English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

16:03

The Eye of Sauron Is the Modern Surveillance State.

Cerberus

Panopticon

The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow a watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without their being able to tell whether they are being watched or not. The design consists of a circular structure with an “inspection house” at its centre, from which the managers or staff of the institution are able to watch the inmates, who are stationed around the perimeter. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto What this story gets wrong is that we already know surveillance isn't perfect. That isn't the problem. The problem is the abuse of power, not the surveillance itself.

Robusto

Well, yeah. But that's not the point of the story.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Sure. But saying "no! tolkien, not orwell!" is an error IMO

Orwell's scenario is far more frightening than Tolkien's.

Cerberus

16:19

@Robusto Nice.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That is true...

It is more like a beacon of hope.

43 mins ago, by Cerberus

@Robusto I don't know...it's still a bureaucratic organisation, and they like to brag when they're not speaking in public. They're probably a whole lot less effective than they would like people to think.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I think it's both that they're less effective in some ways, and more effective in other ways, than people think

Cerberus

That kind of depends on what people think!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well, on average

Cerberus

Not we?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

example: people think that they can break any kind of encryption.

probably, they can't.

surely there are some scientists who implemented an algorithm that works as advertised.

Cerberus

16:24

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Certainly not in practice.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Except in practice, they can, because they circumvent it in other ways.

Cerberus

Contra-jinx.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Like stealing keys. compromising machines at endpoints. etc.

Cerberus

Yes, they can do that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So while their abilities in some respects maybe overestimated, in other respects they are probably underestimated.

Cerberus

16:25

Absolutely.

And it has always been that way.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

ECHELON

ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement Given the 5 dialects that use the terms, UKUSA can be pronounced from "You-Q-SA" to "Oo-Coo-SA", AUSCANNZUKUS can be pronounced from "Oz-Can-Zuke-Us" to "Orse-Can-Zoo-Cuss". :From : Per documents officially released by both the Government Communications Headquarters and the National Security Agency, this agreement is referred to as the UKUSA Agreement. This name is subse...

Sudhir

Hi @Cerberus

tchrist

Sméagol famously disapproved of Sam and Frodo’s supper “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”, but the hobbits thought it was:
   1. Herbalicious
   2. Coneylicious
   3. Bunnilicious
   4. Otherlicious

Sudhir

Good evening

tchrist

There is an obvious punnilicious alternative of course.

Sudhir

16:35

@Cerberus I got confused
"These kind/kinds of shoes seem to be expensive but they are relatively easy to care for."

How to decide subject in this sentence?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Sudhir is "kind" plural or singular? how about "kinds"? how about shoes? how about "these"?

Sudhir

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇: Kind is singular, else are plural.

Cerberus

@Robusto I have ordered Zemyatin's "We" from the library.

We (novel)

We () is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921. It was written in response to the author's personal experiences during the Russian revolution of 1905, the Russian revolution of 1917, his life in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond, and his work in the Tyne shipyards during the First World War. It was on Tyneside that he observed the collectivization of labour on a large scale. Zamyatin was a trained marine engineer, hence his dispatch to Newcastle to oversee ice-breaker construction for the Imperial Russian Navy. The novel was first published in 1924 by E.P. Dutton in New Y...

One of the first visions of totalitarianism, I think. Or are there any earlier ones?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Sudhir So should you use plural "these" with singular kind?

tchrist

> Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!

Sudhir

16:39

No

tchrist

s/whale/hellhound/g if @pinged;

> What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.

> Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions".

> In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Eye of Sauron lego brick

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Love it!!

tchrist

> Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

Cerberus

@tchrist That analysis is mostly accurate, although the simplification becomes to great by the end.

A little of both is happening, has always been happening.

Johan Larsson

16:46

@tchrist nice, very nice. What did Huxley write?

Cerberus

Remember when we had the yoke of religion?

tchrist

@Cerberus “Had”?

