CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-When writing began in Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago, lying was not part of it. Today, one of the main uses of writing is to lie, lie, and then lie some more.
Earliest Writing was Three Dimensional
In an era where writing has been reduced to alternating 0s and 1s, we forget that writing, originally, was three dimensional.
When one sold 15 jars of olive oil in return for 15 sheep, both merchants needed a way to keep track of their wares and how many they sold to another person. Thus, a jar of olive oil became a token similar to the ones we use in Monopoly. In addition to the tiny metal objects we move about the board, Monopoly uses the three-dimensional writing from 10,000 years ago for houses and hotels. If you have one house on Marvin Gardens, you have one tiny green house. If you have four houses, then you place four tiny green houses on Marvin Gardens. Yes, when you play Monopoly, you are using the earliest form of writing, three dimensional objects.
One use of writing was to know how much to charge other people. “Let’s see, two houses on Marvin Gardens, you owe me $360.” For about 6,500 years, writing remained like these tokens; this allowed an owner to keep track of his stuff. As George Carlin used to explain, stuff is extremely important to people.
Three-Dimensional Writing Makes Lying Difficult
When writing was limited to tokens, using one token for each jar and a different token for each sheep, lying was difficult. All one had to do was count the tokens. The count of the tokens and the count of the actual items had better be the same. Also, these tokens had a great advantage in trade – their meanings were independent of the words each language used for oil, sheep, cooper, etc.
Later, merchants discovered that pictures of the tokens were better than the actual tokens. Thus, people started using impressed pictures of the tokens on clay tablets which quickly became squiggles. Then, they realized that inventing a sign for the number of oil jars was better than etching the same number of squiggles as there were jars of oil. Thus, 20 oil jars could be represented as two images rather than 20.
How Did People Become So Enamored with Written Lies?
The origin of lying is not found in writing itself. Writing has merely become an excellent means to communicate lies. Although I was not around when the transition from tokens to abstract writing occurred, it is likely that when “writing” was limited to tokens people came to accept the written word (i.e. the tokens) as correct. The main reason would be that a written lie would be easily detected and too hard to deny. A lie that is immediately uncovered conveys no benefit on the liar. Thus, one may theorize that in the beginning of narrative writing, people had a preconceived concept that whatever was written was true.
Calling the King a Liar is Dangerous
As the kings took to lying in writing about their exploits, correcting the record was no doubt dangerous. In 1274 BCE, Ramesses II of Egypt lost a significant battle to the Hittites at a town known as Kadesh in modern day Syria. Ramesses proclaimed his defeat as a great victory. First, his fictionalized victory was etched into the stone of monuments and temple walls and then was written on papyrus as a poem so that his Fake News could be disseminated far and wide. No one in Egypt erected an obelisk with a correct version of Ramesses II’s defeat at Kadesh.
Not Much Changed between 3,500 BCE and December 4, 1881
There was no significant change in the use of writing between the erection of the lying obelisks and the founding of the Los Angeles Times on December 4, 1881. Both presented mixtures of fact and fantasy employed for the aggrandizement of the rich and powerful. If there are any recent developments, it is the extent to which readers are willing to believe the most absurd nonsense. We have reached the point where undisputed fact is denied in favor of endorsing an obvious lie. The count of people at Trump’s inauguration showed that more people did not attend than attended Barack Obama’s inauguration. Yet, millions of people look at the actual video footage and nonetheless believe Trump’s lies.
Likewise, Truth-telling Wins No Medals in the World According to Garcetti
Have you ever heard of Skype? What about Cisco’s Telepresence ©? Or Portal? Ya know, those TV advertisements about the ugly Xmas sweater contest? Well, sorry to break the news to you, but in the world of Garcetti, just like Ramesses II’s defeat a Kadesh, none of those things exist. Nor does telecommuting.
In 2015 following in the footsteps of Ramesses II, pharaoh Garcetti issued his Mobility Plan 2035 to set in stone Los Angeles’ transportation infrastructure for the next 50 years. In comparison to Garcetti, Ramesses II looks like a compulsive truth teller. While Ramesses at least admitted that Kadesh existed, Garcetti refused to admit that Skype, TelePresence, or Virtual Presence like Google Chat exist. Why? Reality destroys the false narrative that his developer buddies need to construct hundreds of billions of dollars in more fixed rail mass transit.
Use of Virtual Presence has been rapidly growing, while mass transit ridership has been declining since the 1980s. When Portal and other forms of Virtual Presence become widespread within a year or so, even fewer people will subject themselves to the hardship and risks of mass transit. Virtual Presence is not limited to telecommuting, but soon can be used to visit Virtual Stores which will be a quantum leap ahead of the mere lists from which we select items today. Adult children will be able to visit their elderly parents in nursing homes whether the home is a few miles away in Reseda or back in Bayonne, New Jersey.
If it weren’t for the constant stream of Fake News from Garcetti, the Los Angeles Times and from the various sycophantic TV outlets, Angelenos might be able to start making reasonable decisions about how to spend their money. We could replace our water system rather than giving $200 billion to Wall Street to finance obsolete subways and light rail.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
