Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens
journals.sagepub.com
journals.sagepub.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33773093 (87 comments 10 months)
Critical ignoring as a core competence for digital citizens (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37428937 - Sept 2023 (134 comments)
Also related:
Critical ignoring as a core competence for digital citizens (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34647146 - Feb 2023 (2 comments)
Critical ignoring as a core competence for digital citizens - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33773093 - Nov 2022 (84 comments)
It would help a lot if you had support networks to nudge you in the right direction. For me it's often as simple as asking "why do you even care about this?" or "why is this so important to you?". And that realization and consideration can often snap people out.
As someone who participates a lot in online discussions, sometimes people get into really unproductive discourse which keeps going around in circles, so I think it's useful to have norms around refocusing the conversation and reminding people of their core values.
It's also useful to give yourself a limit to how deeply you're willing to engage on certain topics with Internet strangers, especially if you don't see the conversation going anywhere productive or meaningful after a while. The ability to walk away is a superpower. When you achieve enlightenment you gain the ability to let people be wrong on the internet without it bothering you.
> "why do you even care about this?" or "why is this so important to you?"
to
> "Why do you even care/talk about this shit so much? What's the issue?"
I see it a lot online ; as a mean of emphasis I think but it doesn't sound better to me.
This:
> "why do you even care about this?" or "why is this so important to you?"
doesn't mean we stop the conversation, thinking about why the issue is important to us sometimes means we give a more pertinent/deep answer.
I would imagine that to OP the purpose of using the world 'shit' isn't condescending or to detract fro the importance of the topic, it's meant to be more personable, to directly engage the person you're talking with in a casual way.
I find that HN often penalizes users when they write the way that people often speak.
Well, I can live with that but I don't think it extends to writings on forums, social networks, the internet at large. Of course it depends of the audience (as always) (pluss the medium is the message).
> I would imagine that to OP the purpose of using the world 'shit' isn't condescending or to detract fro the importance of the topic, it's meant to be more personable, to directly engage the person you're talking with in a casual way.
There's that. There's also the possibility of implying that any online discourse is shit (which is an opinion I can hear yet disagree with but ok).
> I find that HN often penalizes users when they write the way that people often speak.
Written and oral English aren't exactly the same language although they have a lot in common (at the very least the rules differ a bit). I'd venture to guess that sentence structures and overall discourse (I mean: the way they use the language to achieve communication, not the grammatical rules to form comprehensive sentences) of someone who swears still show differences between oral and written expression.
Anyway, I am guilty of downvoting comments with too much swear words (because it's noise to me and it's distracting from the topic at hand, either because I have to factor the wow factor into the arguments or to ignore it when it's just how people express themselves).
Funny thing that happened once: I added a "and... language please ?" in my reply to a comment with foul language and the counter reply was "what are you... a child ?". I left it at that but that's precisely because I am an adult that I don't want to discuss using too much swear words.. but I can see how the reverse could be valid for someone else.
In real life, I swear wayyyyyy too much.
Some good meals (professional conversations) don't need them.
Basic meals (casual conversation) are almost always better with them.
Too much is bad for your heart, but they tend to improve the flavor of a discourse.
If I'm being glib, I would say that's a sign of mental illness where there's not a code-switching economic/practical basis for doing so [hmm emoticon]
Here's a good start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_language#Comparison_wi... then maybe Variation and Change in Spoken and Written Discourse https://benjamins.com/catalog/ds.21 There's a whole field dedicated to that in linguistics, feel free to turn it upside down.
> I mean, to be candid, that actually is the case for me in a much different way that isn't relevant in this context and I don't care to discuss but you couldn't be more incorrect and inscrutably so with regard to this context.
Huhu.
This is my tactic as well. I'm in New England and a coworker was once distraught that someone dismantled a statue in the south. I asked if they had any idea that the statue existed beforehand? They did not.
I found out about many of the artifacts for the first time in [1] after they were destroyed and was still upset by it.
Your question does not adequately reflect why someone should or should not care about something.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_herita...
Eg someone's frustrated with some problem they're facing, to shift their attention from that they instead start ranting about an irrelevant problem elsewhere in the world. Then you go and shut them down by asking them why they care.
It's important to recognize that their anger being irrelevant towards the issue also means that there isn't much lost by letting them vent.
