The Economy of Words

The Economy of Words and the Economics of Words

Thrift and Word Value Regarding the Art of Communication in the Modern Age of Digital Information.

The Economy of Words: The art of communication using all symbolic measures afforded by technology. Or, how to communicate effectively and participate in the information economy, with thrift, despite the tyranny of the terms.

Or, the economics of the art of communication; The effective use of communication in the information economy (the free-or-not exchange, supply, demand, etc of information in the modern age of mass media and social media in which everyone gets to play amateur fact-checker and propagandist).

That being the subject, or general concept.

After all, using too many words is not great. Speaking that way could take centuries.

Luckily, you can speak in-between words, use wordplay, imply, use symbols, links, and cite.

There are lots of tricks to learn.

This is probably something to do with how we make connections. It is fill-in-the-blanks and mad-libs. Alas, you’ll see this is part of the problem, as “tis simpler to mislead than to inform” (emotion can be conveyed with a word or gesture, but truth can get technical and drab. Yikes!)

Like Chomsky (“it’s complicated“), like Cicero, one could very well lose their head over it.

Simply, in the information economy, an economy of words is effective, and the fact that it’s easier to sow doubt than to prove a fact, results in the need for complex tactics.

If one can’t use social judo to flip a conman or propagandist’s tricks on their head, then they will be crushed under the weight of powerful symbols.

Noam Chomsky on Language Acquisition. Empirically speaking, I haven’t the foggiest. Virtual simulation maybe? Still, some things we do know. Ultimately, everything is either true or it isn’t, and we can show this using math.

So then, better learn how to use the economy of words to our advantage than to be crushed under the weight of some oligarchical or tyrannical wordsmith. Hard to compete with cat videos, but near impossible to compete with emotion.

A free-market seems to create chaos, but such is the principle of democracy. Sure, the invisible hand of Communication seems a little more sentiment than moral at times, but the Catch-22 is that state censorship is worse. So far the best solution has been wrong + wrong = right… and that is a pretty good solution, but is it best?!

I could go on… but…

• Not everyone loves long paragraphs.
• Media, Internet, Phone, ADHD, TV? Try one of these; or better, one of these.
• Short sentences work well (but at what cost!).
• And, bullet-points; very useful.

Yet, short isn’t always complete (funny how one can say little and thus say nothing, or say little and thus say so much when the reader fills in the blank; that art can’t be complex, and of course there must be a move that uses its power against it AKA “social judo” in terms of the economics of information and economy of words).

Grr, paradox, grr, duality…hmmm… maybe some more cat pics?

Oh, wait, to the point above, links (can be paired with bullet-points and used to convey complex ideas and arguments in lieu of writing Tomes; links as a communication tool, that should be its own page).

That (links; how, or how enlightened) is a new technology. In ways, it is THE new technology be it a blog post, news flash, comment, text, tip, or Tweet or even “see full documentary” below, bookmarked for later.

When there is a need, and then we get a new technology, capitalism really shines. Fill the need, with clever solutions, and profit (in the information economy!)

So what is profit in the information economy? It can be money form clicks, but this is sort of the lowest rung of virtue (according to Plato). Instead, the highest form of value is truth.

The new propagandist doesn’t have the focused message or resources of big toothpaste, big eggs, or big aluminum; it is not government backed, well at least not directly, see also “the history of the internet and Silicon Valley“… but hey, speaking of team efforts between capital, labor, government, and citizen; with 320 million+ hands on deck, and a divisive left-right political environment, what could go wrong with a digital proletariat directing their information labor and thus being their own capitalists?

I’d assume a mixed information economy is better, by the tyranny of the terms and the digital oligarchy is really unbearable sometimes. No I do not like alt-facts Uncle Sam I am, just regular facts are difficult enough to deal with (although I appreciate the absurd existentialism, this is information as the highest good, not pop-art!)

The click seeking is directly comparable to the corruption of political economy, and it creates a deficit in the intellectual wealth of nations! The concept is to grow wealth, not choke it in its cradle for short term capital gains.

The Century of the Self (Full Documentary). How does this relate back to Plato’s theory of how democracy becomes tyranny? Is all freely speaking in consumable bite sizes not the most democratic? Where is the block chain? How can we ensure truth?

Even this arthouse version of the concept doesn’t fit in a Tweet (which is probably better for everyone). 154 is a strict economy; but it is no Marx (or Smith… or even Joe-the-Mesopotamian; at least he was trying to progress).

So then, The Economy of Words, in terms of digital politics is the art of communication using all symbolic measures afforded by digital paper… although I wonder if repeating concepts is all that useful.

Words are free; the thrift is in communication value.

Information can take many symbols, so thrift here is an art. Counterfeit information can take few, that is a dark art also. Broadly, some symbols speak volumes, but specifics are another matter.

Still, only one set of facts. The rest is opinion. Good information is facts with fairly presented differing viewpoints. We don’t tell one what to think, we present the facts, and they speak for themselves.

So said The Duchess of Atholl Speech on the BBC, 1933.

The Duchess of Atholl Speech on the BBC, 1933

That said, framing, bubbles, bias, perception, projection, allegiance, change, resistance, and adaptation. Federalist #10, special interest.

Given the above. The separation of powers is a good principle for a “beautiful city” that respects the balance of virtue, vice, morality, ethics, and law to which the question “what is justice” speaks.

Cat videos, yes, that is one type of happiness but what principle was it that allowed for the cat video? That is the one to safeguard.

The tools, with those questions answered, are Rhetoric and the Republic. The art of Rhetoric lays in the economy of words, the art of the Republic, for better or worse, rests in Rhetoric.

Getting the art right, that is arete.

How to use rhetoric to get what you want – Camille A. Langston

In other words, above I’m speaking semi-cryptically and light-heartedly (in a way that I find personally annoying; so sorry about that reader). Don’t overthink it. I’m using a fractured style similar to Nostradamus’ centuries for fun. I wanted to define something impossible to define without being ironic. I used meta concepts I call “the information economy” and “the economy of words,” which is (other usages of those terms aside) really just a realization that our ability to communicate complex truisms seems to be much less effective than our ability to communicate emotion. Also, our ability to think of complex ideas exceeds our ability to communicate them. We are now in a digital age where everyone with a phone or computer gets to play propagandist, and that has led to some fake news. I suggest that links and bullet-pointed lists are effective communication tools, that language is symbolic, and the Chomsky’s language theory is probably about as good as his other theories, which is: pretty, pretty, pretty good.