our labor more effective/productive, perhaps theory-machines/devices (models, etc) can optimize our cognitive labor. Actually, that seems to be exactly what theory is best for.

If the global citizen is having to process more and more, do more and more cognitive labor, then they have much to gain from effective theory-tools / theory-machines. Much like if the classical worker has an ever increasing quota of products to make, they would have much to gain from access to physical machines.

This is part of the reason I stress the algorithmic behavior of nature: I think it is possible to make sense of anything. It just might involve creating a few new tools.

If we are trying to figure out how people can more effectively and more independently process the world, it would involve succinctly capturing (to enough of an extent: "All models are wrong, but some are useful") the crucial dynamics of everything, from how molecules effect the atmosphere, to the global political economy, and these models would have to be compatible and configurable into a kind of motherboard theory.

Is it possible to spread effective and thorough theory through the masses, even if it takes an innocuous and simple form? Or will most people only accept prescribed opinions? This is where I am inclined to study how the species, as a macro-agent, behaves, and what it seems to value. That might hold some key to an underlying mass appeal - that is, once we can understand how the species' values irrupt through the individual's values.

I'm not convinced it is Impossible, but I am convinced it is absurdly difficult.

Also, sorry to keep making everything so heavy - feel free to ignore these posts if they only bring headaches. No obligation to engage.
 

luka

Well-known member
they're not heavy. they're charmingly quixotic in a quaint Californian way. they add colour and variety. i really like them. it's as if we had one of the tech-titans of silicon valley here, one that hasn't quite worked out how to turn his dreams into a billion dollar empire yet.
 

version

Well-known member
There was a recent poll where something like 70% of people said they wanted unbiased news, but it struck me as complete bullshit because there are already sites like Reuters and AP out there and people opt for The Daily Mail instead.
 

version

Well-known member
I was lying in bed last night thinking about tweaking the inputs of the internal-external as like adjusting a pair of speakers or the bass and treble on an old stereo. You crank one up too loud and everything's unbalanced. There's a sweet spot where you get a decent approximation of the image.
 
There was a recent poll where something like 70% of people said they wanted unbiased news, but it struck me as complete bullshit because there are already sites like Reuters and AP out there and people opt for The Daily Mail instead.

Is unbiased news possible? How could people recognise it if it was?
 

luka

Well-known member
I'd like to recapture the radical signal reduction (which obviously also entails a corresponding increase in other more subtle signals) of the initial stage of lockdown but it doesn't seem possible. The choices had to made for me. If you went outside you had to walk. Sitting down was banned. so you didn't walk to a destination. The walk itself was the whole thing. You weren't going out to the shops because the shops were full of death and disease. It really altered my relationship to the outside world in a good way. Took me back to something I'd lost. I even started taking pictures on a disposable camera again. The birds were singing more loudly. The air was so fresh it was like breathing menthol. The skies were an impossibly vibrant blue without a single cloud. Every day was sunny but not too hot. What the fuck was going on?
 

entertainment

Well-known member
It's a difficult question. There are definitely days where I feel I can engage and disengage freely, without worries of that ugly residue sticking to the psyche rotting away the brain like that.

There are other days where I've been on the internet too much and feel out of tune with real life like the antenna is stuck on internet frequency.
 

luka

Well-known member
It can really do that. You go outside and everything is out of sync. Like you can't walk properly
 

Leo

Well-known member
the thing is, 99% of the time, not knowing about the outrage of the day on twitter has no impact of your life. you really don't need to know most of it. and if you miss it for a day or week, it'll all be there waiting for you when you return.

we become obsessed with staying on top of things but it's largely just another form of a daytime soap opera. we get hooked on the ploy lines.
 

luka

Well-known member
Your not correctly pasted onto the environment. you're a badly photoshopped pedestrian
 

entertainment

Well-known member
Your mode of perception on the internet and tv is very analytical. Everything is broadcasted with intent, it's there for a reason, it's there for you to find out what the reason is behind it, to decode it analytically. Your brain goes in sorting mode, what's important for me, what pertains, categorizing these immobilities and fixities. An enternal sequence of innumerable events.

Real life is flowing, free, no fixed points, it's not there for a reason, it's not information that's packaged with specific plans, it's just there in constant flux. You can't analyze you have to intuit it, sense it. It's a difference function of the brain I think.
 
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luka

Well-known member
Your mode of perception on the internet and tv is very analytical. Everything is broadcasted with intent, it's there for a reason, it's there for you to find out what the reason is behind it, to decode it analytically. Your brain goes in sorting mode, what's important for me, what pertains, categorizing these immobilities and fixities. An enternal sequence of innumerable events.

Real life is flowing, free, no fixed points, it's not there for a reason, it's not information that's packaged with specific plans, it's just there in constant flux. You can't analyze you have to intuit it, sense it. It's a difference function of the brain I think.

I would quibble with this in that I think Internet and tv generally are designed to produce a trance state which is the antithesis of analytical
 
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