Brave New World

Brave New World is a novel written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 (632 A.F. – "After Ford" – in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and operant conditioning that combine to profoundly change society. Huxley answered this book with a reassessment in an essay, Brave New World Revisited (1958) and with his final work, a novel titled Island (1962). In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World fifth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels ...

Cerberus

Well, religion is dying in the West, has already more or less died in Western Europe...

tchrist

I think not.

You like to think that.

Cerberus

It's true.

Johan Larsson

16:48

Think I read it, can't even remember

tchrist

Most of the world is still yoked by religion.

Cerberus

Read my line again.

tchrist

Hardly.

Last I checked, America was part of the Occident not the Orient.

I banish you to Alabama.

Cerberus

And it is in marked decline.

tchrist

Please see Easy Rider before you get there.

Cerberus

16:49

The percentage of irreligious people is rising every year in your country.

tchrist

And then we have the <ISLAMOCENSORED>.

Cerberus

You know the figures.

tchrist

I know the <CENSORED>.

You just want it to be that way.

It will not happen in your lifetime, nor in any man’s.

Because it is linked to human nature.

Which cannot be changed.

Cerberus

You're not very clear.

tchrist

I would like the world to stop murdering animals. I know that we are moving ever close to that. But I am not so naïve as to think it will ever happen.

Cerberus

16:53

Religion was partly a means to keep people in check by diversion, panem et circenses.

tchrist

You are the same.

Except you think your panacea will come to pass.

Mahnax

@tchrist Yeah, sadly.

tchrist

spins up the centrifugal bumblepuppy

Cerberus

It has lost most of that function in Europe, now that most people have stopped believing. So, in that way, we are farther away from Huxley's scenario now.

There is a problem with pop culture, of course. But it seems much less severe than religion.

Because it isn't organised.

tchrist

In small children, one of the best indicators of future psychopathy is cruelty to small creatures. What does that say about our society?

Cerberus

16:56

Have you read Fahrenheit 451?

tchrist

So you’re a superior creature because you killed God? Fine, but don’t expect other people to agree with you. It will never happen.

It’s just élitist.

Cerberus

You're not being direct enough for me to follow you.

tchrist

@Cerberus It’s required reading.

Cerberus

Fahrenheit seems strongly influenced by Brave New World.

tchrist

You think that atheism so clearly makes you a better person that you believe everyone should be that way and eventually will be that way. That is completely naïve on many fronts.

Cerberus

16:59

The "entertainment" of the screens and the ear-pieces.

tchrist

A lot of people feel that way about their pet sillinesses.

You are no different.

Cerberus

@tchrist That wasn't what I was saying. I was saying religion used to function in a Huxleyesque way to divert people's attention away from repression or exploitation and/or make them accept it. It is a classical theory of the Enlightenment, panem et circenses. Hardly controversial.

tchrist

These are time-wasters for young ideologues only, not for grown-ups.

And so I leave you to them.

@Mahnax It is a terrible thing to wake up and realize you have a conscience, but more terrible by far is it never to awake at all.

Johan Larsson

@tchrist are you a practicing christian?

tchrist

@JohanLarsson Practicing? No. Imperfect subjunctive, maybe.

Johan Larsson

17:03

try a generous interpretation, I can't come up with anything better

Not much of a sport in throwing a subjunctive at me, we both know how that ends :D

tchrist

I grew up in a Christian culture.

Johan Larsson

do you go to church on Sundays? Read the Bible > once per week etc.

tchrist

Nor on Saturdays.

But I believe that an eye for an eye quickly leaves one living in the land of the blind.

There’s a lot to be said of a Christian culture.

I just don’t find most people apply it very much.

Johan Larsson

I don't have anything to say was just curious

Cerberus

I find it interesting how people are often so extremely optimistic about changes, and so extremely pessimistic at other times, while history just rolls on.

Observing that there is a problem is not the same as predicting doom.

Mahnax

17:17

@tchrist I've never heard it put that way, but that's accurate.

Well, I guess I should go clean the kitchen and make oatmeal.

Bye-bye.

tchrist

@Mahnax I just wanted you to know that I knew whereof you spoke, and why. I wish you the very best of luck.

