Channeling a Comedy Legend for Some Observations

Not that anything I might write would come close to George Carlin’s genius, but he isn’t here to make these observations, and I am.

Partly out of a need to understand these times and also—paradoxically—the need to avoid immersion in the relentless shitshow that is the news, I’ve been reading/watching a lot of essays and commentary. Most have been fairly recent works; a substantial percentage is by historians or others willing to share their critical thinking in order to provide important context for the current state of things. I’ve seen some excellent higher-level analysis, and it has inspired me to contribute my thoughts to the mix.

I’m trying to channel Carlin’s inquisitive, analytical nature and love of the English language. While I do adore his comedic talents, my skills there are close to nonexistent, as will be clear. These observations are in no particular order, other than the oldest one—which dates to my undergrad days at a minimum—being first.

Have you noticed that “processing” has become one of the emptiest words in the English language? That probably started with the computer age. Computers have processors that perform processing to provide output. The entire process has become so complex that experts say they don’t understand the processing that’s going on, especially with AI and LLMs. What a cheery thought!

Nowadays, people talk about their brains processing things, as if it operates just like a computer. In doing so, they often elide its humanity. It’s a sterile, rationalistic euphemism that hides that we don’t know exactly what’s going on in there, or we don’t want to admit what’s going on. What’s so disgusting and/or scary about introspection that so many of us would rather say something like, “I couldn’t process it” than admit they didn’t know what to think or feel about something?

You know what else processes things in our body? Our digestive system. At least in that case, we know what to call the results of its processing.

Back in the day, there was a popular song whose chorus started with: “Sign, sign, everywhere a sign.” Today it’s numbers. “Let’s look at the numbers.” Temperatures are numbers. Economic results are numbers. Tax rates and brackets are numbers. One’s age is a number. Poll results are numbers. But each of those is much more than the numerals that represent a specific value. They are a type of information—and its quality and how that information is acquired too often get lost in the focus on the numbers.

Numbers can be measures of things. They often result from calculations¹, and in days past, we’d use other words to signify the nature of those calculations: sums, measurements, products, tallies, statistics. By reducing these sometimes very complex calculations down to just the result—a number—it becomes easy not to think about the methodology behind both selecting a specific calculation and performing it.

To take one example, an “average” is a measure of central tendency, or what’s a typical value in a set of data. An average can be calculated in a number [heh] of ways; both the data set and what information the user wants can influence one’s choice.

Knowing at least a little about those steps in the process [heh] of arriving at the number reported is important. Even more information is critical for some numbers, such as polling results. All those vital details get hidden behind the “let’s look at the numbers” call, and the report focusing primarily on “Number went up!” or “Number went down.” It’s no wonder that so many Americans are afraid of math and are functionally innumerate.

I don’t recall any class in U.S.² history informing me that referring to the first 13 entities as “colonies” was hiding an essential element of their nature. An essay at Revolutionary War Journal lays it out:

American colonies claimed by European nations were for the most part initially run by the private sector through investors in joint corporations. Later, once the colonies proved profitable; [sic] two other types of colonial governments would emerge. It required a large sum of money to extract the natural resources and establish trade for each new territory. The risk of recouping this initial investment was further compounded as to when and if the colony would prove profitable. Governments were not willing to secure funds to get the colony rolling by dipping into treasuries already strapped for cash (war tended to run up the bills), nor were they willing to sit back hoping for an eventual payback. The solution was to issue charters.

The colonies were corporations founded for the purpose of pursuing profits! That was a revelatory thunderbolt; and its reverberations were felt across multiple reframings. Viewed through this lens, so much of this country’s history and culture³ makes much more sense. Of course the Supreme Court decided Citizens United as it did—how could it have been otherwise?

And thus today, we can at last rightly understand Lincoln’s words “of the people, by the people, and for the people” in their proper context, as provided recently by the mendacious mango himself: “‘It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. …. We have to take care of one thing: military protection.’” It’s no mystery who profits most from that.

You know what’s absolutely old-fashioned? Using just the stock market to bet on how you think the future will unfold. It’s such a small piece of the possible pie—and these days, we have so many more and better numbers that our computers have processed! We can be soooo quant (literally a quant, even) about all kinds of things now!

Whether you call them prediction markets, information markets, decision markets, ideas futures, etc., the truth is that they’re nonsense built on nonsense. All this bullshit apparently got started as an end run around laws against betting on sports, as this Investopedia entry currently hints at.⁴ It’s a special kind of moronic inception to be able to place bets on one’s vibes about the world coming true, and having the odds influence future odds of the possible outcomes.

And that’s it for today, which is quite more than enough. As always, if I’ve missed something or if you’ve come up with a similar observation, please share your thoughts in the comments.

1. “Calculation” is the fancy word, which I probably first heard in algebra class. Outside of school, the word most often used by the adults around me was “figuring,” which explains the more literal meaning of figuring something (or someone) out. (back to the paragraph)

2. I am done with referring to things that apply only to the United States as “American.” Rightly or wrongly, two continents have “America” in their names, so to use the adjective as a blanket descriptor for just one nation in one continent is dumb. And yes, I’m so much of a word nerd that it’s bothered me for years; my ire has finally risen enough to sound my barbaric yawp against the practice. I’ll try to be consistent about using “USian” instead, but make no promises. (back to the paragraph)

3. By which I mean white, mostly male, mainstream capitalist culture. (back to the paragraph)

4. The link doesn’t mean I completely endorse the article. Check out the warning atop the current version of the Prediction Market Wiki page for a sense of how fraught the subject is. (back to the paragraph)