User:Old Dickens

Verse

What if the stories were true? What if there really were Vampires and Werewolves and Wizards and Witches who really could turn you into a toad, or make you think they had? Suppose Nick and Nora Charles were the most powerful couple in the country...

There is a story that the world is a disc borne on the backs of four elephants which stand on the carapace of an enormous turtle. In one corner of the Multiverse (the one farthest from Reality) this, too, is true. This is where the story creates the history and a one-in-a-million chance turns up nine times out of ten and the ocean falls into space around the rim without depleting itself. On the Discworld, "what if?" must be answered, the stories lived, the myth made real.

Tales from this remote universe arrived regularly via inspiration particles intercepting the particularly receptive and talented brain of Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to sort, file and illuminate the elements of these chronicles in this little corner of the vast library of L-space. Just don't forget your ball of string.

Bridge

When I were a lad (and this was a long time ago, O best beloved) back in the early days of mass communication, I espoused the idea that advertising would soon become irrelevant. The constant exposure of the younger generation to preposterous lies and deception would surely cause more critical thinking and such propaganda would become ineffective. I have of course been wrong a typical number of times over the years but this is probably my greatest miscalculation.

Fake news certainly goes back to renaissance times and the advent of newspapers, and perhaps to the classical era; some "holy" books dictated by gods and describing some very unlikely events may be even older. The concept isn't new, but the internet has created opportunities for many more hoaxers to speak to a vastly wider audience. Similarly to my old misapprehension, many thought that the freedom of communication it offered would allow the vox populi to counter state and commercial propaganda and bring about a new age of enlightenment. Surely the freedom for everyone to find information, debate and refute lies would improve the general understanding of local, national and commercial affairs and we could make more rational decisions.

"They" were wrong as well. More information doesn't create more knowledge until it's analysed and correlated The problem isn't in the supply side, it's in the desire of so many people to believe what they want to be true, the unwillingness to use the resources available to find actual evidence, and the refusal to accept actual evidence when it's thrust upon them. This isn't a new revelation, either; there are ancient adages like "there are none so blind as those who will not see". Until a way is found to teach curiosity, rational self-interest (Ayn Rand had an idea there but she was confused as to what it was) and logical thinking I don't see any hope for improvement.

Chorus

I sometimes sit and laugh giddily at the mere existence of some Pratchett characters (Carrot Ironfoundersson, say) and the reality he creates out of the absurd stereotype. This is often toward the end of the bottle of wine, but still, it suggests how he's different from other writers I have followed. There are now more than a thousand Discworld characters described here, and that's not all.

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Made a sysop for the many good contributions --Sanity 01:34, 19 August 2006 (CEST)