►

MετάEd

I've heard of the Four Lads, the Four Horsemen, the Fantastic Four. Now I've heard the 4 Skins. And if you think that's tasteful you should see their cover art.

tchrist

That’s not exactly funnilicious.

!!:s/f/c/

Caprica Six

@tchrist That didn't make much sense. Use the help command to learn more.

tchrist

And here we see that Caprica is dummilicious.

Mitternacht heißt diese Stunde,
sie rufen uns mit hellem Munde,
wo seid ihr klugen Jungfrauen?

Wenn kömmst du? Ich warte mit brennenden Öle.

Now that’s hot.

MετάEd

17:36

@tchrist Oooooh.

Those are all quotes from that book?

tchrist

@MετάEd They are.

You haven’t read it?

One should.

MετάEd

@tchrist Nice cover.

I'd buy it just for the cover.

tchrist

The main downer is that there is no snake-oil cure offered up as a solution.

MετάEd

I keep a clown nose in my purse at all times. Never know when there will be a humor emergency.

tchrist

That’s honeylicious.

Robusto

17:46

@tchrist Shouldn't it be Wann kommst du?

@MετάEd OH NOSE!

tchrist

@Robusto Yes, I think so. Nonetheless you can find a lot of transcriptions with Wenn not Wann there. I don’t know why.

This one has Wenn, but I suspect it was written by a native English speaker.

Wikipedia also has Wenn.

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140

| movements = 7 | text_poet = anonymous | chorale = ' | scoring = solo voices ( ), choir, seven instrumental parts }} Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, also known as Sleepers Wake, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig for the 27th Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 25 November 1731. It is based on the hymn Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (1599) by Philipp Nicolai. Movement 4 of the cantata (in English, "Zion hears the watchmen's voices") corresponds to the organ pi...

Robusto

Ah, archaic language alert. Never mind.

tchrist

@Rob If you compare the EN and DE pages for that above, you will see the DE has Wann and the EN has Wenn.

Robusto

I just wonder if kömmst is meant to be read as subjunctive.

tchrist

Oh!

Like might you come?

Robusto

17:54

Yeah.

tchrist

It’s not in modern spellings.

Robusto

Except the 2nd person singular familiar form of kommen would not be that word.

tchrist

So that leaves me confused.

Robusto

I would think it would be: Wenn kämest du?

tchrist

Right.

Robusto

17:56

And it would not be a direct question, it would be a clause setting up a conditional statement.

tchrist

I don’t know what kömmst could be. Ask @Reg.

Robusto

Possibly it was ink spatter from a quill. Who knows?

Cerberus

@Robusto That would be the past subjunctive, yes.

tchrist

Look at all the kömmst results!

Cerberus

I rather think kömmst must be a kind of archaic umlaut, akin to modern hältst etc.

tchrist

17:57

They’re all BWVs.

What’s that about?

Robusto

@tchrist Bach couldn't spell!

tchrist

Heh.

Robusto

@Cerberus Can you make heads or tails of Wenn kömmst du?

Lean out your window and ask a German.

Cerberus

I see only American tourists here.

tchrist

> So kömmst du, statt ins Herz, in einen Kritikus, Dir, was die Sinn« reizt, methodisch mustern muß, V Und treibst durch Regeln, Grund, Kunstwörter, Lehr- ...

> Du kömmst in Israel, das Denken zu erlauben, Und leidest keinen Zwang, noch Schmackdcr Barbarey. Dein Beyspiel lehret uns vernünftig tuhnund glauben, ...

Robusto

18:00

Maybe it's dialectical.

Cerberus

@Robusto My intuition reads it as wann kommst du?. I have never seen kömmst, but it makes me think of hältst, so a regular present indicative.

tchrist

Elements of German grammar: 2. kömmst, or kommst, 3. kömmt, «r kommt l.konn,2. kannst,3. kann * Laden, to io »a !2. lädst, 3. lädt klang kniff knipp kam konnte krisch kriß kroch geklungen.

