Mathematicians

often prove a theorem stated in positive way such as "this premise implies that conclusion" by assuming that although the premises are indeed taken as true, the conclusion is actually false. With a little bit of logical reasoning, and perhaps some algebra, one then derives a contradiction such as "in that case the premises whose truth we posited would instead be false" or even "why then this basic axiom or rule of logic we know and rely on as true would then be false after all". That is, we arrive at an impossibility (something that is both true and false at the same time), thus the assumption that the theorem was false cannot be, so it must therefore in fact be true (proof by contradiction). Mathematicians often find this an easier and more productive route to a conclusion than is creating a constructive proof.

Life, commerce, and politics however, seems quite comfortable presenting us with such very dilemmas--two truths that are, or seem to be, mutually contradictory.

Starting on the topic cautiously, Apple for instance, has long been known for producing very high quality products, but whose price is therefore commensurately equally high. Professionals in fields that require fast, high quality, reliable, long lasting computers and related gear, and those who do the price per year of useful life calculation therefore tend to buy Apple's products. Those willing to put up with slower, lower quality, less reliable, and shorter-lived technology products, albeit carrying seemingly attractive initial price tags, and who don't perform the price per year of life computation, or the corporate or government purchasers whose herd mentality trumps both logic and the bottom line, all tend to stick with lower quality, shorter lasting, lower up-front cost PCs, and simply budget for their short life and soon replacement. No knock on individuals here; the Spy understands that for some people, logic dictates cheap and disposable, and for others quality and more expensiive. The oddity would be trying to execute cheap and good quality in a single product line.

So the news that Apple will now market a MacBook "Neo" starting at $599 (U.S.) using the A18 Pro chip (~ iPhone 16 Pro) in a 13 inch format, targeting the more budget conscious market comes as a surprise sharp turn in Apple's traditional marketing. This novel baby book will have retina display, 8G of RAM, a 512G SSD and advertised battery life of 16 hours (reality of course is always a short[er] story). Storage space is too constrained for the likes of the Spy, but the performance should outpace some Mac Book M4 machines at the lower end of that line--at least if, like most people, you do not require multi-core processing). Hey, this little monster should beat the specs out from under nearly every PC priced under a grand, and makes Apple not just a player in the budget market, but empowers the possibility of Cupertino owning that segment going forward--except for the corporate crowd of course, which like many others, is predictably reluctant to change any course on which it embarks, lest it become seen as having been mistaken. come to think of it, when have you ever heard of a supposed leader, whether of a political, corporate, non-profit, or Church entity, admit (s)he was/did wrong without giving the impression that the confession was wrung out of him or her under extreme duress. Hmmm. Multiple simultaneous sets of cognitive disonance.

One thing Amazon has been known for

is its quick, efficient, reliable delivery service. But these days, in urban environments, the porch pirates have taken to following its vehicles around and helping themselves to the goods before the delivery driver is out of sight. Since their vans are quite distinctive, perhaps its time to switch to unmarked, randomly sourced vehicles as a partial solution. Worst case scenario, they transform their warehouses (one is but a seven minute drive from the Spy's quiet rural manse at the end of a dead end street) by adding pickup counters, and the attendant long lineups.

His latest delivery (yesterday) went awry for a different reason. The parcel arrived while he was at the academic salt mine, digging for comprehension with his mathematics students who these days all too often come very ill-prepared for the rigorous work of academic thought.

The driver eschewed the dry, covered, out-of-sight-from-the-road front porch located but steps away from where he must have stopped, and instead of walking those few steps, set the parcel down right on the driveway between the two garage doors, where cover is high and minimal, so the cardboard box was in full sight of the road, and also that of the pouring rain, which has a seeing eye of its own for cardboard left out in the open. By the time the Spy arrived home, the box was sodden. He managed to get it inside without it falling apart and spewing its contents, but was not a happy camper. Fortunately, it contained a powder coated metal monitor tower and arms to support the move of his computer station into the new office he's building at the other end of the basement from the old one. Damage is therefore likely to be minimal or nonexistent, but he'll unpack it on the weekend (day after tomorrow), dry out the parts and assemble it, even though he's not quite ready for that part of the move. (A later update: It appears to be intact, just a little damp.)

