A blog (by Patrick Louis in Lebanon) consisting of well researched articles about Unix, philosophy, and more. From deep dives to well-rounded overviews that remove mysticism, everything is easily explained in a consumable way. Every article tries to take a new point of view, to link ideas together, and to tackle topics that haven't been before.
Here's something that's shocking to say: Most of what you think of as traditional, regardless of where you live, has only appeared 3 generations ago, three generations only. For the few things that existed beforehand, they mostly didn't exist in their current form, and weren't as widespread — thus can't really be called an authentic heritage. Try it, list 10 things that you personally consider…
Life is pretty bland today! Indeed, we're the cozy spectators of homogenization through globalization, pushed by a series of ephemeral trends, one dying after another, and carried by consumer society. It's as if the cultural vibes all seem to walk in the same direction. What is this direction? Where did novelty go, have countercultures disappeared? Yet, they were omnipresent, bubbling and…
Every so often we need to regroup and give shape to our scattered ideas, turning them into well-structured paragraphs so that they make sense. From simple observations of events to shower thoughts. That's what I'll try to do in this article, swapping heavy words for a lucid mind.
Is someone that is subjectively experiencing something more knowledgeable than someone who didn't or currently isn't? Are analytical external observers sometimes more adept at understanding what is happening than the persons that are currently deep in the experience?
After writing a whole book about internet and narrative control I want to share what I personally do, in my own limited ways, to try not to get stuck in bubbles. The book covers a lot of ground on this used up road, especially in the last part, but let's be practical instead. This isn't meant to be didactic but only informative of my reflection on how I attempt to achieve this and the issues I've…
Our mini internet study has come to an end. In this series we've seen the new actors and spaces introduced by the internet, the actors using them, from the new economies, to netizens in between, to state actors. We've also took some reflective time to understand why we can be susceptible to biases and why we have so much difficulties with online interactions. Next we've looked at the big picture…
We can attempt to patch things, use tools and software as countermeasures, to add laws and regulations, or to let the market decide, but in the end we are at the center of everything. If we are facing difficulties with the medium it's because we haven't matured enough to handle it properly. Right now we're still in the process of trying to grasp how it works, in an apprenticeship stage. Knowing…
When free market and regulations fail, when the laws of rights can't properly protect anyone and trust has eroded, we're left only with ourselves. In that scenario, tech is seen as the savior of the internet, the weapon and armor of choice for everyone, building and selecting software that resolve issues. For social media platforms and other big entities such as governments, algorithms can be used…
The market and corporate self-regulation have their limits. They cannot in themselves be sources of morals and ethics. This is the realm of laws, the legislations that governments make are the real arbiters of duties and rights. The governments, as state entities, can impose the rules that should be followed to be able to act on their territories. However, laws are bound by geographical areas and…
In this last part of the series we'll go over the adaptations we are undergoing to remove the frictions we have with the internet — anything to make it better suited for us. We'll take multiple perspectives, primarily the ones of users, societies, and others that are encountering the issues we've seen related to this new communication channel. Let's start by taking the point of view of the market…
The internet brings with it technological advancements that reminds us of dystopia that sci-fi writers have written about. So let's go beyond what we've tackled so far and project ourselves in hypothetical futures to posit bigger consequences. The two archetypical stories of dystopian futures are Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell.
Nobody likes to be put in a box, nobody likes to be paralyzed. In a world where the individual is put first, we want to feel in control. Yet, we are lost in a whirlpool of chaotic and clashing ideologies, memeplexes and absolutist templates. Who are we, how should we define ourselves? This makes us distrust any form of authority and renounce classical forms of media. As individuals, we're looking…
In this part of the series, we'll explore the bigger picture and the generic issues and 'ill effects' on societies that are brought by the emergence of the internet or accelerated by it. We'll begin with a look at three inter-related subjects, a general social paralysis, an apparent sentiment of homogeneity, and the relation with the widespread neoliberal mindset.
