Thread by @JoohnChoe

You might have a feeling, looking at a complex issue flattened to a sound bite, that there's some basic lie being told.

But it seems like a subjective distinction; it seems "squishy", like it's going to change depending on who's looking.

That feeling is valid, and not squishy.

Start with some basic combinations.

If we have two "toy" alphabets, we can observe some basic rules with them.

The difference in information entropy, or, to oversimplify (again), complexity, is very simple in these terms:

It's the difference in informational value for a letter from a 3-letter alphabet, versus a letter from a 9-letter alphabet.

It's quantifiable.

That's all the math we need to do, relax :)

We get a fairly quick and interesting payout from that math:

We can start to use it to decode art and, by extension, memes.

What we're getting from this walk through math-land and into art, is a way of understanding something that's very hard to pin-down for most people; really, damn near ineffable.

What you're getting, fundamentally, is reaffirmation of your gut instinct - your "bullshit detector".

It's like, sometimes you just feel like there's something *gut-instinct wrong* about seeing an issue flattened to a neat little phrase, or a gesture, or a stupid expression.

There is a basis to that.

That's a sign of something.

In these operations we're running on #parmesanGirl, and now #brie, where we're identifying and calling out large-scale lies (e.g., disinformation) you know that feeling you get sometimes, like, "it can't be this simple & easy?"

That feeling is not only valid, it's quantifiable.

fixed slide:

I'll stop breaking the thread :)