Were it not for the spelling mistakes, I would swear that the cigarmeister was the Blessed Mark V Shaney in drag. Although, I'm fairly sure that even on an off day Mark knew the difference between "less" and "fewer". "Less than 1% of people who qualify for Mensa" indeed.
On 3 April 2016 at 14:30, <cigar562hfsp952f...@icebubble.org> wrote: > Giacomo Tesio <giac...@tesio.it> writes: > > > physical tool. Now, we "know that a programmable computer is no more and > no > > less than an extremely handy device for realizing any conceivable > mechanism > > without changing a single wire", but are we sure we really want to remove > > the awareness of the wires? > > I don't think people are necessarily aware of the "wires", anymore. > Many millenials think of the Internet as a resource that just sort of > floats around in the air, kind of like oxygen. (I once built a little, > "mini-Internet" for a cryptography demonstration I did for a group of > millenials. One of them expressed to me his confusion that the network > actually contained a wired hub!) When people use the Web, send a text, > or make a call, they assume that their information is private because > they can't see the radio waves. They have little, if any, concern with > how the technology actually works, just that it somehow "magically" does > something useful. > > > Google glasses scare me even more: we are going to look the world through > > some one else eyes. In the long run, our brain will start to accept the > > That's one of the reasons why it's so important to maintain control and > ownership of OUR OWN data. My data + my programs = my image of reality. > > > some one else eyes. In the long run, our brain will start to accept the > > virtual baloons like the other physical entities that really exists. > > I think we already have one foot planted firmly in that mine field. > People already mistake what they see on social media for reality. A > little over a year ago, I attended a Mensa* meeting in Portsmouth, NH > (the same city that the treaty was signed in). Our discussion focused > on how to get more people to join Mensa, and how to encourage existing > members to participate in chapter activities. (Less than 1% of people > who qualify for Mensa are actually members, and the overwhelming > majority of those don't participate in any of our calendered events.) > As is wont to happen when discussing promotion of ANYTHING, these days, > someone offered the perennial suggestion of using social media. I posed > this group the question, (paraphrasing) "If someone was invited to an > event by someone who they knew in real life, as opposed to someone they > only knew from Facebook, would they be more likely to attend?" Another > member there answered my question by saying that she saw her friends on > Facebook as BEING real friends. I was just blown away by that answer. > On social media, you have no idea who you're talking to, if what they > say is true, or if they're even a real person. Not long ago, it was > revealed that the U.S. government has actually paid contractors to > create hundreds of fake social media profiles. It had never before even > OCCURRED to me that people might acutally mistake what they see on > social media for reality. > > I could probably list half a dozen other annecdotes that illustrate how > social media have distorted people's perceptions of reality. But this > one is perhaps the most compelling, because it is so unexpected and so > foreboding. If a member of Mensa (whose IQ must be at or above the 98th > percentile) can mistake social media for reaility, then that same > mistake can be (and most certainly is) made by the other 98% of the > population. That's terrifying. > > > We are already trained to be suspicious about the truth even when it's > > clearly evident, now we can even start to ignore the information from the > > physical world, while accepting the virtual information that someone else > > feed us. > > Maintaining a strong sense of skepticism might be a healthy way to > engage with the dubious world of social media. Whenever you listen to a > politician speak, for instance, you do so with a healthy dose of > skepticism. Perhaps we could treat everything we see on social media > like we treat politicians. If we were to adopt a popular predisposition > to consider anything on social media as "quite likely false", then the > damage to reality might be limited. Earlier in this thread, ... > > lu...@proxima.alt.za writes: > > > to publish. Stupidly, we still demand that people be consistent, but > > that will drift away over time, of that I'm pretty certain. > > There is some creative merit in doing that. Then again, an inability to > tell what's true at all could be an emerging trajedy of these commons. > > *Mensa is a trade name, and Mensa does not necessarily agree with or > endorse any of my kooky views. They should, though. ;) > > -- > +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ > | human <cigar562hfsp952f...@icebubble.org> | > |Any sufficiently high intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.| > +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ > >
