Regular Reveries 21: Vim, Unlearning and Propaganda
After three months of Twitter detox, I’m back. I like it so far, although I’ve noticed that the urge to check it frequently is coming back. My biggest problem with it is not the time spent on it, but the number of times I check it in a day, which is affecting my ability to concentrate and do deep work.
This week’s article
I’ve published an article this week about quickly opening a portion of a large log file with Vim. Although a friend recently told me that he likes reading my more abstract articles, I like publishing more technical articles from time to time.
Content candy
I loved reading The Art of Unlearning by Scott H. Young. I love how he describes the hidden complexity of everything:
> Almost everything is much, much weirder than it looks at first. Science is the clearest example of this. Subatomic particles aren’t billiard balls, but strange, complex-valued wavefunctions. Bodies aren’t vital fluids and animating impulses, but trillions of cells, each more complex than any machine humans have invented. Minds aren’t unified loci of consciousness, but the process of countless synapses firing in incredible patterns
Something to think about
> “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
> Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
> This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.
> It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” > > Edward Bernays, Propaganda
Question for you
What you can do without; what do you own? What you can’t do without; what owns you?