To be a netizen means to be part of the online social sphere. There's no way around it, to have a voice and participate people have to join a platform, which comes with its own limitations. The rules of the platforms are the rules of the information society but the platforms adapt more to fit us than we adapt to them. Anything happening on them is directly because of real people interacting…
Humans are prone to manipulations by their own experiences and biases. Let's review what are some of the cognitive biases and cultural weaknesses that make us fall for all sort of things on the internet. We've already looked at coercion, deception, and other types of persuasion principles in a previous sections. In the following two we'll emphasize on ourselves instead of external factors.
Since ancient times, nations have tried to write history from their own point of view. As they say, history is written by the victors. Today, the speed of the internet allows rewriting the narrative in real-time, and state actors will certainly take advantage of this. Namely, there are two ways, or generations, of state information-control practices, an information scarcity approach, aka…
The internet is a new resource and when introduced in our social structures it has fueled the construction of utilities around it. Like any tool it has no effects on its own but only through its usages. In particular, it has altered our capacity of communication making it interactive, multimodal, asynchronous or synchronous, global or local, many-to-many, one-to-many, one-to-object,…
The artifacts we've previously seen have given rise to new types of economies, tools, and arsenals that can be used by different actors for different incentives. Let's start by focusing on the economic aspects by looking at actors such as social media platforms, newspapers, and advertisement companies. Life in an information society is about moving data, the new raw material, around our…
In this last section of our first part about artifacts and places, we'll explore memes, internet memes, and cults, their definitions, how they have transformed and crisscrossed, their relationship, their role as communication vectors, and the extreme forms that they can take. Meme is a word that comes up in many conversations. It can refer to two related definitions, the classic one and the…
The internet is littered with nuggets of information, some made of gold and some worthless. From this mine we can extract meta-information, inferences that can lead to more lucrative valleys. Two of the most talked about are personal data and models, also known as statistical trends visualizations, big data analysis, and predictive studies. Let's take a look at what is personal data, where and why…
With the advent of smartphones, social media platforms are on the rise. Let's step back and try to understand what social media are, not by citing events and instances happening on the different platforms, nor the countless consequences but by describing the characteristics of this new informational channel. We'll go over the rest later but let's take some distance for now.
Our journey begins with three terms, propaganda, influence, and persuasion. To most, they sound like synonyms but each convey a different concept. Like any form of communication the internet can be used as a channel for them. What does communication consist of? The very broad domain of communication studies — with multiple sub-disciplines such as journalism, film critic, public relation, and…
To no one's surprise, the internet has permeated all aspects of our lives. All other means of communication have dwindled in comparison, even though the technological behemoth is relatively young (around 50 years old as of 2021). Worldwide, according to statistics from 2019, people spent an average of 2 and a half hours a day on social media. The top place goes to The Philippines with 3h53min per…
Finally, The project about mapping wild mushrooms in Lebanon is out! The project consists of a map with wild mushroom specimens, their locations, along with pictures and descriptions of them. It is based on the only two research papers on the topic I've found, Joseph Thiébaut research paper Champignons observés dans le Liban et la Syrie de 1930 à 1933 along with Nadine Modad research paper Survey…
How would you describe yourself? How do you usually talk about yourself? Do you feel like you are the writer of your own narrative? Who are you?
Collapse, the word that is on everyone's lips in Lebanon. What does it mean, will Lebanon fall or survive, and what does the future have in store? "We can predict everything, except the future", I hear someone say, but can we at least get some possibilities.
Time can be measured in all sorts of ways, some more accurate than others, but the perception of its flow varies widely depending on the subjective experience. That's the distinction between physical and psychological time. Psychological time is influenced and influences our cognitive systems. It influences how we act and respond to information and events around us, and the information and events…
In this article I'm going to pose a not so novel compatibilistic idea about the so-recurrent philosophical discussion of free will and determinism. However, this can apply to any topic where reductionism is over-used. Let's get started.
This article is about nothing surprising but may act as a reminder to anyone that wanders online or that manages a community. There's too much already written about the subject of echo chambers so what I'll do is list ideas that I find interesting but that aren't mentioned enough.
