Some shit about written language. Cuneiform. Rewatch that extra credit video.

Hyper literacy 

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i love to be a whiny grumpy lil bitch in real life; i can do it in a charming and fun way that people enjoy. but you rarely ever see me doing this online in plaintext, because i know that people will not read it the way it was written

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Plaintext: One of the funny quirks of the widespread proliferation of plaintext is changing norms about formality… what I want to say is how we have to learn not to take people seriously. Shitposting vs play fighting 

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plaintext literacy

the word illiterate has some negative connotations in my mind. In the past, I witnessed it being used dismissively, like you’re less of a person if you can’t read. Tends to be associated with the poor, the social underclass, inferiors. Which is funny because I’ve met people who are well-off who, in my view, don’t seem to be able to read. Or maybe they don’t have to. Maybe deep literacy is in some ways the opposite of a luxury, it’s something you have to do when you’re desperate to know and understand things. I’m here to help people who can read. I don’t really have the patience, inclination, skillset, to teach people how to read. There are other people who have that. If you can’t read, go to someone who can teach you how to read, then read my stuff. But does that even need saying? If you can’t read, why would you be here?

Here’s the thing. If you’re truly, completely, literally illiterate in the absolute sense, you’re kind of safe. I know there are some old quotes about this from even hundreds of years ago, something about how a little learning/knowledge is a dangerous thing. (Alexander Pope) “To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” – Edmund Burke / “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” – Mark Twain / “It is not the reading of many books which is necessary to make a man wise or good, but the well-reading of a few, could he be sure to have the best.” – Richard Baxter

The problem is that there are many people in the world who think they are smart, who think they know what they’re talking about. And as I write this down I recognize immediately that I myself am almost certainly guilty. From my frame of reference, within my universe, my own ignorance, illiteracy, misunderstandings, cowardice, etc hurt me more than anybody else