Thursday, November 15, 2012

The Flood and the Algorithmic Ark, Part IV: the Fourth Letter



The fourth letter. I won’t tell you which one. I should have said “character” because that opens the door to the entire keyboard, including those little characters seldom, if ever, used. Who knows what all those keys mean anyway? They add no clarity, only confusion, like the notorious backslash in s/he. An ugly hybrid, a sterile offspring of mismatched species. I’ll use the term “character”  next time and let your imagination follow. The curtain will open and all the characters will parade out in their make-up and costumes. Characters, not reality, not real people, not the kind you can touch or kiss or caress. No, on the computer all is virtual, which means empty and a sham. Nothing here but code, a binary digital code in which the world is reduced to on/off, either/or, yes/no. The black and white sort of world that broaches no middling ground. The place of politics and bifurcation. A binary world of extremes.  The judgment seat of God with the goats on one hand and the sheep on the other.

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