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Then something cannot be described, it does not become a fact of shared reality. Hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens had an experience of the thing that cou

Then something cannot be described, it does not become a fact of shared reality. Hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens had an experience of the thing that could not be described, but I would argue that they did not share that experience, because they had no language for doing so. This is a very good point, but is I think a bit obscured because it seems to mistake the map for the territory. I think what the writer is getting at is that without a shared language it's harder to build up common knowledge. Which means more than just everone knowing something. It also means that they all know everyone knows it, and know that everyone knows everyone knows it, ad infinitum. Each person can see the Emperor has no clothes, but without sufficient communication they cannot all know that it is safe to laugh at the Emperor.

rdtsc 9y ago
> It also means that they all know everyone knows it, and know that everyone knows everyone knows it, ad infinitum. Well not ad-infinitum. Just 3 levels needed: 1. I know (think of a graph with one node A) 2. I know that the other knows (A -> B) 3. I know that the other knows, that I know (A <-> B). That's basically how common sense works, and it helps groups of people work as a group (solve problems, achieve a common goal). But first this bootstrapping is necessary. Anyway, in this particular case it is like political or ideological common sense ("the emperor doesn't have clothes"). That's why large gathering of people were looked at with suspicion or were outright illegal, because it might start this bootstrapping process. Then before you know it, people start to act. This is probably one reason that gatherings protests are useful to -- achieve this effect. It can be done online, but a lot of communication is non-verbal, it's how people say things, how they act, dress, tone of voice, etc.
- vehementi 9y ago
  The "common sense" part means that I know that you know that I know that you know that I know that you know...
taurath 9y ago
The conversation ends up being "is is shitty? yeah its shitty. fuck it." which is the exact state of being that led to trump being elected.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  But also to the one that brought down the Berlin Wall.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes, and arguably to every revolution. Some were good, some were bad, and some were epically bad.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      Don’t forget the ones which led to good, but were epically bad to live through... France for example.
    - adrianratnapala 9y ago
      But in the case of bad revolutions, would the story have ended up any better if people had somehow maintained the spell of ignorance about the previous regime? I think it more likely that would just lead to an even worse revolution a bit further down the track.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        Democracy can produce horrible results. Dishonest and/or sociopathic demagogues can exploit dissatisfaction. In the US, for example, Presidential elections were designed to temper democracy, through the Electoral College. It's become restricted pretty much to tie breaking. But one can imagine situations where it would basically declare a cooling off period, by picking a caretaker President.

rdtsc 9y ago

> It also means that they all know everyone knows it, and know that everyone knows everyone knows it, ad infinitum. Well not ad-infinitum. Just 3 levels needed: 1. I know (think of a graph with one node A) 2. I know that the other knows (A -> B) 3. I know that the other knows, that I know (A <-> B). That's basically how common sense works, and it helps groups of people work as a group (solve problems, achieve a common goal). But first this bootstrapping is necessary. Anyway, in this particular case it is like political or ideological common sense ("the emperor doesn't have clothes"). That's why large gathering of people were looked at with suspicion or were outright illegal, because it might start this bootstrapping process. Then before you know it, people start to act. This is probably one reason that gatherings protests are useful to -- achieve this effect. It can be done online, but a lot of communication is non-verbal, it's how people say things, how they act, dress, tone of voice, etc.

vehementi 9y ago
The "common sense" part means that I know that you know that I know that you know that I know that you know...

taurath 9y ago

The conversation ends up being "is is shitty? yeah its shitty. fuck it." which is the exact state of being that led to trump being elected.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
But also to the one that brought down the Berlin Wall.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Yes, and arguably to every revolution. Some were good, some were bad, and some were epically bad.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Don’t forget the ones which led to good, but were epically bad to live through... France for example.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    But in the case of bad revolutions, would the story have ended up any better if people had somehow maintained the spell of ignorance about the previous regime? I think it more likely that would just lead to an even worse revolution a bit further down the track.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Democracy can produce horrible results. Dishonest and/or sociopathic demagogues can exploit dissatisfaction. In the US, for example, Presidential elections were designed to temper democracy, through the Electoral College. It's become restricted pretty much to tie breaking. But one can imagine situations where it would basically declare a cooling off period, by picking a caretaker President.