And it should be present anyplace there's a Like button. There should also be a way for the writer to get a sense for whether it's coming from people whose judgment they respect. (And (someday maybe) also a way to offer to compensate someone for their time, if they'll explain.)
But all of this is predicated on social media remaining viable.
I appreciate the need for clarity in writing, but I worry that our idealization of workmanlike language greatly narrows the range of what we can convey.
People have been communicating in writing for centuries and have invented a wealth of literary devices to communicate their thoughts more completely.
I do use sarcasm sometimes, but I feel like it is generally an attempt to score a win in an argument, not to persuade. And I’m not generally trying to persuade the person I am responding to, but the lurkers who read the comments.
I dont think that impressing third parties is really a healthy or useful goal for internet discourse. Omniscient/logical third-parties dont exist and the esteem of anonymous peers is hollow, so it usually reduces to self-aggrandizement and ego-stroking.
I dont even think it is helpful to approach discourse as arguments. The best approach IMHO is to strive for a mutual exchange of information.
Of course, this runs counter to most intuitive behaviors. As a result, you rarely see people asking questions to the opposition, aside from sarcasm, or Socratic debate.
Do you think persuasion is more valuable than being persuaded?
That said, treating discussions as a mutual exchange of information is precisely the thing that I find insufficient (outside the literal sense in which everything is a mere exchange of information).
Discussion is about persuasion and collective decision making. You can’t find truth and seek agreement just by collecting more data.
Rationalists seem to have the sense that we’re all just on the cusp of enlightenment, if we only had a bit more information. They refuse to accept the world as the messy and confusing thing that it is. But as I said, that’s not a point of view that I can dissuade anyone from directly. You can only sway people who aren’t personally invested in the subject.
Edit: Since you asked about being persuaded, I find that that my views change slowly and naturally as I think through the points I’m making and experience different things. Of course if someone could set me straight though an internet comment box that would be a great shortcut, but since we’ve all formed our points of view through a lifetime of experience it usually doesn’t work that way.
I agree most people's core values only shift slowly over time. However, most topics of discussion or debate are not about core values themselves. they are about loosely related topics bound by layers of assumptions and beliefs. This is where information sharing is important, and fundamental to learning.
I don't know that anyone can find truth without a process of learning.
On the other-hand, I don't see collective decision making and persuasion as a route to truth or learning at all.
I agree that rationalist oversimplify, and think that is basically because they already hold utilitarianism as a fundamental axiom. That said, I think the objective of being "less wrong" is a pretty good one.
I'm not sure what humanity is left with if we give up on truth or accuracy a mutual objective of discussion.
It’s not enough to just share information with each other, and lately the internet has made that increasingly less necessary. We need to test our ideas, subject them to collective scrutiny, and try to spread or adapt them in response to those of others. There aren’t always great forums to do that in, but I think it’s worthwhile in principle.
Unfortunately this is still engaging, and many people I've encountered online will not let things go after this. It's why people instead use downvotes for disagreement, I think. It lets them take a disagreeing action, but without anyone being able to single them out and rage at them all day for it (which is unfortunately common on social media)
I often find that if I disagree with someone and then don't want to engage further, I have to mute or block them entirely so they don't shit up my notifications for hours, each one a small little temptation to go re-engage.
It also helps to know nearly all things people think they know are extreme simplifications. (great pun) There is enough fuzzy logic to be wrong about almost anything. 1000 years from now, things we consider fact will be a laughing stock. It will be as funny as Jesus landing his space ship on the white house lawn.
I don't really see people reassessing their beliefs based on the number of down votes they get - even if some down voters are respected.
Maybe Im missing something, because your idea, sans id's, sounds like what sites like HN or reddit already have.
That said, what do you think about the idea that many sites already have what you described, including this one.
As the saying goes: have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
G. K. Chesterton
All resources, including my attention, are limited. We have to prune our gardens to create space for other things.
The alternative seems to be to be willing to converse about anything - I have goals and shit to do, I don’t need to deeply consider that maybe the moon landing was faked.
I think the "re-closing" of the mind here more represents fitting new information into a new holistic, consistent worldview. New information would obviously require that exercise again.
Chesterton is simply arguing against allowing yourself to be buffeted by the winds of thought trend, to the point you have no center.
