3 ms·

There was also a real-life scare in the 70s around "polywater" [1][2] that some people worried could "infect" other water. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po

There was also a real-life scare in the 70s around "polywater" [1][2] that some people worried could "infect" other water. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater [2] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-soviet-scientific-secret-that-made-the-world-gulp https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polywater-the-soviet-s...

scruple 9y ago
That Wikipedia article is great. I love the introduction paragraph. > By 1969 the popular press had taken notice and sparked fears of a "polywater gap" in the USA. I find it illuminating to understand that "journalists," or the "popular press," were ratcheting up the "fear sells" / fake news bullshit at least as far back as 1969 (and I'm sure it goes back much further). If you were ignorant, and I certainly am, you would think that this is a wholly new phenomenon. I mean, that is what the same "popular press" is telling us today, right?
- Kalium 9y ago
  You might find it informative to read up on the long and inglorious history of "Yellow Journalism". Fearmongering was a time-honored business model for a long time.
- njarboe 9y ago
  There was even a phrase coined in the 1890's for such journalism; "Yellow Journalism[1]" From the wikipedia article. Frank Luther Mott (of the same era) on the five main characteristics of yellow journalism: 1. Scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news 2. Lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings 3. Use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts 4. Emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips 5. Dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.
- saeranv 9y ago
  I think it's inaccurate and unhelpful to blame the "popular press" and contributes to making a false equivalence about the role of journalism to today's toxic politics (which I find very frustrating). Such a phrase can include everything from: NYTimes, popular tabloids, Fox and Friends, Fox news InfoWars, Slate, the Economist etc etc. There's a huge range of journalistic integrity and quality in that. For all its mistakes, let's not equate the new york times with fox and friends...
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Look up the history of media and its role intersecting with the rise of Fascism and Nazism, the various earlier revolutions in Europe (particularly "The Year of Revolutions", 1840, in which there were fifty revolutions throughought Europe and South America), the not-quite-a-revolution Chartist movement in England, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, large aspects of the Reformation / Counter-Reformation (including the 30 Years War), the de Witt brothers' lynching in the Netherlands, the history and background of the Catholic Inquisition (dating from ~850 AD to the 1960s), and the experience of the Romans and Greeks with demagoguery (literally "a man of the people", but which rapidly acquired the connotation of "rabble rouser"), and the tradition of Socrates / Plato / Aristotle vs. the Sophists (from which: sophistry, sophomore, and sophisticated). It's almost as if there's some fundamental social-system dynamic by which information, information mediation, cognitive capabilities (particularly at the population level), and other information-theoretic and psychological dynamics are deeply rooted in human, and arguably all systems function. A good capsule summary of this is H.L. Mencken's brief "Brayard vs. Lionheart", written of the 1926 U.S. presidential election, from which the infamous line about an idiot someday being elected to the office is found, but whose real value is in clearly describing the dynamic. And also, IMO, tying it to Gresham's Law.
wizardforhire 9y ago
Thank you! Almost anyone could have just made a cat's cradle reference. You went straight to the source and elevated the conversation in the process. >The story "Polywater Doodle" by Howard L. Myers (writing under the pseudonym "Dr. Dolittle") appeared in the February 1971 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. It features an animal composed entirely of polywater, with the metabolism described by Richard Feynman. (The title of the story is a pun on "Polly Wolly Doodle".) There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish Feyman was still alive to help slash through the nonsense.
- traek 9y ago
  > Thank you! Almost anyone could have just made a cat's cradle reference. You went straight to the source and elevated the conversation in the process. Polywater wasn't the "source" for Cat's Cradle. The book was published in 1963 and (per Wikipedia) the West didn't take notice of polywater until 1966 at the earliest.
twic 9y ago
Reading that lead me down a minor rabbithole about "pathological science", and to this entertaining and technically pretty chewy talk from 1953: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm

scruple 9y ago

That Wikipedia article is great. I love the introduction paragraph. > By 1969 the popular press had taken notice and sparked fears of a "polywater gap" in the USA. I find it illuminating to understand that "journalists," or the "popular press," were ratcheting up the "fear sells" / fake news bullshit at least as far back as 1969 (and I'm sure it goes back much further). If you were ignorant, and I certainly am, you would think that this is a wholly new phenomenon. I mean, that is what the same "popular press" is telling us today, right?

Kalium 9y ago
You might find it informative to read up on the long and inglorious history of "Yellow Journalism". Fearmongering was a time-honored business model for a long time.
njarboe 9y ago
There was even a phrase coined in the 1890's for such journalism; "Yellow Journalism[1]" From the wikipedia article. Frank Luther Mott (of the same era) on the five main characteristics of yellow journalism: 1. Scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news 2. Lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings 3. Use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts 4. Emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips 5. Dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.
saeranv 9y ago
I think it's inaccurate and unhelpful to blame the "popular press" and contributes to making a false equivalence about the role of journalism to today's toxic politics (which I find very frustrating). Such a phrase can include everything from: NYTimes, popular tabloids, Fox and Friends, Fox news InfoWars, Slate, the Economist etc etc. There's a huge range of journalistic integrity and quality in that. For all its mistakes, let's not equate the new york times with fox and friends...
dredmorbius 9y ago
Look up the history of media and its role intersecting with the rise of Fascism and Nazism, the various earlier revolutions in Europe (particularly "The Year of Revolutions", 1840, in which there were fifty revolutions throughought Europe and South America), the not-quite-a-revolution Chartist movement in England, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, large aspects of the Reformation / Counter-Reformation (including the 30 Years War), the de Witt brothers' lynching in the Netherlands, the history and background of the Catholic Inquisition (dating from ~850 AD to the 1960s), and the experience of the Romans and Greeks with demagoguery (literally "a man of the people", but which rapidly acquired the connotation of "rabble rouser"), and the tradition of Socrates / Plato / Aristotle vs. the Sophists (from which: sophistry, sophomore, and sophisticated). It's almost as if there's some fundamental social-system dynamic by which information, information mediation, cognitive capabilities (particularly at the population level), and other information-theoretic and psychological dynamics are deeply rooted in human, and arguably all systems function. A good capsule summary of this is H.L. Mencken's brief "Brayard vs. Lionheart", written of the 1926 U.S. presidential election, from which the infamous line about an idiot someday being elected to the office is found, but whose real value is in clearly describing the dynamic. And also, IMO, tying it to Gresham's Law.

wizardforhire 9y ago

Thank you! Almost anyone could have just made a cat's cradle reference. You went straight to the source and elevated the conversation in the process. >The story "Polywater Doodle" by Howard L. Myers (writing under the pseudonym "Dr. Dolittle") appeared in the February 1971 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. It features an animal composed entirely of polywater, with the metabolism described by Richard Feynman. (The title of the story is a pun on "Polly Wolly Doodle".) There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish Feyman was still alive to help slash through the nonsense.

traek 9y ago
> Thank you! Almost anyone could have just made a cat's cradle reference. You went straight to the source and elevated the conversation in the process. Polywater wasn't the "source" for Cat's Cradle. The book was published in 1963 and (per Wikipedia) the West didn't take notice of polywater until 1966 at the earliest.

twic 9y ago

Reading that lead me down a minor rabbithole about "pathological science", and to this entertaining and technically pretty chewy talk from 1953: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm