In Richard Dawkins' conception, human being is the medium through which information and ideas, or memes, spread. However, we constitute a poor medium which favors the spread of untruth rather than truth. As pointed out by Curtis Yarvin, human beings find nonsense as a more effective organizing tool than truth. To believe in truth is… Continue reading On the Spread of Untruth
Tag: Information
How to Hide a Secret in the Information Age
A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, as Herbert Simon said. When attention is scarce, secrets can be hidden. Dialogues from G. K. Chesterton's The Sign of the Broken Sword illustrate this vividly. Father Brown: Where does a wise man hide a pebble? Flambeau: On the beach. Father Brown: Where does a wise man… Continue reading How to Hide a Secret in the Information Age
The Half-Life of Information
Facebookers write for the next few minutes or hours. Newspapermen write for the next few days. Corporate entertainers (consultants, economists, and all sorts of "thought leaders") write for the next few months or, more rarely, years. A minority of academics write for the next decade or beyond. Men of letters write for time and for… Continue reading The Half-Life of Information
Two Parables on the Information Economy
1. Immanuel Kant's observations on student note-taking in 1778: Those of my students who are most capable of grasping everything are just the ones who bother least to take explicit and verbatim notes; rather, they write down only the main points, which they can think over afterwards. Those who are most thorough in note-taking are… Continue reading Two Parables on the Information Economy
Andy Yee 