Well done! I'm deep into this debunking at the moment:
Debunking the Fake Historian Taking Over the Internet: Professor Jiang's
Predictive History
https://youtu.be/tSiS-8Msn1I?si=lBOXHmIFfHtppwac
But your post reminded me that even though I whispered the transcript, read and
asked Mistral to help me analyze its rhetoric, I have yet to finish this:
The Age of Hyperreal Fascism
https://youtu.be/R9fpm-lorIU?si=eLizlyzgsAq624AR
And it also reminds me of the Game Theory song:
Bret Weinstein | Game Theory
https://youtu.be/5NAQMoRzuxk?si=6zcftBKUvmdwJ9p2
On 3/16/26 10:22 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
Jon's great pointer <metaphor> to Koopman functions and the whole eigenfunction space <metaphor> that unfurled
<metaphor)> from it lead <metaphor> me to refine <metaphor> my model <metaphor?> of latent semantic space (LLMs for
the moment) as plenae/manifolds/bundles/sheaves/geodesics <formal diffGeo mathematical models laced with metaphorical terms and
implications> and then dynamical systems' attractor landscapes <metaphor> with nested basins<metaphor> and saddle points
<metaphor>.
Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" vs Borges "Library of Babel" perhaps? To the
extent that we (post literate?) humans live in an Intersubjective Reality mediated by long-form, long-term
narrative (Medium is the Massage), we are "nothing but Narrative" in some sense which rides on the
control points of a high-dimensional, higher order spline whose control points are the source domain of
Metaphor. Layer on top (see con-men, posuers) the goal of rhetoric (to carve the mogul-ly landscape of
intersubjective narrativity).
While I ran my mouth <keyboard> here, i did manage not to think of an Elephant once until I
scanned your (glen's) original post for possible extra hooks to hook into the latchhook rug of my
monologue <Colbert reference>, but I did let a Zebra sneak his nose into my tent <mixed
metaphor> in a couple of times...
Life in intersubjective reality (wherein *all* life lives it's life climbing the salmon ladder of
surprisal miniimizatoin?) is canalization "all the way down"? Even dedicated
"powder skiers" are seeking to carve (proto) moguls, even if they are too proud to ski
them themselves.
(apologies to avid skiers, I haven't been on downhill skis for nearly 30 years)
... but I do love me a good MogulMetaphor. Next we will wax up. our Metaphors and
"shoot some curls"? <surfing or some other elitist showy hobby>
Those who ride the ridges between the ruts, swerve cross-weiz to them, cut out
across unsullied landscapes feel like brave pioneers, or maybe we just don't
have patience for ruts (other peoples, we either cherish or ignore our own?).
Metaphorically Yours,
-Steve
On 3/16/26 7:55 am, glen wrote:
That's some good advice, there. Narratives like the naked Emperor are crucial
tools for posers and con men. Each and every metaphor you identify in a missive
is evidence of the authors' (plural possessive - no such thing as a sole
author) Bad Faith. And the number of metaphors is directly correlated with the
extent of the Bad Faith.
None of us are innocent. None of us are the child in the narrative. It's a venomous
fiction, injected by the fangs of the storyteller. Even literal babies bring along their
own "genetic memory", in utero accretion, biases, and expertise. The story,
that story and all others, is there to persuade, to trick you, to canalize you into
thinking in some particular set of ways.
Now I'd like you to stop thinking about elephants.
On 3/15/26 10:17 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Perhaps I should just drop the metaphor and speak to the beliefs the metaphor
represents to me. Expertise both sights and blinds us; great expertise sights
and blinds us greatly.
--
¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ...
--- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
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