[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Re: NOTHING WORSE

[Newmedia@aol.com]

Saul:

Funny that you bring up Chomsky in this "NOTHING WORSE" context.

Do you know why there even is a "Chomsky" in the first place?  Why is this 
particular man so well known and thus in a position to be so revered?

This fellow was catapulted into the fame (and the all-so-important 
say-what-you-want MIT tenure) which permits him the relative luxury of 
impressing his personal "ideology" on the world precisely because he held out 
the palpable opportunity for "controlling human communications."  All of it.

Yup, Chomsky (or at least his "sponsors") is (are) one of the original "MIND 
CONTROLLERS."  Yikes! <g>

He offered the CIA (a reasonable substitute name for the folks who paid for 
ALL of the work on linquistics and other "programming" techniques . . . 
including such sundries as LSD and "graphical user interfaces" during the 
formative 1950's) a *very* juicy and tantalizing potential -- an ultimate 
"grammar," which was, it was hoped, "hardwired" into us all.

DEEP GRAMMAR.

Now, as you recall, "grammar" is simply another word for "magic" (as is the 
word "glamour") and, thus, the Medieval handbooks for "magic" are still 
referred to a "grimoires."  (OED: a magician's manual for invoking demons, 
etc.)  Say the "magic" word.  Open sesame!  Abracadabra!!

DEEP MAGIC.

(Reminding us that the "ideologues" and the "occultists" are really the same 
"Faustian" bargaineers -- just wearing their hats backward.)

If (which fortunately for us all, since Chomsky himself admits that he was 
100% wrong) you could actually find a "deep grammar" in human-beings, then it 
would only be a matter of engineering to discover how to "program" us all.  
Find the C++++++ . . . of the human mind, write the code, down-load it and 
presto . . . CONTROL.

Or, as Marvin Minsky (who is currently working on "programming" emotions and 
who is still at MIT's Media Lab -- supported entirely by large grants from 
"communications" companies) put it at that momentous 1955 MIT conference when 
Chomsky's "deep grammar" thesis first burst onto an excited world-stage, 
"Perhaps all human problems are just engineering problems.  With the right 
engineering tools, we could potentially erase all these problems."

Nice guy.  Warm and concerned fellow.  Only wants to end human suffering.

Hmmm . . . will the ironies never cease?

Best,

Mark Stahlman


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