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The universe is the internet is the library is the internet is the universe. Or is it? And if so, who are the librarians? And if we have all the information we can ever want, does that mean we have knowledge or wisdom? If not, how do we make it? Or who will make it for us? Join James this month for a Film, Literature and the New World Order examination of “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges.
For a reading of this story by James Corbett, CLICK HERE.
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SHOW NOTES:
“The Library of Babel” – Text / Audio
Analysis: What’s Up With the Epigraph?
Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”
Just Be Evil: The unauthorized history of Google
Corbett Report Radio 208 – Solutions: Hacking the Matrix
“Between Two Ages” by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Last month’s episode and comments: Brazil – FLNWO #26
Next month: Daredevil
Let me kick things off here with an interesting supplemental read:
http://james.grimmelmann.net/files/Library.markdown
What do people think of the ideas here? Specifically the 10 points listed under “Part 3: The Internet”? I think point 10 is especially interesting given the rise of alternative and privacy-protecting search engines these days. Is this the way forward for cataloging the modern Library of Babel?
We could take point 10 “The more search engines the better” to its logical extreme and have everyone setup their own search engines which share results with everyone else.
The obvious problem with that idea is that the average person does not have the same resources as a corporation like Google.
However there is at least one open source solution called YaCy that implements a peer to peer distributed search engine of which your computer becomes part of once you install the application :-
http://yacy.net
I would not say that it passes the competency test as “Book-Man” yet, however the concept looks promising and it should improve if more people participate.
I needed to cool off my brain after this one.
What if the universe we live in is also ‘filtered’ by some existential algorithm(s) ?
Great FLNWO James!
Hi James,
In case you find it interesting, here is a clip of Jorge Luis Borges from an interview in Spanish TV in 1976 where he stated his political views as:
“I am certainly not a nationalist, a peronist or a communist. Let’s just say I am an individual, a modest anarchist in the Spencer tradition. I believe in the individual, not the state.”
http://youtu.be/CJgn1Y55I2s
This was recently published by miseshispano.org, the same website that has also published my Spanish translations of your Fed documentary and your three newsletter articles on anarchism:
http://www.miseshispano.org/articulos/?auth=James+Corbett
http://youtu.be/qu10wtEo4Pc
Thanks once more for another great podcast.
All the best,
Francesc
You translated the FED video into Spanish? Wow I thought about doing that for a second! Too much of a “task” for me! Did you read it or is all in transcript form?
Thank you for leaving the link to it, since I am dying to hear it in Spanish. I think that I have listened to it 4 times already in English and there still are parts that I don’t understand completely.
When he first unveiled it, all I could think of that it is too long and detailed and will not get much readership. I also think that it is more complicated than it needs to be, but it is a definitive work.
The guy in Geneva, that he used to interview often, Dave White(?)made the same remark to James days after publishing it.
So after last weekend my physical therapist asked me what happened in Greece. You would think that a physical therapist would have at least average intelligence, right? So I asked him if he knew what “Usury” and “Odious Debt” were, since he did not know what either term was at all, I told him to look up both terms and that is basically what happened in Greece, if I had to sum it up in a sentence. The people of Greece reject the “odious debt” derived through “usury” and fraud. Would you say that is a fair summary?
So James might have been burned out after working 7-8 months under deadline on the FED VID, but he did NOT want to do a shorter and simpler version, and still has not as far as I know.
I think that if more people were aware of what happened in Greece the rest of the world would not be dreading the inevitable here. Wouldn’t that be great???
Thanks again for doing those translations!!! I really hope that I can find them with the link you left, and I wonder why James didn’t post the Spanish versions here somewhere on his site?
Somebody translated Ry Dawson’s “War by Deception” into French and he posted on his site, I mean, WHY NOT? Information like this hits everybody, why not pass it along?
Here is the Mises Hispano link for the Fed documentary with Spanish subtitles:
https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=qu10wtEo4Pc
You can also watch it with Spanish subtitles at The Corbett Report youtube channel.
Hola fgarciagonzalo!
The links are broken, where can I find it?
Gracias por adelantado.
If I remember correctly, part of Borges family were immigrants from England. I think it was from his father that he inherited a library from there it comes Herbert Spencer’s influence.
