149 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2023
    1. taking in sociological investigation

      The simplest and most direct way of bringing home to the reader the truth of this dogmatic assertion of the scientific value of note-taking in sociological investigation...

      Beatrice Webb indicates that it is an incontrovertible truth that sociologists should use a card index (zettelkasten) as a primary tool in their research.

      We ought to closely notice that she wrote this truism about the field of sociology in a book published in 1926, the year prior to Niklas Luhmann's <s>death</s> birth.


      How popular was her book with respect to the remainder of the field of sociology subsequently? What other sociology texts may have had similar ideas? Webb obviously quotes some of this technique in the late 1800s as being popular within the area of history. How evenly was it spread across the humanities in general?


      Is Beatrice Webb's card index amongst her papers? Where might they be stored today?

    1. The flat earth myth and the myth of a Catholic Church fighting against real knowledge gets taken up by another scientist. William Whewell. And this is, again, a very influential figure. This guy even invented the word scientist. And with his history of the inductive sciences, he actually has proof of Christian backwardness. He introduces two Christian authors, and they become a poster childs 00:08:04 for Christian bigotry. Really evil figures. Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes.
      • for: etymology - scientist, William Whewell, myth - flat earth - William Whewel, myth - flat earth - Christian villains - Lactantius - Cosmas Indicopleustes
    2. We're in the time of the French Revolution now, a time where revolutionaries break with superstitions from the past. They will only be guided by reason. You have this extremely decorated French historian and geographer that's on a mission. A mission to fight the church. 00:07:15 He published this book on the cosmographical opinions of the Church Fathers, and he really goes for it. He writes how until recently, all science has had to be based on the Bible, and geographers were forced to believe Earth was a flat surface. According to him, this was all because of three irresistible arguments persecution, prison and the stake. I
      • for Jean-Antoine Letronne, myth - flat earth, book - The Cosographical opinions of the Church Fathers
    3. there is this French scientist that introduced the idea that medieval people thought the earth was flat, and he believes religion was to blame. He was influenced by an age old movement that created the idea 00:04:30 of dark ages and the rule of the church and suppressing knowledge. If you go all the way back to the 1300s, we find one Italian poet that was quite sure of himself. Petrarch identified two times in history. The time of the Greeks and Romans that was an enlightened age. And basically everything after the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a dark age
      • for: Jean-Antoine Letronne, Petrarch, myth - flat earth, myth - dark ages

      • historical myth - flat earth

      • historical myth - dark ages
        • During the French Revolution, the French historian and geographer Jean-Antoine Letronne promoted the myth that the people of the middle ages believed in a flat earth.
        • He was influenced by the Italian Petrarch who promulgated the myth of the dark (in contrast to the light) ages
    4. This myth is mostly the blame of the novelist Washington Irving
      • for: Washington Irving, book - the History of New York, book - A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus

      • comment

        • Irving was a American writer who wrote fiction for the intent of stoking nationalism. He bent the truth in many ways.
        • Among his most famous and impactful historical lies that Irving fabricated in his book on Columbus was that prior to Columbus, the majority of educated people thought the earth was flat. In fact, most educated people believed the earth to be round during the time of Columbus.
      • interesting fact: knickerbocker

        • The term knickerbocker originated in the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker that Irving chose for his book "A History of New York"
    5. Maybe you were even taught this at school, that historically seen the church has stood in the way of scientific progress. 00:00:50 And with the coming of Christendom, the light of reason was taken away and a dark age fell over Europe. I'm here to tell you this is all 19th century propaganda of a number of guys fed up with the church and applying their personal grudges to the entire history of Christianity, And they totally succeeded.
      • for: historical myth - church opposed science

      • historical myth: European churches opposed science in the middle ages

        • historical fact: European churches supported science in the middle ages
  2. Sep 2023
      • for: doppleganger, conflict resolution, deep humanity, common denominators, CHD, Douglas Rushkoff, Naomi Klein, Into the Mirror World, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theories, conspiracy culture, nonduality, self-other, human interbeing, polycrisis, othering, storytelling, myth-making, social media amplifier -summary
        • This conversation was insightful on so many dimensions salient to the polycrisis humanity is moving through.
        • It makes me think of the old cliches:
          • "The more things change, the more they remain the same"
          • "What's old is new" ' "History repeats"
        • the conversation explores Naomi's latest book (as of this podcast), Into the Mirror World, in which Naomi adopts a different style of writing to explicate, articulate and give voice to
          • implicit and tacit discomforting ideas and feelings she experienced during covid and earlier, and
          • became a focal point through a personal comparative analysis with another female author and thought leader, Naomi Wolf,
            • a feminist writer who ended up being rejected by mainstream media and turned to right wing media.
        • The conversation explores the process of:
          • othering,
          • coopting and
          • abandoning
        • of ideas important for personal and social wellbeing.
        • and speaks to the need to identify what is going on and to reclaim those ideas for the sake of humanity
        • In this context, the doppleganger is the people who are mirror-like imiages of ourselves, but on the other side of polarized issues.
        • Charismatic leaders who are bad actors often are good at identifying the suffering of the masses, and coopt the ideas of good actors to serve their own ends of self-enrichment.
        • There are real world conspiracies that have caused significant societal harm, and still do,
        • however, when there ithere are phenomena which we have no direct sense experience of, the mixture of
          • a sense of helplessness,
          • anger emerging from injustice
        • a charismatic leader proposing a concrete, possible but explanatory theory
        • is a powerful story whose mythology can be reified by many people believing it
        • Another cliche springs to mind
          • A lie told a hundred times becomes a truth
          • hence the amplifying role of social media
        • When we think about where this phenomena manifests, we find it everywhere:
  3. Aug 2023
      • for: human life expectancy, life expectancy, life expectancy myth, life expectancy at birth, life expectancy - ancestors
      • title: The life expectancy myth, and why many ancient humans lived long healthy lives
      • comment
      • new insight
        • life expectancy at birth skews our understanding of how the health and longevity of adults. -There is a false claim and belief that due to modern technologies, modern humans have lived far longer than our ancestors in the distant past.
        • In fact, child mortality rates play a major role in calculating life expectancy and this is what differs modernity from our ancestors.
        • Our distant ancestors did live to their 70s and 80s
    1. It is not uncommon to hear talk about how lucky we are to live in this age of scientific and medical advancement where antibiotics and vaccinations keep us living longer, while our poor ancient ancestors were lucky to live past the age of 35. Well this is not quite true. At best, it oversimplifies a complex issue, and at worst it is a blatant misrepresentation of statistics. Did ancient humans really just drop dead as they were entering their prime, or did some live long enough to see a wrinkle on their face?
      • for: life expectancy, human life expectancy, life expectancy - myth, life expectancy - ancestors
      • paraphrase
        • It is not uncommon to hear talk about how lucky we are to live in this age of scientific and medical advancement
          • where antibiotics and vaccinations keep us living longer, while our poor ancient ancestors were lucky to live past the age of 35.
        • This is not quite true:
          • at best, it oversimplifies a complex issue, and
          • at worst it is a blatant misrepresentation of statistics.
      • key question
        • What happened?
          • Did ancient humans really just drop dead as they were entering their prime, or
          • Did some live long enough to see a wrinkle on their face?
    2. What is commonly known as ‘average life expectancy’ is technically ‘life expectancy at birth’.  In other words, it is the average number of years that a newborn baby can expect to live in a given society at a given time.  But life expectancy at birth is an unhelpful statistic if the goal is to compare the health and longevity of adults.  That is because a major determinant of life expectancy at birth is the child mortality rate which, in our ancient past, was extremely high, and this skews the life expectancy rate dramatically downward.
      • for: life expectancy, human life expectancy, life expectancy - myth, life expectancy at birth, life expectancy - ancestors
      • paraphrase
      • definition
        • What is commonly known as ‘average life expectancy’ is technically ‘life expectancy at birth’.
        • In other words, it is the average number of years that a newborn baby can expect to live in a given society at a given time.
        • But life expectancy at birth is an unhelpful statistic if the goal is to compare the health and longevity of adults.
        • That is because a major determinant of life expectancy at birth is the child mortality rate
          • which, in our ancient past, was extremely high, and this skews the life expectancy rate dramatically downward.
    3. early years from infancy through to about 15 was perilous, due to risks posed by disease, injuries, and accidents.  But those who survived this hazardous period of life could well make it into old age.
      • for: life expectancy - ancestors
      • key insight
      • paraphrase
        • in our early ancestors, the early years from infancy through to about 15 was perilous,
          • due to risks posed by disease, injuries, and accidents.
        • But those who survived this hazardous period of life could well make it into old age.
  4. Jul 2023
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1_RKu-ESCY

      Lots of controversy over this music video this past week or so.

