An open-source artificial pancreas

Posted Jan 31, 2019 6:50 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
In reply to: An open-source artificial pancreas by marcH
Parent article: An open-source artificial pancreas

Forgot this.

"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"- guess which one draws public attention? Much, much better than fake news: *irrelevant* news.

1984 was prescient but it missed one thing: "Newspeak" isn't really required. To control people's emotions you just need to make sure they don't know how to count, that's enough. No numbers no science.

An open-source artificial pancreas

Posted Jan 31, 2019 7:57 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] (6 responses)

Orwell didn't miss that. One of the Ingsoc party slogans in the book was "Ignorance is Strength".

Ignorance is Strength - but noise is stronger

Posted Jan 31, 2019 9:15 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (5 responses)

This is what I think Orwell missed: there's no imposed "ignorance", no censorship, no secret and no conspiracy today. There's no need to block or hide true information. Drug price increases, tax havens, mass extinction, climate change, income inequality, lobbying money... all the numbers, facts and science are there in plain sight, googlable even. Let them flow. But they're just *boring numbers* and can't beat any irrelevant news drama or outrageous propaganda for attention. No need to censor science, drowning it in noise works much better. Among others it provides deniability. Orwell foresaw the propaganda but he missed the tremendous power of the noise. He focused on the soviet approach and the permanent threat to be sent in the goulag for just one sentence. That's not needed because barely anyone is listening to your sentence anyway, especially not when it's made of unemotional, quantified and boring facts.

Even in the most extreme situations there's still no need to hide evidence, just lie on camera and on the record pretending you're not seeing what's in your face! Then quickly switch to something else. Anything's possible as long as you know how to generate emotions on TV. Plus many journalists prefer a debate to overwhelming evidence, they convince themselves it's "fairer" to have two points of view. More drama.

Less than 100 people own half the total world's wealth, so what? What do these abstract numbers mean for me? Yeah, sounds like a lot but such hard science is actually exciting for no more than one minute or two and then back to my uninterrupted stream of emotions on twitter/facebook/cable news.

Focusing on "per capita" numbers (e.g., tax evasion is 1000 dollars/person/year) would be a start but of course the opposite is happening. Just one fun example: nutritional information in the US is all there but in... metric units! Hilarious. Oh, and the %RDA is missing for sugar, did you notice? Of course you can find it on the internet and do the math yourself, nothing's stopping you. No censorship needed!

(I'm just realizing why I'm paying for LWN: it's not just about tech. It's also for the refreshing "oasis of boring truths")

Ignorance is Strength - but noise is stronger

Posted Jan 31, 2019 10:19 UTC (Thu) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link] (4 responses)

> Focusing on "per capita" numbers (e.g., tax evasion is 1000 dollars/person/year) would be a start but of course the opposite is happening.

I think that hides the true extent of the egregious tax evasion employed by some, especially corporations with great control over the narrative (Google, Facebook, Amazon). Using a per capita number would bury that information suggesting that everyone is evading taxes.

> (I'm just realizing why I'm paying for LWN: it's not just about tech. It's also for the refreshing "oasis of boring truths")

That's an interesting term, though I don't find it boring. I'm mostly ignoring the news and politics these days except for the things that directly affect my life, though I employ professional associations there for lobbying. Being constantly bombarded with terrible things that are happening without being able to affect any change can leave you with a sense of dread and helplessness.

Reading LWN often leaves me feeling better and more informed, even the comments are usually high quality.

Ignorance is Strength - but noise is stronger

Posted Jan 31, 2019 16:37 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (3 responses)

> though I don't find [LWN] boring

I know! systemd, Code of Conduct, security labels, stone tablets,...
:-)

> I'm mostly ignoring the news and politics these days except for the things that directly affect my life

OK, you solved the problem... for yourself.

Ignorance is Strength - but noise is stronger

Posted Feb 1, 2019 11:10 UTC (Fri) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link] (2 responses)

> I know! systemd, Code of Conduct, security labels, stone tablets,...

I haven't debated text editors in a while. I need more hair to split! ;)

> OK, you solved the problem... for yourself.

To be able to help others you must first help yourself.

Ignorance is Strength - but noise is stronger

Posted Feb 1, 2019 17:30 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

Agreed, however this is only a work-around, not a fix. We don't all want to live in "a cabin in the woods", especially not so those of us who would like... healthcare

Ignorance is Strength - but noise is stronger

Posted Feb 6, 2019 10:28 UTC (Wed) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link]

> Agreed, however this is only a work-around, not a fix. We don't all want to live in "a cabin in the woods", especially not so those of us who would like... healthcare

I live in a country where healthcare is somewhat functioning, even or especially for the poor and for families (their healthcare is funded by the taxpayer, e.g. me). There are a lot of other issues but this luckily isn't one of them, if I get sick for a longer time my life is still ruined but not irreparably so. Politics to me is a waste of time, I have no power to fix (or change) anything so it's not worth expending a lot of energy getting that belief reinforced. There are enough other areas in my life where improvement is possible.