Cerberus

@Robusto Or archaic.

@tchrist Right, so archaic.

Robusto

@Cerberus That's what I was thinking, but the puzzle doesn't quite fit too well.

Cerberus

Why not?

I must admit I haven't been following your discussion...

Robusto

18:02

Well, take your time.

tchrist

wartet

Robusto

Where the fuck is @Reg when you really need him?

Cerberus

So what do you want to know?

Tchrist found the answer about kömm(s)t: it's archaic.

@Robusto Why doesn't the puzzle fit?

tchrist

@Robusto Arbeiting, no doubt.

Cerberus

It's German from 300 years ago. In some editions, no doubt the spelling has been modernised?

Robusto

18:08

Because I'm not sure if the meanings are exactly the same. That they are is plausible, but I'm left with a nagging shred of doubt.

tchrist

Sounds like a hangnail.

Cerberus

It says it is a present indicative.

So the meaning is the same.

Robusto

OK.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: Never alone

posted on August 01, 2013 by sgdi

Nothing you ask me to do Will be fun to do without you Whatever you ask No matter the task It will have to be done by us two

Cerberus

Which would also make sense, because -o- stems are among the few irregular verbs that don't change in the 2nd and 3rd person singular present.

Robusto

18:09

@tchrist BTW, hangnail is an interesting word. People think it means a nail that is partially trimmed or split with a piece hanging off, but the hang actually comes from the OE word meaning pain.

So it's a painful nail.

Cerberus

I sehe, du siehst, er sieht. Ich halte, du hältst, er hält. Ich laufe, du läufst, er läuft.

Usw.

Robusto

@Cerberus Jach, ich weiß.

Oder ich kenne.

tchrist

Sounds like Bavaria to me: A Portuguese court has ordered a waste removal company to rehire an employee it fired for being drunk on his rounds and said tipsy trash men appear happier to members of the public. The appeals court in Porto, a northern city renowned for its port wines, also ordered the company to pay the man 14 months' worth of back wages.

Mahnax

18:44

@tchrist: Thank you.

Cerberus

18:57

@Robusto Weiß is correct!

@tchrist How drunk was he?

If he was seriously drunk, that's pretty bad.

If he had drunk one or two beers...

David Wallace

@Robusto Isn't it a remnant of a subjunctive mood?

Cerberus

> Both he and the driver were taken to hospital where tests revealed rather high alcohol levels in their blood.

David Wallace

Because it's after "wenn", it's vague whether any coming is actually happening.

Cerberus

Okay, "high" is not good. So that is a bit surprising. But the court did say that the driver obvioulsy shouldn't be drinking.

David Wallace

@Cerberus Ooh, I don't desire drunks driving trash trucks in my metropolis.

Cerberus

19:00

59 mins ago, by tchrist

Elements of German grammar: 2. kömmst, or kommst, 3. kömmt, «r kommt l.konn,2. kannst,3. kann * Laden, to io »a !2. lädst, 3. lädt klang kniff knipp kam konnte krisch kriß kroch geklungen.

@DavidWallace The court agreed!

No drunken driving.

David Wallace

And on that happy note, I'm going to work. I shall be neither drinking nor driving a trash truck.

Take care everyone.

MετάEd

Drink, drive, go to jail. Another government lie.

Although really the blame lies with the Mad Mothers.

Cerberus

19:39

@MετάEd Huh?

Robusto

@DavidWallace See transcript above. We've been dithering about the possibilities for some time.

@MετάEd It's not just a good idea: it's the law!

Mitch

@tchrist Wrong wrong wrong. "An eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind except one guy with one eye left. Do the math.

@tchrist Nice! Takes up drinking ... forgets to move to Portugal first

MετάEd

19:58

@Robusto You're referring to the speed of light, of course.

Which is as fast as you can run from an accordion player.

Of course you really only have to run fast enough that the doppler effect reduces the sound to a low rumble.

You don't even have to break the sound barrier.

Just break the accordion.

Even better: give the accordion to me.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…