      In addition to some of the double entendre meanings of "we take care of our own", I'm most appalled about the tacit support of the mythology that small towns are "good" and large cities are "bad" (or otherwise scary, crime-ridden, or dangerous).

      What are the crime statistics per capita about the safety of small versus large?

      Availability bias of violence and crime in the big cities are overly sampled by most media (newspapers, radio, and television). This video plays heavily into this bias.

      There's also an opposing availability bias going on with respect to the positive aspects of small communities "taking care of their own" when in general, from an institutional perspective small towns are patently not taking care of each other or when they do its very selective and/or in-crowd based rather than across the board.

      Note also that all the news clips and chyrons are from Fox News in this piece.

      Alternately where are the musicians singing about and focusing on the positive aspects of cities and their cultures.

  5. Jun 2023
    1. What I love and appreciate from Metivier, he will cite his sources. He makes it super easy to go back to his sources and mine those materials myself. He gives credit to other memory experts and is transparent throughout his books and course about where he is in his own process of growing and learning. In summary, we don't need originality, we need what works and in the scholarly world- syncretizing multiple sources and distilling them into a process IS original even if every building block is coming from another source. We're all standing on the shoulders of the giants before us.

      My note-taking method is informed by the commonplace book and zettelkasten: why reinvent a wheel that needs no reinventing (it is only, really, about translating things from one medium to another)

  6. Mar 2023
    1. Sustainable consumption scholars offer several explanations forwhy earth-friendly, justice-supporting consumers falter when itcomes to translating their values into meaningful impact.
      • Paraphrase
      • Claim
        • earth-friendly, justice-supporting consumers cannot translate their values into meaningful impact.
      • Evidence
      • “the shading and distancing of commerce” Princen (1997) is an effect of information assymetry.
        • producers up and down a supply chain can hide the negative social and environmental impacts of their operations, putting conscientious consumers at a disadvantage. //
      • this is a result of the evolution of alienation accelerated by the industrial revolution that created the dualistic abstractions of producers and consumers.
      • Before that, producers and consumers lived often one and the same in small village settings
      • After the Industrial Revolution, producers became manufacturers with imposing factories that were cutoff from the general population
      • This set the conditions for opaqueness that have plagued us ever since. //

      • time constraints, competing values, and everyday routines together thwart the rational intentions of well-meaning consumers (Røpke 1999)

      • assigning primary responsibility for system change to individual consumers is anathema to transformative change (Maniates 2001, 2019)
      • This can be broken down into three broad categories of reasons:

        • Rebound effects
          • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=jevon%27s+paradox
          • increases in consumption consistently thwart effciency-driven resource savings across a wide variety of sectors (Stern 2020). -sustainability scholars increasingly critique “effciency” both as:
            • a concept (Shove 2018)
            • as a form of“weak sustainable consumption governance” (Fuchs and Lorek 2005).
          • Many argue that, to be successful, effciency measures must be accompanied by initiatives that limit overall levels of consumption, that is, “strong sustainable consumption governance.
        • Attitude-behavior gap

        • Behavior-impact gap

  7. Feb 2023
    1. During my journey of developing the Zettelkasten Method,

      Seems like he's saying he developed the Zettelkasten Method... perhaps his version of the method based on Luhmann's? Commodifying the version "created" by Luhmann?

      Credit here for native German speaker writing in English....

    1. myth is an arrangement of the past whether real or imagined in patterns that reinforce a culture's deepest values and aspirations

      Ronald Wright - definition of - = myth - an arrangement of the past - whether real or imagined - in patterns that reinforce a culture's deepest values and aspirations

      Quotes: - myths are so fraught with meaning that we live and die by them - myths are the maps by which cultures navigate through time - the myth of progress - progress has an internal logic that can lead beyond reason to catastrophe - a seductive trail of successes may end in a trap

    1. And a theory of "multilayered social worlds", when fully developed, can be a helpful tool in understanding why, in modern Europe, certain phenomena became common enough to catch the attention of physicians, scientists, artists and philosophers. In a current unpublished work, STP suggests that, if the logic of affinity is properly conceptualized, both in terms of its essentially paraconsistent properties as a social logic and in terms of its historical presentation throughout very different societies, one arrives at the conclusion that modern families – in the sense of nuclear familiar units composed of heterossexual parents and their children – do not logically form a basic "atom of kinship" in Levi-Strauss' sense. That is, in modern capitalist societies, the logic of affinity is not composed in such a way as to form a world of its own, it has little synthetic power. In fact, the logic of affinity is most consistent within capitalist worlds at the points where it is tasked with "stitching together" dynamics dominated by property and value – at the point of contact between family and the production of independent adult workers, or at the intersection between affinity and the State, where the nation-form is born, etc. Because capitalist structures do not respect the internal logic of kinship – which would allow people to socially map not only those that are part of their families and those who are not, but also those that occupy strangely indeterminate positions in this social fabric – it is up to individuals themselves, as they grow up, to develop ways to supplement to this fractured logic. This is what Lacan called the "individual myth of the neurotic": how, in order to become persons  , we must supplement our social existence before other people with an invisible partnership with an "Other", a figure that helps us determine how to distinguish these indeterminate elements of affinity logic and that capitalist sociality does not help to propagate in a consistent and shared way.

      Posits the necessity, imposed by capitalism, of an individual myth of the neurotic (Lacan) as a problem that psychoanalysis was created to solve.

    1. I recently was invited by the Niklas-Luhmann-Archiv research group, to give an overview of my Zettelkasten and discuss aspects of the technical implementation of Luhmann’s Zettelkasten method.

      So nice to see a blog post specifically talk about "Luhmann's Zettelkasten method" rather than a more generic zettelkasten method as being Luhmann's. Notice the 2015 date before the "fame" had caught on in the blogosphere's productivity porn space closer to 2018.

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zY7l2tzoQ

      Ugh... another short mediocre introduction. Repeats the origin myth.

      Seems to take a very Ahrens' based framing, but screws up a few pieces. More focus on "hub notes" and completely misses the idea of an index somehow?!?

      The last section of 2+ minutes really goes off the rails and recommends converting notes from other places and muddles about "Favorite problems" (ostensibly a reference to Feynman's 12 Favorite Problems, but isn't direct about it?).

      Also encourages the "Feynman technique"...

  8. Jan 2023
    1. In the super-nerdy space where the fine details of digital note-taking are discussed, you’ll hear a lot about the Zettelkasten Method (ZK Method), popularized by a German professor called Niklas Luhmann who was incredibly prolific and famously wrote over 90,000 notes on index cards that were linked together.

      Not so much origin myth here, but popularization myth…

    1. Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lie in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!”

      Gian-Carlo Rota (1997): Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught, Notices of the American Mathematical Society 1, 1997, Vol. 44, pp. 22-25.

    1. he [Luhmann] popularized method of expanding your memory called the zettelkasten method (04:49)

      At least he doesn't go with the invention myth, but it's also false that he was the one who popularized it... others online popularized it.

  9. Dec 2022
    1. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/07/ambient-genius

      It's not stated in the piece, but there's a hint of Brian Eno as a lone genius within music, but the piece explicitly explores his own creative practices and collaborations which go toward creating his creativity and genius by way of his path through music.

    2. “I have a trick that I used in my studio, because I have these twenty-eight-hundred-odd pieces of unreleased music, and I have them all stored in iTunes,” Eno said during his talk at Red Bull. “When I’m cleaning up the studio, which I do quite often—and it’s quite a big studio—I just have it playing on random shuffle. And so, suddenly, I hear something and often I can’t even remember doing it. Or I have a very vague memory of it, because a lot of these pieces, they’re just something I started at half past eight one evening and then finished at quarter past ten, gave some kind of funny name to that doesn’t describe anything, and then completely forgot about, and then, years later, on the random shuffle, this thing comes up, and I think, Wow, I didn’t hear it when I was doing it. And I think that often happens—we don’t actually hear what we’re doing. . . . I often find pieces and I think, This is genius. Which me did that? Who was the me that did that?”