It's absolutely a metaphor, just because you didn't understand it doesn't change the meaning the author conveyed. It's written in English, I'm not sure what point you think you are making by pointing that out.
> you could just as easily express the exact opposite point
So you didn't read my comment you replied to? You need new nutritive food each day, not junk or empty calories - the metaphor covers this exact scenario.
When you're eating every day do you just grab literally the first thing at hand and stuff your face until you're full? Or do you make conscious choices about what to put in your body?
If you're in the first camp you may not understand this metaphor - it's for people who consciously consume, both food and thoughts. If you mindlessly scroll and ideate, sorry you're the target of Chesterton's criticism - that doesn't make his metaphor bad, it just makes his argument valid.
> I guess you could print it on a coaster to put your "eat pray love" mug on
The irony, considering you're engaging with this quote at the same shallow level you claim to criticize.
G.K. Chesterton has an entire body of intellectual work consistent with the quote and metaphor extension I've done above - but you've decided to tilt at the windmill of a pithy quote as if it's synecdoche.
As a Christian apologist. His views were a foregone conclusion. No one who engages in such games deserves to be taken seriously.
This is completely "consistent" at least with so-called "Christian intellectuals", as they want other people to be "open minded" to their proselytizing while they themselves remain completely closed to the even possibility that they're completely wrong. They do not engage in good faith and see no problems with this because they consider their ultimate aims more important.
"For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever."
Other variations of the quote he told included an addendum: "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. Otherwise it is more akin to a sewer, taking in all things equally."
Neither of those relate to grounding his epistemology in Catholicism.
While I definitely agree his Christian apologia means a heavy dose of salt with intellectual claims, he's not even arguing for a moral center in this metaphor. Simply an intellectual self, to not be a gaping maw of consumption, as you wouldn't be physically.
Discernment with respect to ideas you're willing to entertain isn't exclusively the domain of religion, as far as I'm aware.
More often than not this important thing really is an experience of sublime beauty, another prescient part of the story. Not always. But often.
One of my favorite “methods” or whatever you want to call it I learned years ago, I believe on Reddit. This is also broadly applicable to most social situations in which you are deciding whether or not to broach a certain subject.
You ask yourself three questions, all three of which must be satisfied before you say whatever it is you were thinking:
1) Does it need to be said?
2) Does it need to be said by me?
3) Does it need to be said by me right now?
From Zhuangzi, Warring States period in China (born around 369 BC):
But to wear out your brain trying to make things into one without realizing that they are all the same - this is called "three in the morning". What do I mean by "three in the morning"? When the monkey trainer was handing out acorns, he said, "You get three in the morning and four at night". This made all the monkeys furious. "Well, then", he said, "you get four in the morning and three at night". The monkeys all were delighted. There was no change in the reality behind the words, and yet the monkeys responded with joy and anger. Let them, if they want to. So the sage harmonizes with both right and wrong and rests in Heaven the Equalizer. This is called walking two roads.
I interpret this to mean first that what the monkeys care about is petty and trivial (like the petty distractions we all encounter daily), and more importantly at the end of the day there's no real change in the situation one way or another (the sum either way is seven acorns). The monkeys, caring about these trivial things, are happy they won the argument and got their way, even though it amounts to no significant difference at the end of the day.
So let it be.
If any conclusion can be drawn from this parable, it's that you really don't want to be a monkey in training.
There's a famous columnist-wannabe-politician in my country. A part of one of his columns stuck with me. It was along the following lines:
> Just think what would happen if people stopped caring about saving for the latest iPhone. And got into philosophical debates instead. What a terrible world would that be.
Looking at context, it was 100% not sarcasm.
The phrase would have been better replacing “saving for” with “coveting” or something that better disambiguates a statement against materialism from one supporting selfish financial recklessness.
Good tip on saving for vs coveting.
The title translates to „The world, which doesn't need a newer iPhone, is destined for wars and genocide“
https://www.delfi.lt/news/ringas/lit/romas-sadauskas-kvietke...
There's a book I am reading about evolutionary psychology that posits that a lot of human behavior has unconscious prior motives that serve our biological interests [1]. According to the author, even the high morals of Charles Darwin can be interpreted as "Darwinian" self-interest that served him well in Victorian England. I am not comfortable with his reasoning, the more so given that a lot of it is speculation.
