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Super Autumn Saturday
It’s Saturday morning and I’m enjoying a full-seasons binge of Titans with Connor! Kelly, Dorothy and Allan are heading to the Outer Banks with my In-Laws for the week.
Information Overload
Where is all the knowledge we lost with information? ~T. S. Eliot
We live in an amazing age but the more choices you have, the easier it is to max out on information. We’re inundated with an absolute tidal wave of information these days. We have the opportunity to know virtually anything and everything.
The good thing is that you can learn skills, earn college degrees, get jobs and network with people all over the world. The entire planet is literally at your fingertips.
The bad thing is that you can go down each and every rabbit hole known to humankind. You can go to a search engine and look for a recipe or a video on how to clean the inside of your windshield most effectively and find yourself still sitting there ten hours later watching documentaries about the history of Sumerian pottery or reading a hundred blog posts about some hobby of yours.
I’m currently trying to learn Electron to help me with a potential unique sales proposition. Sounds pretty straightforward given my history as a software developer but, in reality, it’s a huge opportunity to spend hours and hours on minutia. In fact, just looking for that link to “unique sales proposition” has opened up a whole new doorway to a whole new rabbit hole for me.
I thought I was a news addict after 9/11 but I can’t help racing down a dozen kinds of rabbit holes each and every time I set myself to learning a particular topic. Along with that goes the current trend in politics for things to go completely off the rails. Just when you think the news cycle is going to culminate in something useful, there’s always a handful of new twists that branch off of each and every event.
The worst part is with all of the information overload, there are as many theories about every event as there are people to form opinions. Since nobody actually knows all the facts, all of the theories swirl and cluster into collections of similar threads. Given that, you have to add on the concept of “cognitive bias“. Since we want certain things to be true, we often lean towards the information that confirms our expectations. Since there is a wealth of information that does this, we can pinch ourselves off into a universe where what we believe or would prefer to believe (or would prefer to believe that we prefer to believe).
Strangely, with all of the possible shades of opinion, we generally tend to pool into a grand dichotomy. Maybe that’s just because, as Americans, we’re used to a two-party system. Maybe if I was European, my grand dichotomy would be as fractured as their parliamentarian politics. Then again, maybe not. There have been grand existential conflicts that were dichotomous throughout history.
The Punic Wars were one of the first existential conflicts. Republic vs Oligarchy. Civic duty vs slaves and mercenaries. East vs West (even though they were directly North and South of each other, Carthage was ultimately a Phoenician colony and their culture was more Asiatic and the Romans were quintessentially European).
Throughout history, we see these massive dichotomies. Given all the possible combinations, you wind up with these enormous polarities. Fortunately, the collectivist/imperial faction always loses to the individualist/decentralized side. That’s one of the many reasons I believe the Democrats are going to lose. It may be confirmation bias on my part, but individuals win. It may get ugly before it gets better, but the chaos that’s whirling around us seems to me to be a sign of things spinning up to a climax before the end of the story.
Ultimately, I believe in individual rights and responsibilities while the annoyingly activist Left seems to be motivated exclusively by hate. Hate is a powerful emotion but it’s not sustainable. Neither is concentrated idiocy.
There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker. ~Charles M. Schulz
Believing that the Emperor’s New Clothes exist might make them feel all toasty inside, but something that’s easily disproven is no basis for a belief system. They’re going to be sadly disappointed when their house of cards comes crashing down. Unfortunately, that kind of disruption leads to absolute chaos. Even when the losers lose, they’re going to keep causing trouble for some time to come.
Titans
I’ve been working non-stop for months and I’m honestly getting a bit burned out. Fortunately, I have the opportunity to kick back and just enjoy some time with my son today. We’ve got some chores to attend to but, for the most part, we’re just binging the entire Titans series on DC Universe.
Since Kelly and the munchkins are away for the week, I’ll also have the opportunity to binge my Game of Thrones DVDs. I don’t have Season 8 yet but it will take me a while to rip through 1-7. She’s not a fan of the gratuitous nudity and harsh language, so it’s best to watch them without her around to be offended by it. It took me over 15 years to read the books (due to George R. R. Martin’s obnoxious case of writer’s block), so it will be a relief to be able to cram it all into a week whenever I’m not working.
Back to Work
Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience. ~Rebecca West
The weekend is pretty much dedicated to maxing and relaxing this time around, but I do have a LOT of work to do and it’s going to be nice and quiet with everyone out of the house. I can get some recordings made. I can focus on my overdue tasks. It’s going to be awesome.
Sure, I’ll miss curling up at night with Kelly but I have a bunch of work to catch up on while she’s away. If I can do what I’m hoping to accomplish this week, I won’t need to work quite as obsessively going forward. The challenge will be avoiding distractions. We’ll see how it turns out…
That’s super Saturday for ya. Enough blogging. Back to the Titans…