      Example of Brian Eno using ITunes as a digital music zettelkasten. He's got 2,800 pieces of unreleased music which he plays on random shuffle for serendipity, memory, and potential creativity. The experience seems to be a musical one which parallels Luhmann's ideas of serendipity and discovery with the ghost in the machine or the conversation partner he describes in his zettelkasten practice.

    1. A pesar de que la administración sistemática del conocimiento no tiene orígenes recientes, el referente más común es el tema es el sociólogo alemán Niklas Luhmann, creador del Zettelkasten.

      Translation:

      Although the systematic administration of knowledge does not have recent origins, the most common referent on the subject is the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, creator of the Zettelkasten.

    1. The History of Zettelkasten The Zettelkasten method is a note-taking system developed by German sociologist and philosopher Niklas Luhmann. It involves creating a network of interconnected notes on index cards or in a digital database, allowing for flexible organization and easy access to information. The method has been widely used in academia and can help individuals better organize their thoughts and ideas.

      https://meso.tzyl.nl/2022/12/05/the-history-of-zettelkasten/

      If generated, it almost perfect reflects the public consensus, but does a miserable job of reflecting deeper realities.

    1. Burdett (2020) - Technology's Invisible Hand - https://is.gd/klSPxO - urn:x-pdf:8f8574b2595fa7e5270c21a1d3ade6e6

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  10. Nov 2022
    1. A few years ago I came up with a new word. I was fed up with the oldart-history idea of genius - the notion that gifted individuals turn up out ofnowhere and light the way for all the rest of us dummies to follow. Ibecame (and still am) more and more convinced that the importantchanges in cultural history were actually the product of very large numbers of people and circumstances conspiring to make something new. Icall this ‘scenius’ - it means ‘the intelligence and intuition of a whole cultural scene’. It is the communal form of the concept of genius. This word isnow starting to gain some currency - the philosopher James Ogilvy uses itin his most recent book.

      Book Source: Eno, Brian. A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary. 1st edition. London: Faber & Faber, 1996. Section: A Letter to Dave Stewart, p 354

      Cross reference quote and further usage/refinement of the word from popular blog post by Kevin Kelly Scenius, or Communal Genius: https://hypothes.is/a/SgYqomnBEe2_Yaf4i1JnCg

    1. I think that there’s also the kind of what Brian Eno called scenius, that there are times like Xerox PARC in the 1970s or Florence during the Renaissance when there are just a number of people in contact with each other, and their ideas spark each other. And again, it’s a matter of building on what has been done before.

      Definition of scenius, a portmanteau of scene and genius, meaning roughly the output of combining the ideas of zeitgeist with combinatorial creativity to create sustained output which might be considered genius level work.

      Generally it gives more credit to the people and time than is generally seen in other instances which are often frame as lone genius.

      My definition may be more complex and nuanced than that of the version coined (?) by Brian Eno.

  11. Oct 2022
    1. Mycorrhizal fungi map the relationships in a forest just as myths map the specific relationships of a community rooted in place. SOPHIE STRAND
    1. Does anyone else work in project-based systems instead? .t3_y2pzuu._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; }

      reply to u/m_t_rv_s__n https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/y2pzuu/does_anyone_else_work_in_projectbased_systems/

      Historically, many had zettelkasten which were commonplace books kept on note cards, usually categorized by subject (read: "folders" or "tags"), so you're not far from that original tradition.

      Similar to your work pattern, you may find the idea of a "Pile of Index Cards" (PoIC) interesting. See https://lifehacker.com/the-pile-of-index-cards-system-efficiently-organizes-ta-1599093089 and https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/albums/72157594200490122 (read the descriptions of the photos for more details; there was also a related, but now defunct wiki, which you can find copies of on Archive.org with more detail). This pattern was often seen implemented in the TiddlyWiki space, but can now be implemented in many note taking apps that have to do functionality along with search and tags. Similarly you may find those under Tiago Forte's banner "Building a Second Brain" to be closer to your project-based/productivity framing if you need additional examples or like-minded community. You may find that some of Nick Milo's Linking Your Thinking (LYT) is in this productivity spectrum as well. (Caveat emptor: these last two are selling products/services, but there's a lot of their material freely available online.)

      Luhmann changed the internal structure of his particular zettelkasten that created a new variation on the older traditions. It is this Luhmann-based tradition that many in r/Zettelkasten follow. Since many who used the prior (commonplace-based) tradition were also highly productive, attributing output to a particular practice is wrongly placed. Each user approaches these traditions idiosyncratically to get them to work for themselves, so ignore naysayers and those with purist tendencies, particularly when they're new to these practices or aren't aware of their richer history. As the sub-reddit rules indicate: "There is no [universal or orthodox] 'right' way", but you'll find a way that is right for you.

    1. https://youtu.be/ILuSxUYYjMs

      Luhmann zettelkasten origin myth at 165 second mark

      A short outline of several numbering schemes (essentially all decimal in nature) for zettelkasten including: - Luhmann's numbering - Bob Doto - Scott Scheper - Dan Allosso - Forrest Perry

      A little light on the "why", though it does get location as a primary focus. Misses the idea of density and branching. Touches on but broadly misses the arbitrariness of using the comma, period, or slash which functions primarily for readability.

  12. Sep 2022
    1. Theidealized image of American society is one of abundant opportunities, withhard work being rewarded by economic prosperity. Consequently, those whofail to get ahead have only themselves to blame according to this argument. Itis within this context that America thinks of itself as a fair and meritocraticsociety in which people get what they deserve in life.

      There is a variety of confounding myths in America which tend to hold us down. These include economic mobility, meritocracy, poverty, and the land of opportunity.

      With respect to the "land of opportunity", does positive press of a small number of cases from an earlier generation outweigh the actual experience of the majority?


      There was a study on The Blitz in London and England in general in World War II which showed that despite high losses in general, enough people knew one or more who'd lost someone or something to the extreme but that the losses weren't debilitating from a loss perspective and generally served to boost overall morale. Higher losses may have been more demoralizing and harmful, but didn't happen. (Find this source: possibly Malcolm Gladwell??)

      Is this sort of psychological effect at play socially and politically in America and thereby confounding our progress?

    1. There’s the one you probably know, in which the brothers Romulus and Remus—raised by a she-wolf and favored by the god of war—battled to the death for control of the city they founded. But another version was that Rhome, a Trojan woman who fled the destruction of Troy with other survivors, got tired of sailing around and talked everyone into settling in Latinum.

      Why Augustus afraid of the power of women since the roman myth states that the brothers Romulus and Remus raised by a shewolf and the city of Rome is built by a Trojan woman?

    1. nicholas lumen the german sociologist who appears to be the one to have invented the zettelkostn method or at least popularized

      Earlier he uses the phrase "old school" to describe the zettelkasten (presumably Luhmann's version), and not the much older old school ones from Gessner on....

  13. Aug 2022
    1. Someone posted the video above about the Zettelkasten method of taking notes pioneered by the 20th century German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.

      Pioneered is a dreadful word instead of something having a connotation of putting a cherry on top of a pre-existing practice.

  14. Jul 2022
    1. In the United States, Luhmann is best known for anote-taking method he developed called Zettelkasten,which you’ll read more about very shortly.

      Perhaps better to indicate that he made some modifications to a pre-existing method as it's disingenuous historically to say he developed the broader idea which goes back at least as early as Konrad Gessner in 1548.

      Academics, writers, and thinkers have been using variations on the general ideas of note taking, commonplacing, and slip boxing for centuries, which may also help to motivate students.