He did contact the usually reliable Amazon of course, and was promised a $10 credit towards his next purchase for the trouble, and that the rep had by the end of the conversation contacted the delivery service in question. OK, but then, the chat software abruptly pivoted by dumping that associate, bringing another on whose automatic response was to check the previous conversation, time out, repeat, time out and repeat again, etc. By the fourth no show, the Spy gave up, assuming a resolution, but leaving a message for the fifth (hypothetical) one wherein he wondered if the connection was that flakey because they were actually located on the far side of Mars. So he now holds two contradictory thought about Amazon: reliable/unreliable. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Oh, but since writing that, a fifth rep signed on, virtually talked a while, checked the earlier correspondence, gave the Spy a link to upload a picture of the dirty, but now dried out box, and provided a further refund. Nice. He did have to fire up trusty Graphics Converter and turn the pic into a jpeg, though. Flakey web site that. If I were they, I'd find new developers who knew to write working code. Or, did a cognitively dissonent A.I write it?

Now if our reader

can actually keep four interesting non-contradictory ideas in her mind at once, Saturday March 14th is of course the start of a sequence of four very special calendar days, for 3 14 is pi day; 3 15 is the ides of March, anniversary of the time Big Julie was bumped off in 44 BC (see Wayne and Shuster's skit "Rinse the Blood off my Toga"); 3 16 reminds one of John 3:16 and of famous computing scientist Donald Knuth's evocative book by that very title, and finally, 3 17 is of course St. Patrick's day, allegedly more celebrated in North America than on the ol' sod itsel'. So the Spy offers, at this auspicious season:
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand

Hey, now our reader has the dissonance of a blessing amidst a treatise on dissonance. (S)he is welcome to explore her dissonances (hey, we all have them) at leisure.

So, let us pivot our minds to others,

as the Spy ponders why a certain fellow who covets a peace price for allegedly stopping varying numbers of wars (whether known or imagined) would himself pivot to starting one--indeed a war that has no apparent way to end, and no obviously discernible or achievable goal but mass destruction, and that by raising oil prices he costs everyone substantial sums while equally benefiting only Russia (whose embargo he contradictorily wants to lift to reduce oil prices); why he contradictorily excoriates and punishes long time allies for bogus reasons, yet demands they join him in said pointless war; how it is that he is so reluctant to aid Ukraine against an aggressive invader, yet threatens other countries with like treatment, and even finds his own armies need Ukraine's hard won anti-drone expertise; why someone who claims he's lowering consumer prices imposes import taxes his own people must pay (tariffs are not paid by the exporting nation, but by the importers, and they have to pass some or all to customers), why in particular he alienates farmers, some of his main supporters, by taxing potash imports and deporting migrant workers, so his good ol' buds cannot afford fertilizer, and even if they plant, have no one to hire as pickers, because too many of their potential candidates for said work are either in detention, already deported (both sent to no one knows where), or are too frightened to show up for work lest they be kidnapped by a government agency fuelled by the hatred, racism, and lies of its leaders. Actual statistics on the matter have shown for decades that immigrants on the whole are less likely to commit serious crimes than long term citizens.

Then there's the dissonance of the same man who claims elections he's clearly lost were rigged, yet is actively planning to thoroughly and openly rig the next one to ensure his supporters cannot lose. Oh, then there's the bridge to Canada for which he demands to be reimbursed--yes that cross-border one for which a Canadian Province footed the entire bill, a project that sourced steel and workers from both countries; where the owner and toll taker of an existing bridge lobbied a colleague of his, by sheer coincidence??? only hours before he threatened to prevent the new bridge from opening unless his demands were met. Finally there's the dissonance of his supporters, at least some of whom are beginning to realize they've been conned. Time for the general public to tell the apprentice dictator "you're fired"?

