“Cognitohazards”, fnords and things that would fry your brain… #Climatechange

Short post: should be working.

Lunch yesterday with an old friend (my oldest in the UK?). Found myself ranting (cough, cough) about the lies we need to tell ourselves to get through the day/up the greasy poles etc. “If you woke up every morning saying to yourself ‘I am a basically powerless individual living in a system that is driving us into an accelerating sixth extinction and the destruction of, well, everything’ – then it might drive you mad. Far safer to think that ‘well, the people in charge are mostly on top of the problems, and I as an individual can contribute by voting, or even writing to my political representative.'”

I could have gone on about fnords and so on.

Anyhoos, today learned the term ‘cognitohazards‘, based on the ‘basilisk‘ term of UK sci-fi writer David Langford. [or maybe infohazards – I may come back to this, if/when have more time and care.]

We see what we know is safe to see. We believe what we believe is safe to believe. This is human knowledge that is there in all the old myths. Lately though, the Enlightenment (18th century onwards) wants us to think that everything can and must be seen.

To work.