{"id":141,"date":"2018-12-21T14:21:33","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T14:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/?p=141"},"modified":"2018-12-22T10:26:43","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T10:26:43","slug":"some-reflections-on-the-revolution-in-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2018\/12\/21\/some-reflections-on-the-revolution-in-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Reflections on the Revolution in Propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More or less exactly ten generations after Edmund Burke’s treatise concerning the French Revolution and roughly about twenty generations after the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press, I would like to give you a small update on the state of news, media and publishing following the advent of modern computers on the dissemination landscape.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In this endeavor, I will utilize a case study involving a podcast video on the interwebs, in particular youtube.com, which I hope will help by providing a graphic illustration of what’s going on right now. The case in point is a discussion between an evolutionary biologist, William von Hippel, and a media magnate, Joe Rogan, concerning the publication of Mr. von Hippel’s new neato book titled \u201cThe Social Leap\u201d. I shared a link<\/a> to the entire discussion a couple weeks ago, here I wish to focus on a short segment starting at 2:08:55.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Originally,\nmy fascination with the topic centered on the origins of human language, but unfortunately\nthere was hardly any discussion of this during the podcast. Although there are\nmany fascinating points regarding the evolution of homo sapiens, very little\n(if anything at all) was directly related to the genesis of human language. I\nhave often noted that the very first line in the Bible’s book of Genesis\ndirectly indicates \u201cthe word\u201d as being at the beginning of human history, but\nexactly how this first word was ever spoken remains an enigma. My own hunch is\nthat it followed other types of expression \u2013 such as body language, facial\nexpressions and the like \u2013 and that several rather complex communicative norms\nneeded to become institutionalized (and that language was therefore perhaps far\nmore difficult to develop than other technologies). I imagine that three\nevolutionary developments might have been particularly advantageous, namely: 1.\nincreased brain size; 2. \u201cwhites\u201d of eyes; and 3. improved vocal apparatus. Mr.\nvon Hippel also mentions the first two of these developments.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I have heard Noam Chomsky give a ball-park estimate of ca. 75 thousand years ago for the approximate beginnings of language. Most of the developments mentioned by Mr. von Hippel predate that by a longshot, but the segment I mentioned above (2:08:55) has to do with a development that is undoubtedly much newer, since it is about reasoning and argumentation (which as far as I know must require<\/em> language). The segment begins with a discussion of confirmation bias, and Mr. von Hippel then mentions a 2011 paper<\/a> written by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, saying the paper shows that humans actually evolved to use confirmation bias to persuade each other of their own opinions rather than actually trying to find out what is actually true. I was shocked by this statement and read the original article. Upon doing so, it became clear to me that Mr. von Hippel had misrepresented the original findings \u2013 and I have contacted Hugo Mercier and he assures me that my shock was indeed warranted.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mercier\n& Sperber (2011), on the contrary, contends that while the confirmation\nbias may very well be active when producing arguments, it is largely inactive<\/em>\nduring the evaluation of arguments. This symbiotic relationship is crucial, and\nto overlook it is a gross distortion of the findings. Why did this happen?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I believe\nthe answer to this question involves yet another development in the history of\nhuman languages, perhaps even newer than the \u201cWhy do humans reason?\u201d\ndevelopment of argumentation proposed by Mercier & Sperber. Perhaps the\nearliest records of writing date back to cave paintings and sculptures made by\nhumans tens of thousands of years ago, but the development of writing systems\nstandardized enough to be used for communication across larger stretches of\nspace and time required the development of more advanced social\ninstitutionalization \u2013 perhaps dating back no further than just about 10,000\nyears (in other words, only ca. 500 generations).<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For most of\nthis time, writing was extremely limited and was only available to the most\neducated classes. Therefore, any ideas shared would only be written down if\nthey passed the muster of such highly educated gatekeepers. In my humble\nopinion, this recurring process led to the development of something I wish to\nrefer to as a publication bias \u2013 a \u201cbelievability\u201d of ideas that have been\nwritten down. Shortly after the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press a\nlittle over 500 years ago, the world up to that point was shaken up briefly…\nbut that came to an end when copyright law was established and the production of\nlarge-scale printing presses became prohibitively expensive. For the past\nseveral hundred years, the publication bias has largely been\nreinstitutionalized, though the publishing industry became highly fragmented\n(from a church monopoly before 1500 to a plethora of publishing gatekeepers\nthereafter). The new gatekeepers were governed by many laws, and thereby it was\npossible to control the dissemination of information. Early modern information\ntechnologies such as telegraph, telephone, radio, television, etc. did little\nto change that.