Many of said supporters claim to be evangelical Christians, i.e. part of the kingdom of God, yet show a second and far more serious form of cognitive dissonance than the political, for OTOH they purport to well know the God of love, yet OTOH actually love only those alike them in thinking, and much more important, ethnicity, particularly when delineated by one's skin colour, which is probably the least important characteristic defining who a person is. Moreover, their thought leaders (these days called "influencers") who huddle with them in the same dark group think corner network platforms, can tell their followers to eschew empathy for anyone outside their self-imposed thought prisons, and are free, even encouraged, to hate instead of love many of their neighbours. Isn't this an instance of the class of those who claim to see yet are blind? How about some Science here. The variances in genes that code things like skin, eye, and hair colour are trivial. Differences such as those have about the same importance as the ones coding for the shape of ones toes or nose or, whether one likes hot or cold cereal for breakfast (well, perhaps that is epigenetic or learned), or prefers favours historical romances over alternate history SF. Fact check: Of humans there is but one race--the Human Race.

As a second instance of the same kind the Spy offers up a tale told here before--the one about the computing/IT coordinator for a large School District who commented to him one day: "Praise the Lord for pirated software. I run the whole school district on it." Now there was yet another person whose never even tried to integrate faith and practice and managed to hold to two contradictory ethical standards at once. How is that even possible? Yet it seems to happen a lot.

Another form of dissonance,

as the Spy has pointed out several times in this space, was exhibited by those who prophesied the coming of instant communication via a world wide frictionless communication network, thus bringing people of different nationality, ethnicity, religion and politics together in a single happy and cooperative global village of increasingly likeminded people. "No," responded the Spy, to summarize his various warnings issued as far back as the 80's, what putting sharply differing peoples face to face will instead tend to do is draw the tribal lines more sharply, highlight their physiological (cosmetic) differences, diverse economic prosperities and old grudges, thus exacerbating each others' real and perceived otherness, and thereby increase the likelihood of new wars driven by envy, hate, vengeance, score settling, and greed for each others' possessions, including their territory and/or resources. Sometimes it's just one of history's typical self-touted "glorious leaders" indulging his self-aggrandizement at the expense of a neighbour. Imagine a far future introduction: "Hey," (names of any specific leaders redacted because only the person who runs the DOEJ* both knows and has the right to judge). "You'll be good buddies down there. You all thought alike in life--hated your neighbours and coveted their land and valuable resources. Now, you get what you've earned-you'll be fired--for all eternity."

But the Spy apparently tried

to keep two ideas in his own thinking that he should have realized were also dissonant. See, while understanding that what he optimistically called the Metalibrary (and so far has only become the Internet) would exacerbate differences, he managed simultaneously to entertain the kind of information age where created works on the net carried accounting tags. Read what someone has created and your account is debited and the creator's credited the same amount. Even citations get something, and a work composed that includes portions of a previous work gets trickle down credit. If a joint paper with several authors, each may earn some microcredits; if a book, or by the lead on a big-research project, then at least a buck or two. Journals would all be online for fast dissemination, and works would carry reliability indices as trusted editors and/or certified experts chimed in to construct their significance rating on various works via their opinions on reliability and potential, thus adding to or subtracting from its initial assessment by the publisher or editor, per everyone's own reputations and how they view the work in question--a free for all in a different sense, for money would flow for created works, but reputation (and price?) would be built by networks of trust and respect.

What has actually happened thus far is:
(a) "freedom of information" has been redefined to mean everything is free to anyone and everyone, so it is harder for literary and scientific works to be either protected from pirates or monetized by its creators. Not so for homemade porn or semi-porn, reportedly, but that should come as no surprise;
(b) many universities particularly in the public sector, institutions that are supposedly centres where the great ideas of humankind are examined and debated, so students learn how to think clearly about hard things, have instead become centres for indoctrination in very specific political and social views, to the detriment of true education;
(c) though when it is employed carefully it can be useful, individuals or corporate entities who fail to be wary can readily fall victims to scammers, scalpers, thieves, vandals, fraudsters, and intruders seeking at least to either to recruit suckers, single computers, or an entire enterprise's IT assets into their botnet, or worse, to vandalize or kidnap data for ransom; and
(d) rather than a robust "information age", so far we have collectively created disinformation chaos. No wonder that when an AI is given uncurated access to its own past bad answers, and the plethora of falsehoods and contradictions parading enthusiastically through the dimly lit back streets, sewers, and garbage dumps of the Internet, it eventually goes mad.

