Tuesday, December 14, 2010

False True Information

My theory of macroinformation distinguishes information from data: information is the set, data is a subset.

Today I emphasize with a fresh example that false information (false macroinformation, macroinformation also being a subset of information) can be elicited in others via true data. In prejudice for example, racism for example, the Whatsoo can demonstrate hypocrisy in the Toozoo. The demonstration can be true. But better macroinformation would be elicited by the admission that hypocrisy can also be demonstrated in the Whatsoo.

The US of my youth laughed at Communists claims that some Communist had invented the telephone, the light bulb ... I today laugh at the US for its similar fabrications. (My offer of cybernetic libraries, cybernetic data basing, and cybernetic social networking ... implicit in my founding of the Free Learning Exchange, Inc. in 1970 not being taught by schools or universities around the world today is evidence, proof, that schools, media, and other institutions collude in fraud.)

OK. Here's some data, and false macroinformation, that pricked me to launch this post: Today's sports news blazons a new $100M baseball contract: for pitcher Lee and his Phillies. The other year Tiger was getting $100M for something. Last week Derek Jeter was getting $50M+ from the Yankees. I don't dispute the data. Neither do I scoff at Jeter or Tiger or Lee's quality, Neither do I scoff at Jeter or Tiger or Lee's right to such wealth; not in the absence of similar figures divulging the wealth of others. The Steinbrenner family's income (including capital gains, profits, earnings ... lagniappe, tips) may be at least in part a matter of public record: but it's the slave, Jeter, whose contract is blazoned publicly, not the owner(s): (the late) George Steinbrenner (and family, etc.)

In other words: there's important macroinformation implicit in what data an organ divulges and congruent macroinformation implicit in what data an organ does not divulge. Gender, class, ethnicity, and such may be expected to be involved: regardless or whether the ambient culture claims to differentiate by class or gender or ethnicity ...

We show our faces but commonly hide our tail end.
We make someone a celebrity, then show their wallet:
while not even acknowledging the existence of some millions of others.


This post starts out in the style of Macroinformation.org (and this Macroinformation blog) but soon takes on the political flavor of typical other pk domains and blogs. True. Well, I accuse my culture of informational dishonesty. Civilized media are heavily biased to notice the farts of the unwashed while politely averting the gaze for identical behavior from the privileged.

Why do we tolerate Lee's salary being headline worthy while also tolerating an absence of information about the income of other figures? Further, what does it tell about us if we have figures estimating Bill Gates's estate without also displaying figures for Ivan Illich's estate: he who proposed that cybernetic information storage and retrieval could help humans become Christian (meaning convivial in Illich's lexicon) and without also displaying figures for pk's estate: me, pk, being the guy (one of several, first of several to go public) who offered to actually try to launch Illich's cybernetic information revolution: via my 1970 Free Learning Exchange, Inc. (Note: I mention Bill Gates because he founded Microsoft years after the public declined to support FLEX's offer to develop relational data-basing software for advertising resources. We preferred to pay, to pay a great deal, for software that did considerably less than we could have gotten for "cost plus.")

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