    1. Well, this was a true early morning treat!You reeeeally botched that one. Like 180 degrees misinterpreted it.That thread is about how Luhmann developed a personal approach that worked for him (as we all do and should), and that there is no one way to work/do a zettelkasten. Ie. We all must (and inevitably will) interpret Luhmann's take on zettelkasten method (and any other tools/method/etc we encounter) in light of what our needs are.What's super dope, is that my whole jam in this ZK world is about showing the thread/lineage of these techniques and helping people specifically wrestle with some of the principles and practices Luhmann employed so that in the end they can apply them in whatever way they see fit. And yet, somehow....you actually miss that?Also, this.... (you)"We approach these methods from such a top down manner, in part, because our culture has broadly lost the thread of how these note taking practices were done historically. Instead of working with something that has always existed and been taught in our culture, and then using it to suit our needs, we're looking at it like a new shiny toy or app and then trying to modify it to make it suit our needs."... Is this....(me)"We're coming at [zettelkasten] top-down. We're appropriating something and trying to retrofit it in a desire to "be better." In doing so, we're trying "clean it up a bit."I'm critiquing this approach 😂 I'm saying we come at it top-down bc we see it as a reified object (which is incorrect) that is set in stone, when in fact those who present the "one true way" are actually presenting a "cleaned up version" of Luhmann's very personal approach and calling it "official." Again, I'm critiquing that! I am, by design and punk ethos, kinda against "official."Silly, dude. The whole thread is about not looking at it as a "shiny new toy" and seeing it as a more fluid aspect of note-taking and personal practice. It's about recognizing that the way to recreate Luhmann is to be flexible, interpret these methods for yourself. Why? Bc that's exactly what Luhmann did."Let the principles and practices guide your zettelkasten work. Throw them in a box with your defined workflow issues. Let them hash it out. Shake the box and let them tell you the "kind" of zk you should be working with." (thread the day before the above mentioned)Also, and you're gonna love this....Here's you above...."People have been using zettelkasten, commonplace books, florilegium, and other similar methods for centuries, and no one version is the "correct" one."And here's me....."The most well-known slip-boxes in the world have been employed by writers in service of their writing. Variations of the system date back to the 17th c., [3] and modern writers such as, Umberto Eco, Arno Schmidt, and Hans Blumenberg are all known for employing some version of the slip-box to capture, collect, organize, and transform notes into published work. Of course, today, the most famous zettelkasten is the one used...."Sound familiar? It's me citing you, ya dum dum 😂 Footnote numero tres....https://writing.bobdoto.computer/zettelkasten-linking-your-thinking-and-nick-milos-search-for-ground/Such a funny thing to see this fine Friday morning! ☀

      Sadly I think we're talking past each other somehow; I broadly agree with all of your original thread. Perhaps there's also some context collapse amidst our conversations across multiple platforms which doesn't help.

      Maybe my error was in placing my comment on your original thread rather than a sub branch on one of the top several comments? I didn't want to target anyone in particular as the "invented by Luhmann myth" is incredibly wide spread and is unlikely to ever go away. It's obvious by some of the responses I've seen from your thread here in r/antinet that folks without the explicit context of the history default to the misconception that Luhmann invented it. This misconception tends to reinforce the idea that there's "one true way" (the often canonically presented "perfect" Luhmann zettelkasten, rather than the messier method that he obviously practiced in reality) when, instead, there are lots of methods, many of which share some general principles or building blocks, but which can have dramatically different uses and outcomes. My hope in highlighting the history was specifically to give your point more power, not take the opposite stance. Not having the direct evidence to the contrary, you'll noticed I hedged my statement with the word "seems" in the opening sentence. I apologize to you that I apparently wasn't more clear.

      I love your comparison of LYT and zettelkasten by the way. It's reminiscent of the sort of comparison I'm hoping to bring forth in an upcoming review of Tiago Forte's recent book. His method—ostensibly a folder based digital commonplace book, which is similar to Milo's LYT—can be useful, but he doesn't seem to have the broader experience of history or the various use cases to be able to advise a general audience which method(s) they may want to try or for which ends. I worry that while he's got a useful method for potentially many people, too many may see it and his platform as a recipe they need to follow rather than having a set of choices for various outcomes they may wish to have. Too many "thought leaders" are trying to "own" portions of the space rather than presenting choices or comparisons the way you have. Elizabeth Butler is one of the few others I've seen taking a broader approach. A lot of these explorations also means there are multiple different words to describe each system's functionality, which I think only serves to muddy things up for potential users rather than make them clearer. (And doing this across multiple languages across time is even more confusing: is it zettelkasten, card index, or fichier boîte? Already the idea of zettelkasten (in English speaking areas) has taken on the semantic meaning "Luhmann's specific method of keeping a zettelkasten" rather than just a box with slips.)

    1. american philosopher wilford sellers is this way that impressions and thoughts appear to be simply given to us as the events they are as instances of the types they instantiate 00:05:48 and this i take to be the deepest form of what sellers identified as the myth of the given the most difficult one to extirpate we always forget that our knowledge of our own states is as mediated by 00:06:00 language and conceptual apparatus as any other knowledge so when we attribute beliefs or knowledge when we attribute cognitive states when we attribute even sensations 00:06:13 to ourselves or to others we're always i'm going to suggest uh engaged in an active interpretation a kind of self hermeneutics or a hermeneutic of the other and we use 00:06:25 language to model our inner life we use external properties to to uh model our inner life and we're always modeling our inner life we don't simply have it as it is

      Wilfred Sellers called this the "myth of the given"

    1. Harold Jarche looked at his most visited blog postings over the years, and concludes his blog conforms to Sturgeon’s Revelation that 90% of everything is crap. I recognise much of what Harold writes. I suspect this is also what feeds impostor syndrome. You see the very mixed bag of results from your own efforts, and how most of it is ‘crap’. The few ‘hits’ for which you get positive feedback are then either ‘luck’ or should be normal, not sparse. Others of course forget most if not all of your less stellar products and remember mostly the ones that stood out. Only you are in a position to compare what others respond to with your internal perspective.

      The cumulative effect of one's perception of Sturgeon's law may be a driving force underlying imposter syndrome.

      While one see's the entirety of their own creation process and realizes that only a small fraction of it is truly useful, it's much harder seeing only the finished product of others. The impression one is left with by availability heuristic is that there are thousands of geniuses in the world with excellent, refined products or ideas while one's own contribution is miniscule in comparison.


      Contrast this with Matt Ridley's broad perspective in The Rational Optimist which shows the power of cumulative breeding and evolution of ideas. One person can make their own stone hand axe, but no one person can make their own toaster oven or computer mouse alone.

      Link to: - lone genius myth (eg. Einstein's special relativity did not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, there was a long train of work and thought which we don't see the context of)

  15. Jun 2022
    1. Ernest Hemingway was one of the most recognized and influentialnovelists of the twentieth century. He wrote in an economical,understated style that profoundly influenced a generation of writersand led to his winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

      Forte is fairly good at contextualizing people and proving ethos for what he's about to present. Essentially saying, "these people are the smart, well-known geniuses, so let's imitate them".

      Humans are already good at imitating. Are they even better at it or more motivated if the subject of imitation is famous?

      See also his sections on Twyla Tharp and Taylor Swift...

      link to : - lone genius myth: how can there be a lone genius when the majority of human history is littered with imitation?

    1. The term comes from Niklaus Luhmann, a German autodidact and famously prolific academic sociologist. Similar techniques were developed independently by Nabokov and Prisig, among others.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/b566a4/what_is_a_zettelkasten/

      Wow. Even in the pinned post on r/Zettelkasten, they propagate the myth by implication that Luhmann invented the Zettelkasten.

      They also suggest that Nabokov and Pirsig independently developed similar techniques rather than that it was a commonplace (excuse the pun) pattern in the broader culture.

    1. So why do we continue to perpetuate the myth of conventional current flow (CCF) when we have known for a century that current in most electrical and electronic circuits is electron flow (EF)?
    1. The zettelkästen creator, Niklas Luhmann, produced 70 books and over 550 publications in a short amount of time.
    1. Before we begin, please note that this piece assumes intermediate familiarity with Zettelkasten and its original creator, the social scientist Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998).

      Even the long running (2013) zettelkasten.de website credits Niklas Luhmann as being the "original creator" of the zettelkasten.

      sigh

      We really need to track down the origin of linking one idea to another. Obviously writers, and especially novelists, would have had some sort of at least linear order in their writing due to narrative needs in using such a system. What does this tradition look like on the non-fiction side?

      Certainly some of the puzzle stems from the commonplace book tradition, but this is more likely to have relied on natural memory as well as searching and finding via index methods.