I’m from Argentina and it’s sad to see that so many people don’t know much about Borges. In part thanks to him I got curious about Spencer and Schopenhauer.
Another favorite Argentinean author for me is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Arlt
This story reminds me of the Laughing Man.
Seriously, Brazil has a happy ending? Tuttle dies in a torture chair.
Thanks so much for covering Borges. His ability to write these short stories and essays that contain enough ideas to fill novels is awe-inspiring. Some of my other favorites are “Pierre Menard,” “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” and the very brief (even by Borges’s standards) “On Exactitude in Science” (https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=On_Exactitude_in_Science).
(One can trace a direct line from “On Exactitude…” to Baudrillard’s writings on simulacra and simulations and on through to The Matrix, but that’s just one thread.)
Also, I would recommend Stanislaw Lem’s book A Perfect Vacuum to anyone who enjoyed “The Library of Babel.” While Lem is labeled as a science-fiction writer, he wrote some very Borgesian short stories (many of them masquerading as non-fiction essays, including reviews of nonexistent books). There is a similar density of ideas at work. Lem also wrote about the theme of information overload and the sort of overwhelming, almost nightmarish consequences it can have. “Pericalypsis” (which is an A Perfect Vacuum) is one of many examples.
Anyway, this was a really interesting episode that drew a lot of insightful connections.
Love the story and loved your choice this month.
Anybody who is intrigued by it or not, should also be reminded that this Jorge Luis Borges is a product of a “third world country” and by extension this is the result of a horrid educational system and cultural wasteland. I don’t know his educational background, but I encourage everybody to reconsider what Putin aptly called “American Exceptionalism”.
Does anybody know of any studies that pits the intellect of any American high school student vs. any student from of a third world country? A true scientific study, following scientific method and protocol, might even shock me.
This story reminds me of the work of Octavio Paz and maybe Cervantes. The latter wrote “Man of La Mancha”, NOT the ridiculous cartoon version popular in the 60’s. That version is based on the original like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is “based on”, “Romeo and Juliet”.
Good translations of both Octavio Paz and Cervantes are available. Since these writers are so powerful, not much is lost in translation.
Enjoy!
P.S. Thank you again James, I have never even heard of Gorge Luis Borges. TRUTH!
My admittedly post hoc analysis (especially in the case of my 2nd point):
1. The 6-sided room is the benzene ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene
which is symbolic of Earth’s carbon-based life forms.
2. The books, with their systematically inscribed but generally incomprehensible text is our DNA and the DNA of all other living things. Some books (like cells of our bodies) may be destroyed, but the DNA itself lives on in other books/cells.
The books with repeated text of only 3 characters could be “junk” DNA.
I tried to watch the Daredevil series, alas its suckiness prevented me from completing it. That ginger Deborah Ann Woll couldn’t even hold my attention, which is saying a lot. However, while on the topic of TV Series, there is another which I feel people ought to pay attention to… Mr Robot. I must admit, I quite like watching it. A cross, I might describe as somewhere in between Fight Club and The Social Network. It is absolutely rife with predictive programming concerning some type of Internet False Flag. The premise seeks to merge Hackers and other non-violent groups with Terrorist bombers; even invoking the term “Hacker Bomber” several times already. I say already because at the time that I wrote this the series is only three in, and it is already deeply concerning. “fsociety” a Hacker Group set on dismantling the corporate/economic empire of “Evil Corp”, and attempts to make the ludicrous justification of indiscriminate killing to do so. Perhaps most disturbing though, is the pop-up dialog requesting viewers take an online quiz entitled “Do you have what it takes to join fsociety?” The implications of which are truly frightening.
– 2017 –
Again…
A toast to the writers…
…as artists rendition the words…
…to the distant echoes of Mongolian throatsingers chanting “Repeat the Message”.
I’m listening to the podcast now, so I have no thoughts as relates to that at the moment; but having spent a lot of time in the wild around the wildlife; I can relate to your subject. It is indeed possible to converse with other species. Even if you don’t have the somewhat psychic aspects you mention; it is still no harder to communicate with other species than it is to talk to someone who does not share a common language with you. All it takes is a slight understanding of them, and a willingness to pay attention to them. Non-verbal communication (which is some 90% of our face-to-face communications) applies to other species as well.