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What did\nchange it was the advent of the personal computer. Desktop publishing was\nhardly a challenge to traditional publishing, but electronic publishing is\nmarching forwards in leaps and bounds on its way to completely eradicating the\ntitans of the paper era. Day after day, the cost of publishing information\nacross the entire globe continues to new record-setting lows. It is a\nwell-known, commonplace fact that publishing technology has now also been\nbirthed from Pandora’s box, and that it is now nearly everywhere, cheap and\neasy to use… for anyone<\/em>.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And therein\nlies the rub: The days of publishing gatekeepers are finally over. Clicking a\nbutton is not at all difficult to do… and so everyone’s doing it.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The result\nwe need to face today is that the publication bias \u2013 the naive trust in written\ninformation \u2013 is (or at least should be<\/em>) also gone, probably forever (or\nat least for the \u201cforeseeable future\u201d).<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And yet\nlikewise we see virtually on a daily basis that the publication bias is\nactually very far from gone. On the contrary: not only do old habits die hard,\nbut now we have even more, new<\/em> and improved<\/em>, of such biases.\nPerhaps leading the pack is the modern brand name \u2013 completely vacuous and\nempty, but highly valued, exclusive and nearly impenetrable to most rational\nthought processes. Brands carry the weight of innumerable imaginary people,\nbuilt up over years, decades if not centuries. Such colossal weight bogs the\naverage human’s mind, and the most popular brands are revered as gods, never to\nbe doubted or questioned. What previously had been delegated to print, today\ncan fly as high as Coca-cola, Apple, Amazon, Facebook or Google or YouTube or\nuntold other brands. No longer is the sky the limit, either \u2013 no, these fantastic\ncompanies will fly to the moon, Mars and far beyond into space, reaching for\nthe stars.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Will\nordinary humans ever come back down to earth? How will we ever be able to\nre-introduce a modicum of rationality into our species? Perhaps we should untie\nourselves from our slavery to brands, brand names, megalithic monopolistic\nenterprises and such. Maybe we should return to ordinary communications \u2013\nstraight talk, free of mumbo jumbo.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Luckily,\nthe founders of the Internet apparently did have enough foresight to foresee\nthe potential dangers of centralized information resources. The technology at\nthe basis of modern civilization today is actually not the problem. The problem\nis modern human behavior, especially the way modern humans behave in groups. We\nhave seen this time and again throughout the 20th<\/sup> Century, now we\nmust \u201chuman up\u201d and become more reasonable.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We must\nlearn to recognize the difference between fake and real. This is actually not\nas difficult as it sounds. What makes it relatively simple is when we simply\nrecognize that the human languages we use on a daily basis are our own, and\nthat we are free to communicate our ideas, wants and needs as we please. We\ndon’t need no central authority to control our thoughts. We don’t need no\ndictator to figure out the truth. We can rely on what we understand from\nhumans, and also that we will be understood by humans. Humans are rational\nbeings \u2013 and that means they will rationalize their ideas, each according to\ntheir own language. Mutual understanding among humans is the primary goal we\nmust strive for. Regular ordinary straight talk is the basis of human\nrationality, and it is time we recognize this fact and reestablish regular\nordinary straight talk into our daily lives, our information and communication\ntechnologies and our entire media landscape.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We should\nnot trust that Joe Rogan or William von Hippel are right. We should not feel\nsecure that the big data algorithms of YouTube or Google will watch out for us.\nWe need to open our own eyes for ourselves and take a good hard look at reality\n\u2013 because that is what matters.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One last\npoint I wish to address is an issue that I feel could easily lead to a\nmisunderstanding. While I argue that brand names are inadequate as symbols of\ntrust or reliability, brand names do serve a constructive purpose, function and\nuseful role in the modern social order. These labels and identifiers enable us\nto refer to individuals, individual entities, individual processes and\ndistinct, unique phenomena we engage with and participate in on a daily basis.\nTherefore, they serve an integral role in our entire social fabric. Note,\nthough, that our ability to reference such entities and phenomena has very\nlittle to do with the trustworthiness of the entities or phenomena themselves,\nbut rather with the trustworthiness of the social order \u2013 for example, a\nwell-functioning legal framework that forms the basis of such well-established\nsocial institutions as private property, fair trade, open communications, etc.