#063: The Name of Things
What makes a chair a chair? Where does a car end, and a truck start? Is a hot dog a sandwich?
We invented names to make communicating easier. If you had to describe a chair instead of just using the word “chair”, you’d get annoyed pretty fast. What happens if you and me think of a chair? We won’t think of the same thing, yet it’ll share a few properties: you can sit on it, it probably has 4 legs, and a back support. It might or might not have arm rests.
Names aren’t fixed. They evolve with usage over time. They fall out of use, or new ones are added to our vocabulary. Some name definitions aren’t all that clear — where does a sandwich stop being a sandwich?
Worse, when a word means different, but similar, things, depending on context, then readers will use their personal preference to interpret its meaning.
Even worse: When unsuitable names are used on purpose to shape the conversation. You can see this in action when Trump refers to undocumented immigrants as “animals”, or when the ICE decides that it doesn’t like the word “cage” in news reports about how they detail small children. They know that, if they repeat their incorrect usage often enough, the public will accept their version, since no one, especially in the media, seems to be able to call these what they are: lies.
None of this is new. In fact, it’s a well documented system that abusers use to keep their victims under their control. Only now it’s used on a large scale. If these people keep it up, and no one speaks out against them, then all they have to do is keep the actual horrific stuff away from the populace to win.
So: When someone, especially a government official, is telling a lie, call it a lie. Because that’s what it is. Not an alternative truth, or fake news. A lie.
Other interesting links from around the web:
- If Iconic Space Photos Had Been Taken With a Smartphone Camera (YouTube)
- VFX artist shows you how BIG SpaceX rockets REALLY are! (YouTube)
- How I became Leonardo da Vinci on the Blockchain — Technological solutions do exactly what they’re supposed to do, not what the people selling them promise they do.
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OneTaste is pushing its sexuality wellness education toward the mainstream. Some former members say it pushed them into sexual servitude and five-figure debts: The Dark Side of the Orgasmic Meditation Company