The way the current Internet and its discussion rooms in particular, are constructed and used, not only further exacerbates political, social, religious, cultural, and national divisions, but also slices truth itself piecemeal, with each tunnel vision, echo chamber groupthink fragment of the population claiming universal absolute truth for its insular and inbred memes, and vilifying all who fail to fall precisely in line with their current riff on reality. What's more, as well illustrated by the MAGA bunch itself now fragmenting, the slicing and dicing of groupthink truths continually generates finer, sharper, more intense distinctions between those "truth sets". Will we end up with eight billion one-person tribes, each at war of at least words with all the others? Has the Information age pregnancy not merely failed as yet to come to term, but altogether miscarried and become barren in the process?

The only solution the Spy can think of if we want to go in a new and better direction: A new, separate, and private, more academic Internet holding only rigorously fact-checked data curated by editors who are respected experts in their fields, and who, most importantly, welcome debates on contradictory views on the meaning of factual matters, so long as the various proponents aren't abusive. An A.I. allowed in would be walled off from accessing the current disinformation Internet.

Enough of trying to think contradictorily positively negatively simultaneously about social, political, economic, ethical, and/or technological issues and their interactions. Read his textbook (see links below) for more of that, but keep in mind he now wishes he had been less positive (but not as yet entirely negative) about the prospects for an Information Age. His novels maintain a better balance. But, for now, the Spy confusedly and dissonantly signs off till next month.

--The Northern Spy

Opinions expressed here are entirely the author's own, and no endorsement is implied by any community or organization to which he may be attached. Rick Sutcliffe (a.k.a. The Northern Spy) is Professor of Computing Science and Mathematics and Assistant Dean of Science at Canada's Trinity Western University. He completed his fifty-fifth year as a high school and university teacher in 2025. He has been involved as a member of or consultant with the boards of several commercial, nonprofit, and/or educational organizations and participated in developing industry computing and educational standards both nationally and internationally. He is a long-time technology author and has written two textbooks and ten alternate history SF novels, one named the best ePublished SF novel for 2003. His various columns have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers (both dead tree and online formats) since the early 1980s, and he's been a regular participant and speaker at churches, schools, and academic meetings and conferences. He is a half-century-long member of the IEEE (life member), ACM, and MAA. He and his wife Joyce celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 2019 and lived in the Langley/Aldergrove/Bradner area of B.C. from 1969 to 2021 when cancer happened and she left for heaven, so he latterly continues, depending heavily on family and friends to manage.

URL s for Rick Sutcliffe's Arjay Enterprises:

The Northern Spy Home Page: https://www.TheNorthernSpy.com

opundo : https://opundo.com

Sheaves Christian Resources : https://sheaves.org

WebNameHost : https://www.WebNameHost.net

WebNameSource : https://www.WebNameSource.net

nameman : https://nameman.net

General URLs for Rick Sutcliffe's Books:

Author Site: https://www.arjay.ca

TechEthics Site (Fourth edition of text; the fifth has been released; site redesigned.) : https://www.arjaybooks.com/EthTech/index.htm

Publisher's Site: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Richard-Sutcliffe.html

URLs for the newest edition of the Issues Text:

Wipf&Stock site for his 4Civ textbook Volume One: https://wipfandstock.com/9798385226818/the-fourth-civilization-volume-one/

Wipf&Stock site for his 4Civ textbook Volume Two: https://wipfandstock.com/9798385232932/the-fourth-civilization-volume-two/