[extropy-chat] evolution of language: was Wetware vs. Hardware (was IQ vs Upload)

spike spike66 at comcast.net
Thu Jun 16 04:50:46 UTC 2005


On Behalf Of Marc Geddes

...
If it's me being discussed here I have to concede that Damian is right.  If
the world has to rely on me we're fucked ;)



This comment caused me to think of something that has
nothing to do with the singularity or AI, but rather
the phenomenon in the evolution of language where a
word or phrase takes on not just a different meaning
than the original, but the opposite.

An example would be the term "bad" which actually
means in some usages good, as for example in the
Michael Jackson song "Im Bad".  Another example would
be bitchin, which means good.  

We spend much of our energy at least as young adults
attempting to copulate early and often, yet when we
say something is fucked, that is a bad thing.  I know
of no one who objects to being the object of oral 
stimulation of the genitals, indeed very much the 
opposite.  Yet if something is undesirable it sucks?

All this makes practical newspeak very difficult, for
it becomes unclear which definition of bad must be
negated in order to make good.  We know the definition
of double plus ungood, but can ungood ever be good?

Perhaps that is the brilliance of newspeak: it
removes the ambiguity of words.  The presence of
"un-" prevents words from becoming their own opposite,
so that good stays good, bad stays bad, fucked stays 
double plus good, and so on.

spike  




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