Of serpent-bites in logic
Saturday, August 31st, 2013[ by Charles Cameron — continuing my series on the “serpent bites tail” reflexive form (1, 2, 3, 4) in which analytic gems and other insights may often be easily discovered or succinctly expressed — read this post fast for fun, or reflectively (!!) for the ripples ]
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I’m going to lead off with this tweet, which seems very timely considering the news this last week or so about Syria…
A lot of people who will not bleed for their beliefs argue for a war they will not pay the blood price for.
— sam (@selil) August 27, 2013
I thought this was another quite beautiful example of “serpent bites its own tail” phrasing — timely too — uttered by JM Berger in summarizing his Loopcast with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross on the current status of Al-Qaeda, highly recommended, BTW:
@intelwire on @TheLoopcast w @DaveedGR:"an evolving understanding of a movement that is evolving while we're understanding it" < gt summary
— hipbonegamer (@hipbonegamer) August 26, 2013
And if you want to know about Hezbollah and its global reach, this one refers to the book you need…
Hezbollah book launch is overbooked, but not 2 worry: CSPAN covering the event live & @WashInstitute streaming online http://t.co/XrtxYASo13
— Matthew Levitt (@Levitt_Matt) August 30, 2013
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Okay, having given pride of place to those three, I’d like to catch those of you who are interested up on an entire series of self-referencing tweets I’ve run across since I last posted. I’m really collecting these things because I’d like, one of these days, to do a thorough analysis of what they teach us about our modes of thought, and how we can apply that to pattern-recognition in our own readings, and creative insight in our writings and analytic output… In the meantime, don’t feel obliged to read every last one, just dip in as you feel inclined — think of this as a reference section, okay? Take what you need and leave the rest.
Reminds me of Keynes' "prettiest girl contest" description of the stock market. Not about market forces but perceptions of perceptions.
— Peter J. Munson (@peterjmunson) August 23, 2013
One good way to demonstrate that you are committed to transparency is having a press conf where you do not allow your name to be quoted.
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) August 21, 2013
Forge your own weapons to solve your own problems. #coding
— Brute Logic (@brutelogic) August 10, 2013
"Klout score is actually a really good metric for evaluating a person's intelligence."–someone with a high Klout score
— Gartenstein-Ross (@DaveedGR) August 22, 2013
Here’s one that uses the Escher‘s hand draws hand format:
Romance for women in Silicon Valley 'the odds are good, but the goods are odd'. Physics at Oxford – 8:1 M:F ratio.. way back when.
— Elizabeth Pearson (@lizzypearson) August 31, 2013
And here’s a pair that needs to stay together:
Your body will assemble 30 million new cells in the time it takes to read this tweet. Each has the complexity of a medium-sized city.
— Marcus Chown (@marcuschown) August 23, 2013
@marcuschown Ignoring the cells in the people in the city, I assume? #Recursion
— Geoff Robbins (@_TheGeoff) August 23, 2013
Continuing… I might as well give you a cluster from Teju Cole, since he’s a master…
Trying to raise awareness for the act of raising awareness. Please RT.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) August 23, 2013
Bezos, last week: "I sure was surprised to hear the New York Times site crashed." NYT, today: "Amazon is down? Odd." Let the games begin.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) August 19, 2013
HIPSTER. One who has an irrational hatred of hipsters.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) August 27, 2013
All words are made up words, sheeple.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) August 29, 2013
If I had a dollar for every time I've had a million dollar idea, I'd have (does quick mental calculation) zero dollars.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) August 30, 2013
I can never remember who to thank for the gift of forgetfulness.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) August 24, 2013
Okay, here’s another one with timely reference, this time to the whole NSA business:
@doctorow how ironic that the verb "to Mirandise" may soon mean diametrically opposed things on two sides of the Pond.
— JP Rangaswami (@jobsworth) August 20, 2013
Really, this is just such a rich vein of humor and insight:
Fracking may be fracked – due to groundwater contamination. http://t.co/WL1s2q3azm
— Jon Lebkowsky (@jonl) August 23, 2013
Genius. The U.N. is now blocking its own chemical weapons investigation in #Syria. http://t.co/boTcB2QEvH …
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) August 23, 2013
If you can publish an article in a national newspaper comparing your country to a police state, it probably isn't anywhere near one.
— Jeremy Duns (@jeremyduns) August 25, 2013
Economics is an eye that attempts to gaze upon itself. The autopseudopanopticon.
— Dr.Phil of Economics (@DrPhilofEconomi) August 26, 2013
When Siri deemed my text a bit too lengthy #seriouslySiri? pic.twitter.com/bAJrJltWys
— Karin Bergquist (@KarinBergquist) August 28, 2013
#Guantanamo's trial of the century that may take a century to try & other random #GTMO observations from this week: http://t.co/dT4TWoGVet
— Michelle Shephard (@shephardm) August 24, 2013
Let’s go to another wordsmith — they’re often good at this stuff:
I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself. Rita Mae Brown
— Marcia Conner (@marciamarcia) March 19, 2013
Two from philosopher Allen Stairs:
How to annoy philosophers: ask them what their philosophy is.
— Allen Stairs (@AllenStairs) August 26, 2013
I *hate* hating. RT @ObsoleteDogma: Science confirms: Haters gonna hate http://t.co/nAbq4Cxeuf by @sarahkliff
— Allen Stairs (@AllenStairs) August 27, 2013
One from quasi-Einstein, via the very bright (non-quasi) Seb Paquet:
Einstein quote on Einstein quotes http://t.co/EM1z8sgAwD
— Seb Paquet (@sebpaquet) August 24, 2013
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I’ll close with an example from the “all is nothing” category, this one from Peter J Munson:
As we see, when everything is classified, nothing is classified.
— Peter J. Munson (@peterjmunson) August 31, 2013