Fiction NonFiction crisis
“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.” ― Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. “Beavis and Butthead” remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning—not just of science, but of anything—are avoidable, even undesirable.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995
Carl Sagan is saying in 1995 that it looks like the trajectory is that we head back into not grasping metaphors. That we favor fiction without realizing it is fiction.
Rick Roderick in 1993 was worried about the same trajectory.
"In any case, ah, if Baudrillard is even onto something, what the postmodern trajectory means is that the self is not under siege, it’s lost. It’s just lost. And if that’s true then all of the strategies by which ordinary people try to live decent good lives are lost along with it. I am not necessarily going to buy that right away, I am really not. I do think that the new, ah, technologies are going to call forth… I mean this is why the title of this course has been “The Self Under Siege”. If I didn’t think it was a real, virulent technological siege and just some thought up philosopher’s dream, which would not have interested me. I mean, I have no interest in that. I mean, what I am interested in is what is changing the lives of my children and your children (from 1993) and so on." - 1993
https://rickroderick.org/308-baudrillard-fatal-strategies-1993/
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I think we have to admit how badly we fucked up ignoring Neil Postman in 1985 and 1992 - his observations about New York City modern (wealthy) live and his wealthy New York University students. They were ahead of the curve, just as Donald Trump was living that lifestyle in 1985.
Neil Postman was correct in 1985.
Neil Postman was correct in 1992.
Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, admit it, declare it, admit we have a common ground problem. Media ecology education. Media ecology crisis. Understanding media. That Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan were correct. And the problem runs deep, back into the realizations of Finnegans Wake, understandings of James Joyce in Dublin Ireland.
Label Fiction vs. non-fiction
Label source / author for point by point criticism and speculation
Label mistakes, errors, errata
Label Future vs. Past
Wiki systems have edit history, progress history
Wiki systems link topics and associations
Wiki systems favor public domain knowledge / common understanding
Wiki systems favor translation to all world languages
Anything said in public by any person, we should desire to link it together.
"no less than six apexes, one above, one below, and four (so to say) to the four quarters. The sense of this, it seemed to me, might be that from above or below, or from any point of the compass, the creative Word might be heard, which is the great thesis of democracy. Democracy assumes that anybody from any quarter can speak, and speak truth, because his mind is not cut off from the truth. All he has to do is clear out his passions and then speak."
"So what you have here on the dollar bill is the eagle representing this wonderful image of the way in which the transcendent manifests itself in the world. That's what the United States is founded on. If you're going to govern properly, you've got to govern from the apex of the triangle, in the sense of the world eye at the top."
"Google AI Overview is simply not reliable. After all, it pulls random info from the internet. It doesn’t know the difference between a joke and seriousness." https://old.reddit.com/r/shittymoviedetails/comments/1l7y9r8/despite_claims_that_john_travolta_didnt_actually/mx0nwfp/
We have already gone too far. Jokes vs. serious, fiction vs. nonfiction.
"We did it Reddit. We shaped reality lol"
There needs to be a world-wide convention for sarcasm / fiction quotes / mocking quotes. Such as this use of quotation marks: https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1l80kdh/i_dont_want_a_civil_war_civil_war_would_happen_if/mx162ee/
Alien Apocalypse Fantasies Will Get People Killed
Rebecca Watson
4,695 views
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnSJXcUGD1o
https://youtu.be/vnSJXcUGD1o?t=249 Shit is getting serious.
Pluribus alien invasion show popularity too.
https://youtu.be/vnSJXcUGD1o?t=328 Dark Forest
Radio Mullah science fiction Quran storytelling topic. Radio talk show normalizing alternate reality. Jen Senko's father brainwashing nonfiction film.
https://youtu.be/vnSJXcUGD1o?t=621