      Perhaps looking more closely at Hans Blumenberg's instantiation would be more helpful. Similarly looking at the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss and his predecessors like Marcel Mauss may provide at least an attack on this problem.

      My working hypothesis is that given the history of the Viennese numbering system, it may have stemmed from the late 1700s and this certainly wasn't an innovation by Luhmann.

      link to: https://hyp.is/hLy7NNtqEeuWQIP1UDkM6g/web.archive.org/web/20130916081433/https://christiantietze.de/posts/2013/06/zettelkasten-improves-thinking-writing/ for evidence of start of zettelkasten.de

    1. settle custon which a philosopher named nicholas lumen created

      Another example of an unsourced reference to Niklas Luhmann creating the zettelkasten.

  16. May 2022
    1. scanned for solutions to long-standing problems in his reading,conversations, and everyday life. When he found one, he couldmake a connection that looked to others like a flash of unparalleledbrilliance

      Feynman’s approach encouraged him to follow his interests wherever they might lead. He posed questions and constantly

      Creating strong and clever connections between disparate areas of knowledge can appear to others to be a flash of genius, in part because they didn't have the prior knowledges nor did they put in the work of collecting, remembering, or juxtaposition.

      This method may be one of the primary (only) underpinnings supporting the lone genius myth. This is particularly the case when the underlying ideas were not ones fully developed by the originator. As an example if Einstein had fully developed the ideas of space and time by himself and then put the two together as spacetime, then he's independently built two separate layers, but in reality, he's cleverly juxtaposed two broadly pre-existing ideas and combined them in an intriguing new framing to come up with something new. Because he did this a few times over his life, he's viewed as an even bigger genius, but when we think about what he's done and how, is it really genius or simply an underlying method that may have shaken out anyway by means of statistical thermodynamics of people thinking, reading, communicating, and writing?

      Are there other techniques that also masquerade as genius like this, or is this one of the few/only?

      Link this to Feynman's mention that his writing is the actual thinking that appears on the pages of his notes. "It's the actual thinking."

    2. Other popular terms for such a system include Zettelkasten (meaning “slipbox” in German, coined by influential sociologist Niklas Luhmann), Memex (aword invented by American inventor Vannevar Bush), and digital garden(named by popular online creator Anne-Laure Le Cunff)

      Zettelkasten existed prior to Niklas Luhmann, who neither invented them nor coined their name.

      The earliest concept of a digital garden stems from Mark Bernstein's essay Hypertext Gardens: Delightful Vistas in 1998.

      Anne-Laure Le Cunff's first mention of "digital garden" was on April 21, 2020

      Progress on my digital garden / evergreen notebook inspired by @andy_matuschak🌱<br><br>Super grateful for @alyssaxuu who's been literally handholding me through the whole thing — thank you! pic.twitter.com/ErzvEsdAUj

      — Anne-Laure Le Cunff (@anthilemoon) April 22, 2020
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

      Which occurred after Maggie Appleton's mention on 2020-04-15 https://twitter.com/Mappletons/status/1250532315459194880

      Nerding hard on digital gardens, personal wikis, and experimental knowledge systems with @_jonesian today.<br><br>We have an epic collection going, check these out...<br><br>1. @tomcritchlow's Wikifolders: https://t.co/QnXw0vzbMG pic.twitter.com/9ri6g9hD93

      — Maggie Appleton 🧭 (@Mappletons) April 15, 2020
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

      And several days after Justin Tadlock on 2020-04-17 https://wptavern.com/on- digital-gardens-blogs-personal-spaces-and-the-future

      Before this there was Joel Hooks by at least 2020-02-04 https://web.archive.org/web/20200204180025/https://joelhooks.com/digital-garden, though he had been thinking about it in late 2019: https://github.com/joelhooks/joelhooks-com/blob/36c21b34f02ade14d4e67915ff412462030282cd/content/blog/2019-12-08--on-writing-more~~qG38AKqxq/index.mdx

      He was predated by Tom Critchlow on 2018-10-18 https://tomcritchlow.com/blogchains/digital-gardens/ who quotes Mike Caulfield's article from 2015-10-17 as an influence https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/amp/

      Archive.org has versions going back into the early 2000's: https://web.archive.org/web/*/%22digital%20garden%22

    1. name means a slit box in german as in like a slip of paper a box containing such slips of paper it was invented or at least the modern form was described by a sociologist 00:02:32 named nicholas lumon

      Another example of someone misattributing the invention of the zettelkasten to Niklas Luhmann. At least Soren Bjornstad modifies the attribution to say modern form, but I suspect that this is more of a verbal hedge more than being backed up with actual evidence, though perhaps the video will bear out more detail?

      The availability heuristic is so strong in Luhmann's case, that he is attributed the invention. I find that few people can point to or ever mention any others who used the method.

    1. Luhmann realised his note-taking was not leadinganywhere. So he turned note-taking on its head.

      Here Ahrens doesn't say that Luhmann invented the zettelkasten, but he comes pretty close and is heavily implying it rather than delving into the ways which Luhmann may have been taught this practice.

    1. This is all too correct. Sadly the older methods for writing, note taking, thinking, and memory have fallen by the wayside, so most literate moderns don't have the tradition most of (elite educated) Western culture has had for the past 2000+ years. The long tradition of commonplace books and their related versions including waste books, florilegium, sudelbücher, scholia, glossae, notebooks, anthologies, sylvae, table books, vade mecum, memoranda books, diaries, miscellanies, pocket books, thesauruses, etc. underlines your thesis well. The Zettelkasten, exactly like almost all of these others, is simply an iteration of the commonplace book instantiated into index card form. One of the reasons that Umberto Eco's advice on writing seems so similar to the zettelkasten method is that he was a medievalist scholar who was aware of these long traditions of writing, note taking, and memory and leveraged these for himself, though likely in a slightly different manner. Would anyone suggest that he didn't have a voluminous output or an outsized impact on society and culture? If one really wants to go crazy on the idea of backlinks and the ideas of creativity and invention, perhaps they ought to brush up on their Catalan and read some Ramon Llull? He was an 11th century philosopher and polymath who spent a lot of time not only memorizing much of his personal knowledge, but who invented combinatorial creative methods for juxtaposing his volumes of information to actively create new ideas. I guarantee no backlinking system held a match to his associative methods. Now if someone wanted to mix some mysticism into the fray, then perhaps there might be a competition... Many who are now writing so positively about Zettelkasten or backlinks are doing so in much the same way that humanist scholars like Desiderius Erasmus, Rodolphus Agricola, and Philip Melanchthon did when writing about and re-popularizing commonplace books in the 1500s. The primary difference being that the chance that they leave as lasting a legacy is much smaller. Worse many of them are crediting Luhmann for the actual invention of the Zettelkasten when his is but one instantiation on a long evolution of many note taking devices over literal millennia. I'm still waiting for folks to spend more time talking about Carl Linnaeus' revolutionary invention and use of the index card. Or John Locke's system for creating a new indexing system for commonplace books. Generally we don't talk about these innovations because their users spent more of their time using their systems to get other more important things done for their legacies. In the end, the message seems clear, anyone can be incredibly productive; most of it boils down to having some sort of system of reading, thinking, note taking, and new production and sticking with it for a while. Have a system; use your system; evolve it slowly to work well for you and the way you think and work.

  17. Apr 2022
    1. the brain stores social information differently thanit stores information that is non-social. Social memories are encoded in a distinctregion of the brain. What’s more, we remember social information moreaccurately, a phenomenon that psychologists call the “social encodingadvantage.” If findings like this feel unexpected, that’s because our culturelargely excludes social interaction from the realm of the intellect. Socialexchanges with others might be enjoyable or entertaining, this attitude holds, butthey’re no more than a diversion, what we do around the edges of school orwork. Serious thinking, real thinking, is done on one’s own, sequestered fromothers.

      "Social encoding advantage" is what psychologists refer to as the phenomenon of people remembering social information more accurately than other types.

      Reference to read: “social encoding advantage”: Matthew D. Lieberman, Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect (New York: Crown, 2013), 284.

      It's likely that the social acts of learning and information exchange in oral societies had an additional stickiness over and beyond the additional mnemonic methods they would have used as a base.

