the third wave (was Re: [PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] E-mail etiquette: why MS users don't have it)

[gepr at tempusdictum.com]

Brian Beattie writes:
 > (2)what I read to be your analysis that communications skills have
 > declined.

Ahhh!  This is cool.  I, in no way, intended to imply that the 
communications skills of our generations are less than or degraded
from prior generations.

What I meant to point out is that context is nonlinear (which means
that the sum is greater than the parts -- of course, that's a crappy
definition since the definition of "sum" is often taken to be the 
very linear operator we all know and love from arithmetic.... but,
given that my point is about the gestalt of a whole communication, 
I think it's amusing to write things like "the sum is greater than 
it's parts" because it's annoyingly close to "the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts", which is a more accurate but still woefully
inaccurate way of stating the point).

This point says nothing about the comm. skills of our generations.
But, it does make a larger point about the third wave and the rise
of the information economy, whose media are TV, radio, websites,
and email... and, to some extent memos, magazines, and newspapers, 
which I view as segues into the info economy.

It makes a further point about anamnesis and
archivisation... hyperreality and the loss of the referent.... 
a.k.a. the rise and eventual hegemony of semiotics over semantics.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
H: 503.630.4505                              http://www.ropella.net/~gepr
M: 971.219.3846                               http://www.tempusdictum.com