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So, more thoughts on what I wrote about last night on Paul Otlet’s Mundaneum:  It seems to me what he is saying is that we need to have an intelligent, world-wide, civil, open-minded, and focused discussion, especially focused, without the diversions and digressions and discussions of mundane events which so often derail discussions of this kind, on precisely how we can solve the great problems of the world, how can we house all the homeless, feed all the hungry, educate the children, enable the elderly, end income inequality, clean the air, clean the water, reverse global warming and establish a society in which all people may prosper.

It would be a hell of a job moderating the son of a bitch, though, because so few of the comments made, no matter what the subject, fit the criteria.  There’s a lot of hooray for our side, might as well have just clicked the like button, type comments, and that isn’t really what’s going to be helpful in deciding which of the possible future energy sources we’re looking at will be the most viable.  There are a lot of  box quotes from somebody famous, or just some funny witticism that’s going around the internet, but framed in a little box because that makes it look more important.  There is the great wall of cats.  There are the trolls (but there are so very few really great ones).  There are the weak spellers.  There are the name callers.

And then there are the logical fallacies.  Hoo-boy.  Strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks, all of the moving the goal post arguments like no true Scotsman and Texas Sharpshooter, false equivalence, guilt by association, false premises, and, I’m sure, many many more.

So, it wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done.

In 1934, a Belgian futurist named Paul Otlet predicted something that he called Mundaneum.  It was a network of people, linked by telephones and computers.  Mundaneum would allow all the thinkers of the world to pool their ideas and opinions, to study things through, to find solutions to all huan problems.

The future we should be having, today

He didn’t predict the torrent of cat pictures which would clog the streets of the Mundaneum, the popularization of porn, or to what extent such a network would facilitate massive, large scale stupidity.  Other than that, he pretty much predicted the Internet; in 1934.  Full credit.

The thing is, Otlet’s vision could become reality.  It may even be headed in that direction.  There are many sites where there is a relatively free exchange of ideas.  Unfortunately, they are generally pretty unimaginative ideas, and the free exchange very often is just “You’re stupid!”, “No, you’re stupid!”  There are places, I think, where serious ideas are discussed, and I occasionally stumble across them.  But, someone raises an objection, somebody else calls them a troll or a hater, and you have to read through a lot of pointless back and forth for every intelligent, constructive comment that actually adds anything to the original point, that actually moves the discussion forward.

It’s a form of artificial intelligence.  The linking of highly intelligent and creative minds with the knowledge and computing power of the world’s finest thinking machines.

It could solve all of the problem’s of the world.  Well, at least it could propose solutions.  We’re still human beings, so we’d probably screw things up.

I don’t know what to think about this, but I’m not thrilled, that’s for sure.

On the one hand, I’ve never worried too much about secrecy when I’m on facebook.  What I post, I want everyone to read.  Mostly.  There’ve been times I’ve posted stuff and then thought “Whoops, shouldn’t have said that.  What if xxxxx sees it?” but that happens in real life, too, outside of facebook.

Hay, Zuck! Here’s a clue – if you don’t want people to think you’re an asshole. STOP being an ASSHOLE.

Also, I have realized, from the beginning, that we are part of Mark Zuckerberg’s grand social experiment.  The targeted advertising can be a bit offensive, especially the constant weight loss ads I get.  Sure, I could stand to lose a few pounds, but that jiggling belly gif that keeps popping up on my screen is just gross.  But, as much as I don’t like the targeted advertising, it is better than the old, untargeted advertising.  That was just mostly a huge waste of viewer time and advertisers’ dollars.  facebook is streamlining the economy.

But I didn’t actually think they were manipulating which posts we see just to mess with our heads.  That’s screwed up.  Research, they call it.  Agreed to it when we joined, they said.  Which may all be technically true, but it’s still screwed up.

What they did was adjust the feed so one group of several thousand users saw more positive, upbeat posts and another similar sized group saw more negative posts, to see if that would influence people’s posts.  Well, duh.  When you see a post that says “My mother passed away on this day 5 years ago” you aren’t going to reply with a snappy pun, are you?

If Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t such a pathetic, isolated from the human race, computer nerd who would fail a Voigt-Kampff test, he would have already known that people react to the mood of people around them.

I suppose the thing that bothers me most about this is how crashingly unnecessary this all was.  They didn’t need control groups.  They didn’t need to manipulate the data.  All they needed to do was look through everybody’s data, see who’d just received negative (or positive) messages, and see what they posted next.

If all this was going to lead to a better facebook, I might not be too bothered.  It’s sort of like testing stuff on animals.  Sad for the lab mice, but if they’re looking for a cure for cancer, or alzheimer’s, or muscular dystrophy, hey, kill all the mice you want, no objections for me.  But if it’s for cosmetics, that’s bullshit.

I don’t think this is going to lead to a better facebook.  I think it is going to be used for market research and the continuing enrichment of Mark Zuckerberg.  So, it’s bullshit.

Seth Rogen and James Franco are making a new film, called ‘The Interview,’ and I do want to see it, if it gets shown, and if they leave the controversial bit in, but on the other hand there is certainly something to be said for taking it out, e.g. the prudent course, the more sensible alternative, a decision to err on the side of caution, etc., but back on the first hand it seems the controversial bit is basically the whole plot of the film.

The film is about two journalists who are part of a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-Un, so it’s really understandable that Kim Jong-Un is pissed off.  The fact that he’s threatening to rain down nuclear terror is a bit more disconcerting.  After all, President Obama probably gets death threats every day, and you don’t hear him flipping out.

Then again, President Obama isn’t comically short and fat and for some reason genetically required to have a ridiculous haircut.  Seriously?  Not laughing at Kim Jong Un sputtering like a tyrant is like not laughing at Chris Christie for being fat or at Rob Ford for being a big Raaasklat, mon, or at (with, excuse me, laughing with) Betty White for being old, or at Miley Cyrus for being a big skank.  (I don’t actually think Miley Cyrus is a big skank.  I think she’s playing the part of a big skank as part of a career move which is working out pretty well for her, but I like skanks to be genuine skanks).  You just have to laugh at the guy.

So, on the one hand, free speech and comedy.  On the other hand, how many people in the history of mankind have said “Hey, won’t it be funny if I knock over that hornet’s nest?”  Lots of them.  And it has often not ended well.

You know who else is easy to make fun of?  Muslims.  The funny clothes, the weird dietary habits, their 13th century child marrying ways.  Never in the history of the world has a group of people been so blatantly mockable, not even the Jews.  But if you make a film about Muslims, everybody flips out and starts Jihadin’ and stuff, and then everybody looks at the filmmaker like a big villain.

So, Seth Rogen and James Franco have just found a more PC target.  Or maybe not.

Scientists are all excited, and so should be we all, at the discovery of yet another exoplanet that could support life, as far as we know, but it is very important, IMHO, for us to remember that we don’t know shit.

Gliese 832c (not to be confused with Gliese 667Cc, which also might support life but which was discovered some time back.) is only about 5 times the size of the Earth and it’s in the Goldilocks Zone.  That’s about all we know.  No indicator at all if they have life.

But what if Gliese 832c and Gliese 667Cc, which sound like they’re right down the street from one another, have both developed intelligent life.  Perhaps they are both tool making, adventurous space faring species.  It’s likely that they started space travel long ago and have been interreacting with each other, at least, for millenia.

Human Beings, here on Earth, are the South Pacific Islanders of the universe.