Well, that was enjoyable. My answer to your question 10? Of course. More would be doubleplusgood! As to whether or not we can stay on the web and not get sucked into all the junk, of course. Every time some big corporation announces they have some new security fix (blah, blah, blah) we hear of it being hacked five minutes later. This technology is a shifting battlefield, but the plutocrats are on the loosing side. There are only so many people really interested in controlling everyone (that are also intelligent enough to have some say) vs. the masses of people who are intelligent enough to thwart their designs. It is a cat and mouse game in which I have none of the skills needed to become a player. For myself, I am not really that attached to the internet. True, it was cool back in 1992 with my prodigy service, but most of the web is just a vast wasteland. I only go to a few sites anymore, most of them work related. I can see myself just walking away from it. I have several times in the past for months at a time.
One thing you said really struck a chord with me. It was something I had noticed about people the last few years. They need to have nearly every detail explained to them. Preferably in as simple a manner as possible. I weed those people out of my life as quickly as possible. I don’t find it dis-heartening, even though I know that people weren’t always this stupid; but these are they types who never thought much at all anyway. I know it sounds elitist; but they chose to not matter. I choose to associate with people who do think. Oh well, enough rambling; thanks for a very thought provoking podcast. Jim from fluoride-a and still outrunning the zombies!
As an aside, does anyone know when youtube stopped their block function from keeping the designated troll out of sight? It used to be that when you blocked someone, they just disappeared into the troll mists, never to be seen again. Now, if you block someone, it just doesn’t come up on your notification or doesn’t allow them to comment on your videos (not that I have any). You would think with their big crackdown on anything that wasn’t plain vanilla (is that racist? Oh no!), they would have tightened, rather than loosen, that function. Anybody have any ideas on this?
Watch wild bird fly to person via a Corbetteer (august_butterflies) gardening video posts.
(one minute)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4XqlacNX2A&feature=youtu.be&t=52s
Via this post by Corbetteer “august_butterflies”.
https://www.corbettreport.com/corbett-report-radio-245-how-to-outgrow-the-government-with-andrew-gavin-marshall/#comment-42142
Confusion – a tool for psychopaths
There is a lot to be said about the topic of “confusion”.
I just want to bring up an observable tidbit.
Have you ever lied to someone by giving them so much information that they were overwhelmed? …so thoroughly confused and distracted that they lost sight of their original query?
We often see this “over-abundance of irrelevant information” employed by con artists. The intent is to confuse the mark.
A confused mark is easily manipulated by being offered “relief from the confusion” by the con man.
EXAMPLE – Climate Change Hoax
Throw so much data at an individual until they become lost, confused.
Then, give the dizzy victim “a solution”.
Kind of like throwing the information of a calculus textbook at a 2nd grader. When the kid is a withering mess of jello, comfort the child with insane ideas like… “Oh! Don’t worry, there are no wrong answers. You get an entitled award. By the way, you are not a boy or girl. It was white people with purple hair who caused the problem.”
I contend that Psychopaths love to create confusion or confused ideas.
It is one of their ‘tools’.
Would a Psychopath have an intention to see that others are weak, helpless, sickly, dependent, incompetent, ineffective, confused, overwhelmed, etc.?
Confusion is a tool for whomever wants to use it. A pedophile (who would not be a psychopath) would use it. A sadist (again not possible for a true sadist to be a psychopath) would use it. Psychopaths are a very specific subset of people. Thanks to it being such a convenient tool to explain people’s behaviors, and thanks to the fake field of psychiatry, we now label people psychotic as often as we do kids with ADHD. A psychopath is not necessarily an evil person. They simply lack empathy. Personally, I think the word has been offered to us so that we can have the state interfere even further into our lives. Just like the USSR used to do with schizophrenia for political dissidents. It is another word being used to generalize vast swaths of the population. There are many psychopaths who are doing good works, just as there are many others with disabilities doing the same. To lack empathy does not mean you are filled with evil; that is merely judgement on the side of the judger. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but mine is that this label is a bunch of crap dressed up as a real opinion. Not every a-hole in the world is a psychopath. The ability to empathize is far more dangerous than someone who does not speak the language of emotion. I really don’t know why this is so hard to understand for so many people. It is being used the same way that people call all muslims terrorists. All dems/reps whatever they call them; and so on. To generalize is to be wrong in almost every single case.