      The Western cultural tradition doesn't value the social coding advantage because it "excludes social interaction from the realm of the intellect" (Paul, 2021). Instead it provides advantage and status to the individual thinking on their own. We greatly prefer the idea of the "lone genius" toiling on their own, when this is hardly ever the case. Our availability bias often leads us to believe it is the case because we can pull out so many famous examples, though in almost all cases these geniuses were riding on the shoulders of giants.

      Reference to read: remember social information more accurately: Jason P. Mitchell, C. Neil Macrae, and Mahzarin R. Banaji, “Encoding-Specific Effects of Social Cognition on the Neural Correlates of Subsequent Memory,” Journal of Neuroscience 24 (May 2004): 4912–17

      Reference to read: the brain stores social information: Jason P. Mitchell et al., “Thinking About Others: The Neural Substrates of Social Cognition,” in Social Neuroscience: People Thinking About Thinking People, ed. Karen T. Litfin (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), 63–82.

    1. Carlos del Rio. (2021, June 7). Here’s Where That COVID-19 Vaccine Infertility Myth Came From—And Why It Is Not True https://t.co/DvBYcCsEJx The evidence firmly shows that the COVID-19 vaccines don’t cause infertility. [Tweet]. @CarlosdelRio7. https://twitter.com/CarlosdelRio7/status/1401928031787225091

  18. Mar 2022
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkjf0hCKOCE

      The sky is a textbook. The sky is a lawbook. The sky is a science book. —Duane Hamacher, (1:24)

      Hamacher uses the Western description "method of loci" rather than an Indigenous word or translated word.


      The words "myth", "legend", "magic", "ritual", and "religion" in both colloquial English and even anthropology are highly loaded terms.

      Words like "narrative" and "story" are better used instead for describing portions of the Indigenous cultures which we have long ignored and written off for their seeming simplicity.

    1. i knew that that this is that might be different but no i of course you you don't connect it 00:27:44 that much with your own book it's more about that you see the idea and the idea is lumens idea and you're trying to describe it as good as possible

      Even Sönke Ahrens has indirectly attributed the idea of the zettelkasten directly to Niklas Luhmann.

      2022-03-24

    1. it is called the zettelkasten method and this was originally used by nicholas lumen in the 1960s

      They don't say outright that Luhmann invented the zettelkasten, but it's implied with the words "originally used".

  19. Feb 2022
    1. Tyler Black, MD. (2022, January 4). /1 =-=-=-=-=-=-=- Thread: Mortality in 2020 and myths =-=-=-=-=-=-=- 2020, unsurprisingly, came with excess death. There was an 18% increase in overall mortality, year on year. But let’s dive in a little bit deeper. The @CDCgov has updated WONDER, its mortality database. Https://t.co/DbbvvbTAZQ [Tweet]. @tylerblack32. https://twitter.com/tylerblack32/status/1478501508132048901

    1. Ahren’s book and ideas are not his original creation, but based on the method of Niklas Luhman referred to as the Zettelkasten. I see various references to Luhman’s ideas lately and predict this will become “a thing” in education.

      Another example of how much we've forgotten of our commonplacing and note taking traditions in rhetoric, and this from someone who's actively used note cards in the past.

      Luhmann did not invent the zettelkasten. (I should make bumper stickers...)

      Oops: https://www.zazzle.com/niklas_luhmann_bumper_sticker-128462770354241554

  20. Jan 2022
  21. Nov 2021
    1. Yesterday, I was at a thrift store with my wife, Jayne, and as I usually do, I went straight to the books section. I happened upon a couple books. One was entitled Elephant Reflections and included high praise from Jane Goodall. Another was The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.

      While in the store, I was checking my email and noticed there was something from the Design Science Studio.

      Tomorrow’s visiting Visionary, Catherine Connors will be speaking on New Narratives: Storytelling ARTchitecture!

      As I was flipping through the book in the checkout line, I noticed the preface to the second edition:

      “I’m not trying to copy Nature. I’m trying to find the principles she’s using”

      — R. Buckminster Fuller

      A book goes out like a wave rolling over the surface of the sea. Ideas radiate from the author’s mind and collide with other minds, triggering new waves that return to the author. These generate further thoughts and emanations, and so it goes. The concepts described in The Writer’s Journey have radiated and are now echoing back interesting challenges and criticisms as well as sympathetic vibrations. This is my report on the waves that have washed back over me from publication of the book, and on the new waves I send back in response.

      On the back of the book, the description includes the following introduction.

      Christopher Vogler explores the powerful relationship between mythology and storytelling in his clear, concise style that's made i this book required reading for movie executives, screenwriters, playwrights, fiction and non-fiction writers, scholars, and fans of pop culture all over the world.

    1. Vogler based this work upon the writings of mythologist Joseph Campbell, particularly The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and holds that all successful films innately adhere to its principles.

      Yesterday, I was at a thrift store with my wife, and as I usually do, I went straight to the books section. I happened upon a couple books. One was entitled Elephant Reflections and included high praise from Jane Goodall. Another was The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.

  22. Sep 2021
    1. This fundamental truth (expressed in economic notation as r > g, or "return on capital is greater than economic growth") means that "meritocracy" is a lie: the richest people in a market economy aren't the people who do the best work, it's the people who started off rich.

      Thomas Piketty's r > g shows that meritocracy is a lie in that the richest people aren't the ones that do the best or most productive work, but simply those who start of rich.

    1. Geniuses are not so much people with extraordinary brains as people who have found particularly good ways to work within their limitations and to extend their brain beyond itself.

      Anecdotally, I've noticed that most "famous" scientists, writers, etc. all kept some sort of significant notebook, commonplace book, zettelkasten, other.

  23. Aug 2021
    1. The Attack on "Critical Race Theory": What's Going on?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P35YrabkpGk

      Lately, a lot of people have been very upset about “critical race theory.” Back in September 2020, the former president directed federal agencies to cut funding for training programs that refer to “white privilege” or “critical race theory, declaring such programs “un-American propaganda” and “a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue.” In the last few months, at least eight states have passed legislation banning the teaching of CRT in schools and some 20 more have similar bills in the pipeline or plans to introduce them. What’s going on?

      Join us for a conversation that situates the current battle about “critical race theory” in the context of a much longer war over the relationship between our racial present and racial past, and the role of culture, institutions, laws, policies and “systems” in shaping both. As members of families and communities, as adults in the lives of the children who will have to live with the consequences of these struggles, how do we understand what's at stake and how we can usefully weigh in?

      Hosts: Melissa Giraud & Andrew Grant-Thomas

      Guests: Shee Covarrubias, Kerry-Ann Escayg,

      Some core ideas of critical race theory:

      • racial realism
        • racism is normal
      • interest convergence
        • racial equity only occurs when white self interest is being considered (Brown v. Board of Education as an example to portray US in a better light with respect to the Cold War)
      • Whiteness as property
        • Cheryl Harris' work
        • White people have privilege in the law
        • myth of meritocracy
      • Intersectionality

      People would rather be spoon fed rather than do the work themselves. Sadly this is being encouraged in the media.

      Short summary of CRT: How laws have been written to institutionalize racism.

      Culturally Responsive Teaching (also has the initials CRT).

      KAE tries to use an anti-racist critical pedagogy in her teaching.

      SC: Story about a book Something Happened in Our Town (book).

      • Law enforcement got upset and the school district
      • Response video of threat, intimidation, emotional blackmail by local sheriff's department.
      • Intent versus impact - the superintendent may not have had a bad intent when providing an apology, but the impact was painful

      It's not really a battle about or against CRT, it's an attempt to further whitewash American history. (synopsis of SC)

      What are you afraid of?

  24. Jul 2021
    1. I like the idea of some of the research into education, pedagogy, and technology challenges here.

      Given the incredibly common and oft-repeated misconception which is included in the article ("But Zettelkasten was a very personal practice of Nicholas Luhmann, its inventor."), can we please correct the record?

      Niklas Luhmann positively DID NOT invent the concept of the Zettelkasten. It grew out of the commonplace book tradition in Western culture going back to Aristotle---if not earlier. In Germany it was practiced and morphed with the idea of the waste book or sudelbücher, which was popularized by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg or even re-arrangeable slips of paper used by countless others. From there it morphed again when index cards (whose invention has been attributed to Carl Linnaeus) were able to be mass manufactured in the early 1900s. A number of well-known users who predate Luhmann along with some general history and references can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten.

