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Is Knowledge Always Desired?

May 15, 2023

Philosophy, Society

change, ignorance, knowledge, philosophy, self-deception, society

“Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was”, the creature in Frankenstein utters, summarizing one of the core themes in Mary Shelley’s novel. The meaning is inescapable for the hapless being: Knowledge is not always desired. The question is whether that could apply to us all and why.

Let me confess it right away: Knowledge is something I am nearly obsessed about. That is, I feel very stressed if I don’t know something, and much calmer if I do, even if it’s knowledge of something unpleasant. If someone asked me “There’s good news and bad news, do you prefer…” I’d interrupt them with “Oh, spit it out all together already!”

However, I also have enough life experience (a milder way of saying I’m becoming a grumpy old man) to know that this approach doesn’t necessarily apply to others. People like self-deception.

The truth is, we intuitively might think knowledge is always desired, we might even affirm so if asked, but things are more complex than that.

knowledge always desired
There are too many books and not enough time to read them (I’m sure you can relate), so, to begin with, there are practical considerations in limiting knowledge intake
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How Constant Updates Lead to Mediocrity: Apps for Scraps

May 10, 2021

Programming, Society

change, mediocrity, programming, society

We live in the time of “now, gimme, I want something new”. Everything seems to lose its value immediately – material or not. Long gone are the days of old programs or computer games where the product remained the same. And that’s great, right? Or… is it? Because when there is no need to change something, when you fix something that isn’t broken, then constant updates only lead to mediocrity.

Just ask yourself, how many times one of your Android apps updated itself and the newer iteration proved to be inferior? Perhaps you ended up with a bloated app that did the same thing, only now it took more space on your phone. If you were more unlucky, the app might have even messed up something in your workflow, which made it harder for you to use it.

As someone who has experienced this from both sides of the equation – as a user as well as programmer – I can confirm two things:

  • Users often want constant updates just for the sake of updating, without necessarily having any specific plan in mind.
  • Developers, to please their audience, offer such updates without necessarily having a clear picture of what will occur down the road.

As I said, I’ve been there myself. I’ve even made the mistake myself – thankfully only briefly, however. As I’ve mentioned in my post on why I stopped working on my Android apps, at some point I got enough of mediocrity and stupidity, and thought “fuck it, I’m done”.

But let’s take a closer look, to see how this perceived need for constant updates operates, and why it’s so insidious – both in terms of programming and in how it affects us socially.

constant updates
Apps and scraps. When it comes to constant updates, you tend to focus on the newness itself, rather than its functionality. It’s not unlike being flooded with Christmas gifts. It soon becomes about removing the wrap, rather than enjoying the item.
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Why I Lost Faith in the Academia

March 23, 2020

Criticism

academia, change, criticism, ignorance, mediocrity, motivation, society

Quite a nice little series I seem to be creating… This is the second “why I became disillusioned” kind of post after that on making Android apps. I’ve spent 12 years at the university – as a student, researcher, and teacher. But it’s time to admit it: I’ve lost faith in the academia; perhaps irreparably.

If you visit the academic section of the Home for Fiction main page, you’ll see a little quotation there. It’s something one of my academic mentors once said.

We won’t change the world simply by reading literature a different way, even against the grain. It’s a matter of whether we want to be a part of communities outside the university, where issues of equality are the daily reality.

I also note there that “I have no interest in an academia that does not act this way, and every academic work I have produced has been a small but honest effort in that direction.”

Well, let’s reverse that somewhat.

Every academic work I have produced has been a small but honest effort in that direction, but I have no interest in an academia that does not act this way.

This has been a major reason why I lost faith in the academia.

lost faith in academia
The reasons I lost faith in the academia mostly revolve around freedom of thought and, mostly, around possessing the capacity for freedom of thought
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