2022-01-01
Happy New Year!
To kick-start 2022 we have a little piece by telecoms expert Martin Geddes with which to (mildly) tax your little grey cells!
Δ is the capital Greek letter delta, equivalent to roman alphabet D, and beloved of mathematicians and pseudo mathematicians alike who co-opt it to represent a difference of some sort. So the Δ of 5 and 8 would be 3! Why the code? Because writing Δ is a lot quicker and more succinct than writing "difference" all the time.
No, don't turn off - you don't have to understand any mathematical complexity (or any mathematics at all!) to follow the argument presented in this article, just accept the maths as given. The author explains his reasoning with great clarity and in ordinary words that we can all understand.
He makes a great point about the way that we have built the internet, and uses that to make a social inference about how we as members of society work in two different ways - one honest, one essentially dishonest.
You might think about it in terms of being akin (although I think not synonymous) to the time-honoured cliché "it's not what you know, it's who you know".
For my money, this is they key to understanding our Covid-dominated world of today, but it also illustrates a truth that applies in all walks of life and all circumstances of human interaction, and it can be benign or immensely damaging.
This is not to dismiss the value to be found within the "who you know" of family, friends, and colleagues. That value is based upon shared history and a resulting appreciation of how far such people can both understand and trust each other. Everything has its proper purpose, and likewise can be put to inappropriate or improper use.
"The adoption of a false logic and false morality is the basis of authoritarian thought"
and, I would suggest, authoritarian practice.