      I suspect that most of the fallacy of Luhmann as the inventor stems from the majority of the early writing about Zettelkasten as a subject appears in German and hasn't been generally translated into English. What little is written about them in English has primarily focused on Luhmann and his output, so the presumption is made that he was the originator of the idea---a falsehood that has been repeated far and wide. This falsehood is also easier to believe because our culture is generally enamored with the mythology of the "lone genius" that managed Herculean feats of output. (We are also historically heavily prone to erase the work and efforts of research assistants, laboratory members, students, amanuenses, secretaries, friends, family, etc. which have traditionally helped writers and researchers in their output.)

      Anyone glancing at the commonplace tradition will realize that similar voluminous outputs were to be easily found among their practitioners as well, especially after their re-popularization by Desiderius Erasmus, Rodolphus Agricola, and Philip Melanchthon in the emergence of humanism in the 1500s. The benefit of this is that there is now a much richer area of research to be done with respect to these tools and the educational enterprise. One need not search very far to discover that Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau's output could potentially be attributed to their commonplace books, which were subsequently published. It was a widely accepted enough technique that it was taught to them at Harvard University when they attended. Apparently we're now all attempting to reinvent the wheel because there's a German buzzword that is somehow linguistically hiding our collective intellectual heritage. Maybe we should put these notes into our digital Zettelkasten (née commonplace books) and let them distill a bit?

      syndication link: https://browninterviews.org/suddenly-you-realize-that-your-house-is-not-equipped-with-a-water-hose-or-even-emergency-exit-we-are-not-prepared-for-e-learning-at-such-a-large-scale-brown-interviews-dr-jingjing-lin/#comment-637

    1. In our case, a system intended to expand equality has become an enforcer of inequality. Americans are now meritocrats by birth. We know this, but because it violates our fundamental beliefs, we go to a lot of trouble not to know it.

      Class stratification helps to create not only racist policies but policies that enforce the economic stratification and prevent upward (or downward) mobility.

      I believe downward mobility is much simpler for Black Americans (find reference to OTM podcast about Obama to back this up).

      How can we create social valves (similar to those in the circulatory system of our legs) that help to push people up and maintain them at certain levels without disadvantaging those who are still at the bottom and who may neither want to move up nor have the ability?

    1. Now that they are part of comedy history, it can be hard to imagine George Carlin’s most famous routines as anything but finished products. Whether the infamous “Seven Words” from his album Class Clown (released exactly 45 years ago Friday) or the monologues from his hosting of the first-ever episode of Saturday Night Live (which returns for its 43rd season this Saturday), these routines can seem to have sprung fully formed from his mind. But there’s plenty of physical evidence to the contrary.

      It's rarely ever the case (my cognitive bias statement), that anything springs fully formed from the mind.

      Generally there's an infrastructure, a system, a method by which ideas or physical things are aggregated, accumulated, and edited into existence.

      When seeing them well done, they appear magical because we don't see the work or the process. We will often call them genius, when in reality, they're the result of long hard work.

      Take the Pyramids of Giza. They look large and magesterial---and likely moreso in their non-degraded form. But is it so mystical how they may have been built if we were to see the structure and scaffolding that likely went into constructing them?

  25. Jun 2021
    1. <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Jeet Heer</span> in Freedom to Teach in North Carolina - The Time of Monsters (<time class='dt-published'>06/17/2021 09:41:33</time>)</cite></small>

    2. Michael Young coined the term,[1] formed by combining the Latin root "mereō" and Ancient Greek suffix "cracy", in his essay to describe and ridicule such a society, the selective education system that was the Tripartite System, and the philosophy in general.

      Meritocracy was coined to describe and ridicule a society and its selective education system.

    1. <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Jeet Heer</span> in Freedom to Teach in North Carolina - The Time of Monsters (<time class='dt-published'>06/17/2021 09:41:33</time>)</cite></small>

    2. Diminishing social mobility excludes the middle class from the hope of achieving the American Dream.

      Do we actually need social mobility?

      Social mobility and the goods it can purchase can be a useful social motivation.

      However, social mobility for the poorest amoungst us would be good, but how much additional marginal good does society derive from continued social mobility of the middle and upper classes continuing to gain wealth and moving up?

      Perhaps there's a myth of social mobility confounding the issue with the myth of meritocracy as well.

      Certainly the idea of raw capitalism without caps is at play as well. Could providing better governmental oversight of this be a helpful factor for society? (At least American society at the moment? As international competition may drive other broader problems vis-a-vis other pieces of global domination...)

    1. for some analysts this myth of meritocracy entrenches gender and racial inequality. 

      I want to explore this idea a bit. Resources, citations? Which analysts?

    2. That the belief that the United States is a meritocracy is an inherently racist or sexist belief, or that the United States was created by members of a particular race or sex for the purpose of oppressing members of another race or sex.”

      the United States is a meritocracy

      We've liked to tell ourselves this myth, but it's demonstrably untrue.

    1. Betsch, C., & Sachse, K. (2013). Debunking vaccination myths: Strong risk negations can increase perceived vaccination risks. Health Psychology: Official Journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 32(2), 146–155. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027387

  26. May 2021
  27. Apr 2021
  28. Mar 2021
    1. neocolonialist strategy—an attempt to accommodate new realities in order to retain the dominance— neocolonialist methods signal victory for the colonized.

      Neocolonialist strategy is the idea of accommodating new realities as to retain dominance

    2. Origin narratives form the vital core of a people’s unifying iden- tity and of the values that guide them. In the United States, the founding and development of the Anglo-American settler-state in- volves a narrative about Puritan settlers who had a covenant with God to take the land.

      MYTH 2: Origin Narratives

      • Puritan covenant with God to take the land

        • Reinforced by Columbus Myth

          • "Columbia," represented by lady, is found everywhere throughout the USA, in names and idea
        • Reinforced by the "Doctrine of Discovery"

          • European nations acquired titles to lands they discovered and Indigenous inhabitants lost natural right to land after Europeans claimed it.
          • Law of Nations required the subjugation of all people who diverge from European-derived norms of right conduct
        • Reinforced by Academia: Threatened by civil rights

          • Called for "balance," against "moralizing," and pro "culturally relative approach." "There were good and bad people on both sides."

            • "MULTICULTURALISM" is used to support the origin story. "We all got along from the beginning and now we are all a big happy nation"
    3. The ori- gin story of a supposedly unitary nation, albeit now multicultural, remained intact. The original cover design featured a multicolored woven fabric—this image meant to stand in place of the discredited “melting pot.”

      Origin Story myth is perpetuated by idea of multiculturalism

    4. Multiculturalism became the cutting edge of post-civil-rights- movement US history revisionism. For this scheme to work—and affirm US historical progress—Indigenous nations and communities had to be left out of the picture. As territorially and treaty-based peoples in North America, they did not fit the grid of multicultur- alism but were included by transforming them into an inchoate oppressed racial group, while colonized Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans were dissolved into another such group, variously called “Hispanic” or “Latino.” The multicultural approach empha- sized the “contributions” of individuals from oppressed groups to the country’s assumed greatness. Indigenous peoples were thus cred- ited with corn, beans, buckskin, log cabins, parkas, maple syrup, canoes, hundreds of place names, Thanksgiving, and even the con- cepts of democracy and federalism. But this idea of the gift-giving Indian helping to establish and enrich the development of the United States is an insidious smoke screen meant to obscure the fact that the very existence of the country is a result of the looting of an entire continent and its resources.

      MULTICULTURALISM: US history revision that emphasizes the "contributions" of ethnic groups to the United States, while obscuring the fact that these groups were instead PLUNDERED of their natural resources - it was not a consensual giving process.

    5. This approach to history allows one to safely put aside present re- sponsibility for continued harm done by that past and the questions of reparations, restitution, and reordering society.’

      Danger of accepting origin myth 2: put asides responsibility for continued harm done by past - puts aside option of reparations, restitution, and reordering of society.

      (Why the Origin Myth is currently harmful)

    6. Perhaps worst of all, some claimed (and still claim) that the colonizer and colonized experienced an “encounter” and engaged in “dialogue,” thereby masking reality with justifications and ratio- nalizations—in short, apologies for one-sided robbery and murder.