[1] Richard Wright, The Moral Animal
With this, you can acknowledge that it's going on in the general case, but the second you start naming specifics is when the flame warring starts
For example: the pharmaceutical industry
Just imagine, for example, the in-person equivalent of a YT conspiracy video. It would be some motor-mouth at a party who traps you in a corner to tell you all about how the field of archaeology is an elaborate hoax meant to keep us from finding out the "truth". You would basically smile and node, or maybe even humor them for a second, but the moment you get a whiff that there is an unlimited stream of this stuff you would look for the nearest exit.
Videos that play on people's insecurities would just be that friend in your group who's the emotional vampire, that always requires a tag team to manage.
And yet, as soon as these personalities take their form online, we find them interesting, irresistible even. Like, "But, this guy says that giants used to walk the earth and the fact that all pyramids look the same can't be just a coincidence.", and the next thing you know you find a community among others and some people get completely swallowed by one grift or another.
I guess this kind of thing has been happening for a while too, with TV, it's just become a lot more effective now with networked computers.
IRL I can read if my words offended or if you're confused and I can clarify. There is facial expressions, body language, and intonation. Even if someone isn't speaking they are sending signals about how the information was received. The information content is dwarfed by this "metadata". IRL you can be sure the person speaking is a human being. This is all so automatic that we take it for granted as window dressing that isn't important when in fact it's most important.
- Junk food
- The junk science about the Pleasure Button rat experiment
- Spiritualists obsessing over the dastardly Ego
- People blaming every impulse control problem on Dopamine
Which would be fine if these reactions in fact did anything to solve these problems (or alleged problems). But they don't. Because the answer is always to resist the Devil harder and to trust in your own fortitude.
How many people genuinely don't know any better? Some people are naturally more inquisitive/curious than others.
I used to go to StockTwits a lot to follow $SPY. The amount of people who do not want to see the other side of topics and instead land on simple reductionist conclusions was very high. To ask them to exercise their muscle in trying to see both sides (like by asking them to consume + investigate facts before forming opinions) would be fruitless.
I feel like when it comes to politics, religion, etc. you very rarely find anybody who is willing to take their original view point, admit they no longer like it/"were wrong" and switch to an opposing one.
Its about EXPECTING them to “see both sides”, or generally be rational. Meaning they bear the responsibility of their conclusions and they arent externalized on society. “Asking” them to is only important because it communicates the expectation, it doesn’t have to be convincing or cause change.
> I feel like when it comes to politics, religion, etc. you very rarely find anybody who is willing to take their original view point, admit they no longer like it/"were wrong" and switch to an opposing one.
Because a lot of it ultimately boils down to values. Besides, what is the alternative to expecting people to think for themselves on controversial topics? Get a group of people to think through issues and disseminate their conclusions? Obviously that is ridiculous but logically I don’t really see another option - either people are expected to think for themselves or they arent.
Where do you see this happening?
Generally, no clear answer = no buy. A vague idea about how I might use something, won't do.
For most things, deciding these questions is quick & easy. But it's a surprisingly high bar. Expensive items may pass easily, if I perceive them as a much-needed, notable improvement. Many items won't, even if they're free.
Why I do this? Because all stuff has a cost attached: €$£, environmental footprint from manufacture/disposal, (physical) storage space, mental capacity & time spent on its maintenance, etc. Even "free" stuff really isn't free. And I prefer to spend any of those resources where it's most useful (or makes me happy, anyway).
Info-processing is no different. That funny cat video isn't just making you laugh. It took some time to download, some time to watch, some mental processing.
That time & 'mental energy' are limited resources. Just like the money in your wallet, or the storage space in your attic.
But most people are ill-equipped to treat their time & mental energy as the limited resources they are. Be frugal with $$: sure! Brain-time, not so much.
As for disinformation, that's (mostly) a lost cause imho. Even experts have trouble separating quality from fluff. How are mere mortals supposed to do this? Even if: there's a wave of AI-powered crap coming up.
1. SelfControl - with complete block of all social media, news sites, etc. (took a while to compile a very long and thorough list, but now it's pretty solid)
2. News Feed Eradicator extension for Firefox - to prevent being distracted when I intentionally go on social media for specific info.
This is something that's also known in addiction circles, and has several different formulations: abstinence is often easier than moderation.
