9/12/17

On BS in the Media

W.V.O. Quine, the philosopher, published a book titled 'Word and Object'. Words obviously differ from objects, hence there is no precise description of anything that is exhaustive or comprehensive of possible descriptions of what it is- not even of a zero-dimensional singularity.
Andy Warhol could paint a tomato soup can accurately, yet try to write about a can of coke-in-itself... ie 
Intentional words strings are implicitly analogous of that perceived. Observer bias effects every report, yet words have practical value of communicating information, so valued reports are more worth reading than those that are just entertaining. People will want to pay more for better, more accurate information as always. For now they tend to over-rely on video. It is the accompanying words that are the problem. Broadcast media may not use complete bs- they may just toss in 5% bs for spicing up public interest and narrative.
An argumentative, litigious society concerned less with creating a better society and more with going forward in private interests with law as a kind of fender obviously would attract a lot of bs to desynchronize macro-social control. The positive should be accentuated rather than the negative.

After the Space Odyssey (a poem)

  The blob do’ozed its way over the black lagoon battling zilla the brain that wouldn’t die a lost world was lost   An invasion of the carro...