Two of my favourite authors. Both of them were from almost same era, early part of 20th century. Both of them wrote about bureaucracy, corruption, control, power, and helplessness of individuals in the greater scheme of things. Reading them a dark feeling covers your soul, and all chances of redemption appear bleak. We are, it seems, doomed for life, and only non-existence in to oblivion or death can relieve us of these torments, as it does to many characters of this duo.
The things that are happening now around us, the FUDs and stereotyping of “The Enemy” reminds one much of the situation in Nineteen Eight Four. Maybe the policy makers grew up reading Nineteen Eight Four and found enough material to be implemented in the real world. Or as it happens in The Castle, one can easily identify with the main protagonist whose life is made into an unending sequence of visits to the offices in The Castle. As it happens during visits to most of the government offices.
humans
Wikipedia | New Politics Of Knowledge
Professionals are no longer needed for the bare purpose of the mass distribution of information and the shaping of opinion. The hegemony of the professional in determining our background knowledge is disappearing—a deeply profound truth that not everyone has fully absorbed.
In their view, Wikipedia represents the democratization of knowledge itself, on a global scale, something possible for the first time in human history.
As wonderful as it might be that the hegemony of professionals over knowledge is lessening, there is a downside: our grasp of and respect for reliable information suffers. With the rejection of professionalism has come a widespread rejection of expertise—of the proper role in society of people who make it their life’s work to know stuff.
For instance, journalists, interviewers, and conference organizers—people trying to gather an audience, in other words—use “expert” to mean “a person we can pass off as someone who can speak with some authority on a subject.” Also, we say the “local expert” on a subject is the person who knows most, among those in a group, about the subject. Neither of these are the very interesting senses of “expert.”
To exclude the public is to put readers at the mercy of wrongheaded intellectual fads; and to exclude experts, or to fail to give them a special role in an encyclopedia project, is to risk getting expert opinion wrong.
If we reject the use of credentials, we reject all evidence of expertise; ergo, lacking any means of establishing who is an expert, we reject expertise itself. Meritocrats are necessarily expert-lovers.
Experts know particular topics particularly well. By paying closer attention to experts, we improve our chances of getting the truth; by ignoring them, we throw our chances to the wind. Thus, if we reduce experts to the level of the rest of us, even when they speak about their areas of knowledge, we reduce society’s collective grasp of the truth.
via On The New Politics Of Knowledge | Conversation | Edge
On the brighter side of it, we are for the first time able to participate in many things. Just being trained in a discipline (PhD?) does not automatically create opportunities for one in the old system. But in Wikipedia it does. How many people who have PhD do get an opportunity to write a text-book or a popular article? I would like to ask how many of contributors on Wikipedia are really subject experts? There might be many, and they would be able to point at the right evidence, when needed to “show off” their authority in the field, which the normal user won’t be. So what’s the fuss about?
A self referential post for others
This post is for those who are reading this :Post!
When you read this post, you will know it is meant for you!
When you read this post, you will know it is meant for you!
You can fool all people for some time.
You can fool some people for all the time.
But, you cannot fool all the people for all the time.
Hope that the message reaches those for whom it is meant!
That is for those people who are reading this post!!
You anyway are wasting your time by reading this sort of trash written by me!!!
Thinking Humans
There is at least one philosophical problem in
which all thinking men are interested: the problem of under-
standing the world in which we live, including ourselves,who are
part of that world, and our knowledge of it.
– Karl Popper
which all thinking men are interested: the problem of under-
standing the world in which we live, including ourselves,who are
part of that world, and our knowledge of it.
– Karl Popper
Conjectures and Refutations
Cigol
I have coined a new term: cigol.
The term may have some meaning, google gives it as a surname for many.
But for me it is something, which I am suffering due to.
To guess the meaning read the term backwards.
And you will get it!
Now there is a term illogical which is already existent, but when I mean cigol, it is
not exactly illogical. There is a differnece. The difference is that
illogical would mean devoid of logic. But in case of cigol, the logic is
very much there, but is reversed. They are very much applicable to babus.
For example if something is supposed to help you, they make it in such a way
that it becomes unhelpful, deliberately.
I would love to cite a lot of examples, but alas I cannot for reasons known to all.