Babel Tower

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Torah / Bible "Genesis 11:9 attributes the Hebrew version of the name, Babel, to the verb balal, which means to confuse or confound in Hebrew. The first century Roman-Jewish author Flavius Josephus similarly explained that the name was derived from the Hebrew word Babel (בבל), meaning "confusion"."

"Us and Them" (Pink Floyd song cover) performed by Lucia Lilikoi, lyrics: Up and down... and in the end It's only round and round, and round. "Haven't you heard it's a battle of words?" The poster bearer cried

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RoundSparrow@lemm.ee

I (Stephen) did not create the English language. I did not create the Internet, public library content, Wikipedia. “I Read Only the Right-Hand Page of Serious Books” - Marshall McLuhan :: Babel Tower (www.openculture.com)

submitted 1 week ago by RoundSparrow@lemm.ee to c/BabelTower@lemm.ee

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“a peek-a-boo world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. It is an improbable world. It is a world in which the idea of human progress, as Bacon expressed it, has been replaced by the idea of technological progress. The aim is not to reduce ignorance, superstition, and suffering but to accommodate ourselves to the requirements of new technologies. We tell ourselves, of course, that such accommodations will lead to a better life, but that is only the rhetorical residue of a vanishing technocracy. We are a culture consuming itself with information, and many of us do not even wonder how to control the process. We proceed under the assumption that information is our friend, believing that cultures may suffer grievously from a lack of information, which, of course, they do. It is only now beginning to be understood that cultures may also suffer grievously from information glut, information without meaning, information without control mechanisms.” ― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, 1992

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[–] RoundSparrow@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I think people are far too concerned with the style, structure, syntax, fashion of language and communications. Since year 2022, when ChatGPT became a household name, it became incredibly obvious - but people still can't recognize the Babel Tower / Tower of Babel metaphor problem.

ChatGPT and other competing artificial intelligence systems have a "temperature" setting, and are prevented from accessing their own source training material to search. The can not accurately quote books and provide citations, because Copyright Is Brain Damage to both Human Minds and Artificial Intelligence Systems. ChatGPT has been deliberately crafted to NOT provide credit to the teachers, sources, references on ideas and concept, who it learned from and where. Because that would create a financial / money / economic problem of ownership of words. Paraphrasing, AVOIDING infringement is what it is programmed to do, generate endless variations of words - which is the very disaster I meant to address with this posting.

It was back perhaps in 1998 that I came to terms that original speech and communications is incredibly overrated. I had dataceneter Internet access in my office in Bellevue, Washington...t the fastest available Internet on the West Coast, only 8 or 10 doors down from Vern Rayburn and Paul Allen's offices. My job would pay for any books, magazines, research material I requested. I had Edward Snowden level access to Paul Allen / Bill Gates/ Microsoft Board of Directors private communications systems.

And it was then I started to recognize that what Neil Postman was saying in 1985 was coming very true in 1997 and 1998.

::: _________________
"Imagine my shock as a neurodivergent teen when I first realized that using large vocabulary and eloquent speech doesn't make you less likely to be misinterpreted, rather it adds an entirely new layer of misinterpretation I had never even realized existed in the form of people thinking you're being snobbish or condescending when you're just trying to be specific" https://notthewriteryourelookingfor.tumblr.com/post/759681306752942080

[–] RoundSparrow@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Having unknown autism at that time (I was not diagnosed until 2008 / 2009) in 1997 and 1998.... I didn't fully deeply grasp how much people only cared about eye contact patterns, body language, word choices, speed of speech, length of sentences, formatting of paragraphs, egoism / self-centered mirroring of their individual mind. I thought diversity across the world was great and wanted to travel and live overseas (which I did in 2004, going to Arica Chile for a full year, later on to Algeria in Africa, Jordan in the Middle East, beyond to Indonesia and Malaysia all to self-study media ecology and relationships people have with communications and priorities of what they favor and further to the next generation / children).

I would rather just quote a book and cite a great writer, I was already an author and professional technical editor, I had edited entire books on IBM OS/2 - and I knew how books were created.

Why would I want to make every conversation an ego pissing / dick measuring contest like Steve Jobs had established in the computer industry top executives space I was working in since I had started working for SAP (Germany's largest software company)?

"Elevator pitch" to Executives with billions of dollars, at that time Bill Gates and Paul Allen were the 1st and 3rd richest in the world, Warren Buffet at number 2. The ability to charm and convince people with just the right e-mail communications, office memo, or speaking skills would turn your life around in that office where I worked for two and a half years.

Since Q4 2014, I realized that the whole Internet had changed, Facebook and Reddit mostly where I was "reading the room" / studying mass mind (hive mind, mass man) shifts. I prefer Reddit (Lemmy-like) because it allows verbose long messages, hyperlinks to sources, and quotations. Everything not Twitter. But things changed in year 2013, and by Q3 2015 I realized it was "Eternal September" even deeper in the mind, a permanent change had happened since 2013 and it was in no way reversing, short-term trend, a fad - when I contacted the Pentagon and reported that there were active measures and drastic behavioral changes on social media systems (first time I ever reported anything to the federal government in my life).

::: _______________
“English, strictly speaking, is not my first language by the way. I haven't yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things. I expect I will always have to do it that way; regrettably I don't think my first language can be written down at all. I'm not sure it can be made external you see. I think it has to stay where it is; simmering in the elastic gloom betwixt my flickering organs.” ― Claire-Louise Bennett