      Academics attempt to justify settler colonialism and origin MYTH, with idea that there was dialogue between settler and indigenous, when in reality it was one-sided robbery and murder.

    7. Writing US history from an Indigenous peoples’ perspective re- quires rethinking the consensual national narrative. That narrative is wrong or deficient, not in its facts, dates, or details but rather in its essence. Inherent in the myth we’ve been taught is an embrace of settler colonialism and genocide. The myth persists, not for a lack of free speech or poverty of information but rather for an absence of motivation to ask questions that challenge the core of the scripted narrative of the origin story. How might acknowledging the reality of US history work to transform society? That is the central question this book pursues.

      MYTH: there was a consensual relationship between indigenous people and settlers. Exists due to lack of motivation to ask questions that challenge that narrative.

      • Belief that "the continent had previously been terra nullius, a land without people.

      • Perpetuated by unconcious manifest destiny.

        - "Free Land" - "Northwest Ordinance
        
  29. Feb 2021
    1. Tang, J. W., Bahnfleth, W. P., Bluyssen, P. M., Buonanno, G., Jimenez, J. L., Kurnitski, J., Li, Y., Miller, S., Sekhar, C., Morawska, L., Marr, L. C., Melikov, A. K., Nazaroff, W. W., Nielsen, P. V., Tellier, R., Wargocki, P., & Dancer, S. J. (2021). Dismantling myths on the airborne transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Journal of Hospital Infection, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2020.12.022

    1. Some people "get" the idea of systemic privilege and ask "But what can I do?" My answer is, you can use unearned advantage to weaken systems of unearned advantage. I see white privilege as a bank account that I did not ask for, but that I can choose to spend. People with privilege have far more power than we have been taught to realize, within the myth of meritocracy. Participants can brainstorm about how to use unearned assets to share power; these may include time, money, energy, literacy, mobility, leisure, connections, spaces, housing, travel opportunities. Using these assets may lead to key changes in other behaviors as well, such as paying attention, making associations, intervening, speaking up, asserting and deferring, being alert, taking initiative, doing ally and advocacy work, lobbying, campaigning, protesting, organizing, and recognizing and acting against both the external and internalized forms of oppression and privilege.
    2. Think about why U.S. people, especially White people, have trouble seeing systemically. Explain the myth of meritocracy: that the unit of society is the individual and that whatever one ends up with must be whatever that individual wanted, worked for, earned, and deserved. Why do you think this myth survives so successfully, suppressing knowledge of systemic oppression and especially of its "up-side,"systemic privilege?
    3. I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me, white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy.

      We need more research and details on the idea of the American myth of meritocracy.

  30. Jan 2021
  31. Dec 2020
    1. In its true sense, myth pertains and is limited to the gods while legend applies to humanity, the heroes.

      Of Gods and men

  32. Oct 2020
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  37. Apr 2020
    1. Johnson’s book (lively and well sourced –  highly recommended) transcends the cliche of the individual innovator  and shows the ways in which innovation depends on a form of social  capital — the networks of people and ideas that innovators learn from  and build upon.

      It's rarely ever about the "lone genius".

  38. Jul 2019
    1. It’s one of the most enduring urban myths of all: If you get in trouble, don’t count on anyone nearby to help. Research dating back to the late 1960s documents how the great majority of people who witness crimes or violent behavior refuse to intervene.
  39. Apr 2019
    1. expressed through many different mediums: rituals, ceremonies, paintings, poems, drama, oral texts such as prayers and music such as hymns, symphonies and folk songs

      in the case of the transparency myth, we see it built into the very institution of the Court, glass everywhere, social media use, etc.

    2. or Christians this myth is believed to be the natural condition of the world, something they take for granted in their everyday lives

      transparency also as a natural condition accepted

    3. As the famous French philosopher Roland Barthes said myth is, in its most basic form, a special type of speech.* What he meant was that a myth isn’t just a genre of stories, its a way of saying something. According to Barthes, the special trick of myth is to present an ethos, ideology or set of values as if it were a natural condition of the world, when in fact its no more than another limited, man-made perspective. A myth doesn’t describe the natural state of the world, but expresses the intentions of its teller, be that a storyteller, priest, artist, journalist, filmmaker, designer or politician.
  40. Aug 2016
  41. May 2016
    1. My list reflects an attempt to draw stories from a large variety of cultures as well as to incorporate tales with more female protagonists

      This unit lesson is clearly designed to be all encompassing and diverse which benefits student interest for the curriculum.

    2. the trickster appeals to the child in us who questions puffery and silliness in outmoded or ar- chaic institutions and thought

      This is true the trickster is usually funny and they are usually the long lasting character who makes it through the story alive and unscathed.

    3. Finally, students will be intrigued to note the prev- alence of the trickster in a variety of cartoon fig- ures from Bugs Bunny to Wily Coyote

      Referencing bugs bunny and wiley coyote might require a video introduction to modern day students but it is a good example of the trickster archetype

    4. Be- cause we have no textbooks containing all the sto- ries, students are responsible for obtaining copies of the stories themselves, or, if necessary, pho- tocopying one from my collection

      This is good because it gives student's some responsibility to find their story, which may require an exciting trip to the library.

  42. Apr 2016
    1. Because few un- dergraduate degrees require instruction in my- thology and its related fields, most teachers ac- quire a BA without coming near them. Conse- quently, few high-school curricula require myth instruction because (in a tautological stance) few colleges require undergraduate coursework in it.

      This is very interesting. This means that it is just a cycle at this point because we are not learning about mythology in college, so we cannot teach mythology to those in grade school.

  43. Feb 2016
    1. He was told he would need a gold chain long enough to reach below, a snail's shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut, all of which he was to carry in a bag.

      Aside from the obvious, as the text later mentions what the items are for, I'm curious, what is the significance of the items? For example, why a gold chain? Why a snail shell? Why does it have to be a white hen and a black cat? Why the palm nut as apposed to other trees?

    2. How does this creation story differ from the others you have read this week?

      In this creation story many people were killed and the others it was peaceful because when humans came to earth they were welcomed by animals or other people offering help until they found somewhere to go.

    3. The new people built huts as Obatala had done, and soon Ife prospered and became a city.

      People came in with new ideas and help expand on the town.

  44. Dec 2015
    1. The bubbles then stick around for about 20 to 30 minutes, and you won’t be able to crack your knuckles again until they are gone — a sure sign that the sound is not caused by bursting bubbles, as was the leading hypothesis for many years.

      My mum was wrong ha ha

  45. Nov 2015
    1. So, that portion of one’s Self, which he has disowned by claiming he is finite, becomes an intuitive perception of potential of unattained good, or unattained life, but nevertheless attainable through some path or other. So, while that one identifies himself three-dimensionally, he is constantly reminded, goaded, pushed by his Actual Oneness and Universality to give up his finite view as fact. This whole process has nothing to do with evil, error (as power) the dark forces, evil powers, or the devil. You could say it is purely mechanical, with no values associated with it.

      Source of the perception of evil (devil, darkness, etc).

      The natural evolution of life.

      This is important: The infinity of our Being shines through the belief in death as intuitive perception of potential. We are constantly - goaded - to return to Truth.

  46. May 2015
    1. Lethe (Leith)

      The River Lethe was one of the rivers of Hades in Greek mythology. Exposure to its waters was held to lead to loss of memory, or, more intriguingly, a state of "unmindfulness" and oblivion. From this origin, it has re-appeared throughout western culture, from Dante to Tony Banks's first solo album (River Lethe in popular culture, Wikipedia).

      By providing the alternative spelling of Leith, Alasdair Roberts 'doubles' this meaning with the Water of Leith, a river that runs through Edinburgh, and co-locates ancient Greek and contemporary Scots mythology.

      The idea of eternal return is bound up with memory, with cultures being compelled to repeat and confront the missteps of the past. So the oblivion of forgetfulness provided by the endless Lethe provides a form of antidote or escape.

  47. Nov 2013
    1. The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself. This drive is not truly vanquished and scarcely subdued by the fact that a regular and rigid new world is constructed as its prison from its own ephemeral products, the concepts. It seeks a new realm and another channel for its activity, and it finds this in myth and in art generally.

      Incredible writing talent and perceptivity.