Jim,
You are right. “Causing a confusion’ is a tool that anyone can use.
I agree… Not every a-hole in the world is a psychopath.
You and I disagree on “Psychopaths” at different aspects.
I am convinced that there is a very small proportion of society which could be categorized a “psychopaths”.
I think that there are people like Rumsfeld and Cheney who definitely rank at the top point system of a psychopathic scale.
There are always darker shades of grey as one describes the attributes associated with a psychopath.
“Psychopath” – It is only a term, a word, to describe this type of personality. We use ‘words’ to describe things or concepts.
I see no virtue in the psychopath’s intent of destroying others; of viewing others as disposable, insignificant commodities.
“No Empathy”
There are many people who have little or no empathy. Cold blooded. Heartless. Most are not psychopaths.
Psychopaths have a biological reason for their lack of empathy. Most actually seek to get along and search for some type of structured environment to do so. The ones who don’t display any empathy and are not psychopathic are the ones that are truly dangerous. Psychopaths are nothing to fear. But they are not our enemy. Psychopaths can’t create; they can improve existing frameworks and such; but they lack the emotive qualities which allow someone to become a creative person. Most of the people we see in power suffer from far deeper issues than psychopathy. They may be addicted to power, money, or sex. Those are the main driving forces of most people. Combined with a firm belief that they are superior because of blah,blah,blah; they may very well not have any empathy towards other people. Simply because they believe they are better than others. I keep making this point, not because of my own considerable ego, but because I believe that our enemy is actually far more dangerous than a mere psychopath. These people can create. They can create the structures that submissive people will follow willingly. They can also create an environment which promotes submissive behavior. The list goes on. But they are not psychopaths. They are worse, For they have no biological excuse. While a psychopath will usually try to fit into society and adjust themselves to a system that can make sense for them; these people just want to be in charge and have it all their way. Power, greed, and sex are dangerous addictions.
Introduced confusions
One common denominator which I observe with government cover-ups is lots of confusion, (lots of data, lots of missing pieces, lots of conflicting renditions).
With that common denominator of “introduced confusions”, is the Systemic Psychopathic Attitude of “We designed and own the system. You are sucked into playing our board game as a disposable commodity. We make the rules. And we can change the rules anytime. We don’t care what you say.”
Thus things like “voting” or “justice in the courts” are a ruse, part of the long-game (long con).
Introduced confusions…
“There are many of those.” — Donald Rumsfeld on Meet the Press describing Bin Laden’s many underground caves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGhGHxw0mSo
~~~~~~
Perspectives of a PSYCHOPATH as reported on by James Corbett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPf5i84BqcA&feature=youtu.be
Cool.
A few choices besides StartPage and DuckDuckGo:
– Mozilla Firefox is open source, so is a web browser called Brave
– Unbubble is a search engine that claims to protect privacy and “intends” to return neutral search results.
– YaCy, a decentralized search engine
No problem, let me know what you think. I actually haven’t tried it yet, just knew it existed.
This was in the latest issue of Waking Times. I thought you might enjoy it. I certainly have no issues with this idea. After all, any hitchhiker knows that the mice are the top dogs in the brain department anyway!:
http://wakingtimesmedia.com/humans-may-not-intelligent-creatures-planet/?utm_source=Waking+Times+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ccee4be08e-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_25f1e048c1-ccee4be08e-54617009
At first, I thought so too, but it’s there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_It0ow4Iuw
Hi James, I hope you see this comment. This is Alejandro from Anarchopulco. Did you get to read The Aleph? One could say that The Aleph narrates the experience of someone who can look at The Library Babel from outside.
(anyone – The Aleph is another Borges short story, you’ll love it)
Borges is amazing. I love his poetry and other two short ones I love are:
“Funes el memorioso” and “El Otro”
It appears that the link to the text of The Library of Babel points to an unintended web page. (Irony!)