A ‘News’letter About Nothing—and Everything
Excerpt: Whenever I try to understand quantum mechanics I get a similar headache to the ones I get when I try to figure out the plot of the movie Syriana or resolve the contradictions of Lost. I also get a newfound appreciation for Arthur C. Clarke’s third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” (...) I think a lot of our problems today can be attributed to the confusion of words for things. When I started working on Liberal Fascism, a philosopher acquaintance of mine gave me some advice: “Don’t confuse words for things.” What he meant is that there are many labels people use to distort reality rather than describe it. If you compare what fascists did to what communists did, it quickly becomes apparent that the two things, while not identical, are far closer to identical things than opposite ones. [This Goldberg essay starts out slowly, but it’s absolutely brilliant as he diagnoses a consistent problem in modern communication. And, once you’ve seen the problem, it’s difficult to un-see it. It’s everywhere. Curse Schrodinger! Ron P.]
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