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Meaningful information requires language, and meaningful accounting requires itemization. Bringing both of these phenomena together is a matter of dovetailing information organized via language with the accountability of big data bases. If you would like to participate in helping to make this happen, I invite you to get up and sign up with phenomenonline.com<\/a>!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More or less exactly ten generations after Edmund Burke’s treatise concerning the French Revolution and roughly about twenty generations after the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press, I would like to give you a small update on the state of news, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[313],"tags":[506,514,324,500,49,32,33,50,134,19,91,84,523,524,503,505,504,509,510,512,511,200,323,515,501,165,167,166,190,377,151,21,235,161,8,517,516,519,401,152,391,393,25,26,27,28,254,255,251,513,364,499,508,507,520,522,521,518,338,502],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w79D-2h","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":217,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2020\/11\/06\/hope-change-flipping-the-f-word-removing-the-old-fashioned-r-word\/","url_meta":{"origin":141,"position":0},"title":"Hope & Change: Flipping the F-word & Removing the Old-Fashioned R-word","author":"nmw","date":"November 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I have an important announcement to make: I've learned something -- and what I learned has helped me to change my course. Many years ago, I started using Facebook (in large part because one of my friends said \u201cfacebook\u201d was college slang for '[student] directory' -- and indeed, it may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":234,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2021\/02\/11\/in-what-we-trust\/","url_meta":{"origin":141,"position":1},"title":"In What We Trust","author":"nmw","date":"February 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"You may recall a post I made a few months ago .. in which I mentioned that \u201cI am not at all proud of the species I apparently belong to\u201d (\u201cI understand that this is very important to you\u201d). Another way of putting this idea is that I have little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2021\/11\/28\/a-brief-history-of-the-gradual-shift-from-submission-censorship-towards-self-publishing\/","url_meta":{"origin":141,"position":2},"title":"A Brief History of the Gradual Shift from Submission Censorship towards Self Publishing","author":"nmw","date":"November 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my friends who has enough patience to patiently listen to my own long-winded diatribes into various affairs in the realms of such sophisticated topics as literacy, economics or even the conditions of life in general (yet who will also occasionally interject and pepper my arguments with opinionated remarks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":206,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2020\/02\/27\/patronizing-patrons-outside-your-own-community-vs-being-a-patron-inside-your-own-community\/","url_meta":{"origin":141,"position":3},"title":"Patronizing Patrons Outside Your Own Community vs. Being a Patron Inside Your Own Community","author":"nmw","date":"February 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my good friends (the kind that actually try to push back on the kinds of things I often say) has been hammering away for some time at my attitude \u2013 sort of calling it patronizing. I beg to differ. But before I address that, let me note something\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "remediary"","block_context":{"text":"remediary","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/com\/com-remediary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":124,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2016\/03\/11\/owning-up-to-i-own-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":141,"position":4},"title":"Owning Up to “I Own It”","author":"nmw","date":"March 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In stark contrast to my previous post, let me point out that there are plenty of dictionary-word domains that are extremely successful in the dot com TLD (\"top-level domain\"). Indeed, some (such as Johnson & Johnson's baby.com) are so successful, that the company (in this case J&J) even registered the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "designations"","block_context":{"text":"designations","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/info\/info-designations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/2017\/06\/02\/why-the-scientific-method-and-open-source-are-some-of-the-best-things-since-sunlight\/","url_meta":{"origin":141,"position":5},"title":"Why the Scientific Method and Open Source are Some of the Best Things Since Sunlight","author":"nmw","date":"June 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"About 100 years ago, some guy named Louis Brandeis apparently said something like: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Mr. Brandeis was speaking metaphorically (his statement was made in the context of a book titled \u201cOther People's Money and How the Bankers Use it\u201d). There are in fact other phenomena which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "impost"","block_context":{"text":"impost","link":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/topicat\/org\/org-impost\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pro.freezine.org\/remediary0com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}