This article is about a rarely discussed component that resides in the background of our lives. No word clearly describes this phenomenon as it's a fusion of different ideas. We blueprint ourselves according to media that display extravagant versions of winners and losers. The profiles on social media are facade created around individuals — Profile being a well-chosen word as it misses the other…
It's not uncommon to hear, from persons that relocated to a new country, discussions related to the dissatisfactions with the new land they've set upon or the land they've just left behind. Apart from the stifling reply, "they're just not used to it", what else is hiding behind this phenomenon. Let's dissect this case.
There may exist someone in your entourage, someone you may care deeply about, or maybe even yourself, that is being crushed by the real and raw perception of themselves. They may appear to an external observer as someone who expresses a lot of self-deprecation or negativity, but the observed categorized this as realism. We often hear the sentence "I am not a pessimist, but I am a realist," which…
It has become rampant nowadays to find many persons misinterpreting or skewing evolutionary psychology studies to praise or blame the stance they fancy or despise. The slants are non-sense and blot this relatively new field of social science by conflating it with bigotry and excruciatingly non-scientific arguments. Many of the pernicious individuals that advance them are confabulating and…
Hello fellow readers, This is the first post of 2017, let's recap what I've been up to since the start of the year. Show me how you spend your day and I'll tell you what you care about
We take actions based on our unconscious mind, we follow our unspoken norms and taboos. For a little while we may think we are original or creative, but we aren't — at least not following the definition we attributed to the terms. This is not uncommon, everyone thinks that they are innovative. A positive illusion or just the opposite, let's not discuss determinism. The human brain works by…
Let's start with definitions because the words themselves are not representative of my perspective. I think there's a clear distinction between words. We have different words for a reason, they have different meanings. They might be thought to be synonymous but do have backgrounds, connotations, history, roots, that differ, The generic aspect of what it should mean.
We are born, we live, and we die. Yet, humans presumptuously want to ply meaning with their existence. What am I — Just a coincidence? What makes me special, am I distinguishable? We're not blind and won't be satisfied with the unlaborious mythological answers. Which are only enough for the simple minds. The essence is there, somewhere downstairs...
I find it fervently infuriating when someone uses the word passion and degrades it. They degrade the meaning of the word. Passion is the ultimate upgrade of the hobby, a cultivated curiosity. Something you're currently dedicating your life to. You diminish it when blurting that a person that doesn't spend any time outside the "obligatory work hours" on his passion, not even a thought, to be…
Ten years ago we moved to Lebanon. There was a culture clash. In this post I'll explain why some locals go on destructive paths. We all know generalizations have the nasty effect of activating justice warriors. My intention is not to trigger rage, generalizations are what they are, a resonance of the state of mind *we* are living in. While everyone is not going to read this post and take value out…
Hello fellow readers, This post is a refresh on correlated subjects I've discussed in the past. I'm revisiting them considering the recent media coverage. Social awakening is at the door.
Hello fellow readers, In this post I'll introduce futurists, some people with a very special occupation.
Hello fellow readers, In this post I'll discuss a subject that has been nagging me. Justification After Actions I usually write to clear my mind about a topic. These days I can't really keep up with all the things that bug me. This subject is a preparation to a broader subject that I'm preparing to write about.
Hello fellow readers, The last two months I've been extremely interested in evolutionary programming and group dynamics. In this post I'll try to gather some important factors I've noticed repeating themselves across the multiple opinions and examples, and the ones that just seemed noticeably important.
Hello fellow readers, This post is about an analysis of social changes in 2015.
About a week ago an instructor at university was asking why most students did not try the step-by-step tutorials at home, or why they didn't at least read it. He then started a speech, trying to understand us and saying that we would not be able to enter the work world easily with this mindset, and asking students what they thought of it.
Hello fellow readers, I've been away of the social networking scene for a year, after obvious wrong events such as Facebook entering the stock market. This post is a reminder of those horrible, so called, online social networks. Social networks make people look stupid! On a personal level, I've been out for a year and I still feel the weird nausea arising when looking at people wasting their…