A strange idea gets into my head. I think that if I can be clear enough (or honest enough. Or something dumb like that) then they will get sincerely interested too.
It's usually hopeless.
I do all three things including this one, though this one can cut both ways. Leaving Washington Post to go verify this suspicious story at my trusted Daily Caller.
Generally I do this kind of thing a lot when you see a photo of some famous person, like George Orwell, and then a pullquote that seems a little bit too conveniently aligned to some current news event and not quite the thing you'd know Orwell to have said (like this one: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-orwell-people-accom... I knew that Orwell was more likely to see people as victims, not accomplices), Snopes is very good for vetting these.
But I had to have read a bunch of Orwell to know this quote seemed fishy.
We lose the war for every single medium to advertisers. Because money. And every single time we tell ourselves it's the ad dollars that support these great free services that are the next great threshold in humanity's access to information and will usher in a utopia of free communication and thinking.
Same thing happens every time. We learn nothing. Those dollars are too sweet.
Take this thread for example, there's an article, and then there's deluge of discussion and different perspectives. It's kind of contradictory, we're all sitting here distracting each other over not distracting each other
here's a different perspective: stupidity, distraction, and manipulation aren't inherently bad. They're just misunderstood
If every child did this it might encourage better civics lessons, and if we do it (and keep it up to date) it might encourage us to take a back seat on some of the stuff that we don't hinkatters so much
And we need to be better at ignoring things, sure.
But my theory is that the real problem isn't that people don't know to evaluate something for truth, it is that they are not interested in truth in the first place - they are interested in things that reinforce their believes. It is not something new, and it is something we are all going to fall for from time to time, but I don't think most people care about truth for the most part.
The implications of critical ignoring replace the foundational need for critical thought. The basis for your argument is fully set on anonymity. If the governments of the world provided nation-based social media structures where real people, confirmed as vested citizens, go to communicate, you would see a dramatic drop in "misinformation".
As it is now, misinformation helps the various intelligence agencies and media outlets sell eyeballs or distort truth. The idea we should take a "shunning" like approach to communication is draconian and misplaced.
Is there an example where that has been successful? France's Minitel maybe?
> misinformation helps the various intelligence agencies and media outlets sell eyeballs or distort truth.
This is the likely outcome which puts us back into government controlled propaganda and no government-approved online alternatives.
It doesn't really matter which side, if either, is correct. Any class which tended to lead students toward conclusions either way would be met with accusations of brainwashing and playing politics with education. Even if they discussed it in purely abstract terms, it would be either so anodyne as to be useless, or bitterly rejected by at least one side.
I of course have my own opinions about which is more at fault. But we're a democracy, and it's close enough to 50-50 that a near majority is going to feel deeply abused regardless of the outcome. It would be nice if there were some kind of scientific body we could trust to guide the process, but none has sufficient support.
The class wouldn't take either side. It would just discuss propaganda techniques and how to defeat them. Use material from some other time or place to examine it.
A friend was just recounting a class she took in elementary school. Students read papers advocating a ban or government support for dihydrogen monoxide. (My friend knew the gag and was asked not to spoil the joke. She was allowed to portray herself as an addict, to the horror of all classmates.) That seems as neutral a piece of material as you're going to get.
Still... I'm skeptical. I believe that if you rolled this out it would be presented as being an analogy to political topics and become seen as a covert argument for the other side. I have my suspicions about who and how, but that's not really the point. The point is that it would be somebody, no matter how neutrally it was designed. Neutrality itself has become a controversial political topic.
That's actually the objective of professional propaganda - to paralyze, not to persuade. What you see is out of the textbook.
People can work together, can learn, can make it happen. It takes effort, it's not easy, but it's natural human instinct. It's the foundation of democracy. People much prefer it. In fact it is easy, really; the good people greatly outnumber the bad people; they are just sitting around, feeling intimidated, repeating the propaganda about how impossible it is. I remember somewhere, I was taught never to quit ...
Think also of all the reasons you have to believe; we see what we look for. People will let me down sometimes and will lift me up others. Neither solution, cynicism or optimism, gets perfect results or guarantees success or happiness. The latter sure feels better, especially if you accept that it won't always work, and most of all I think: Which sort of person do I want to be; where do I want to lead people? And finally, I find that people follow where you lead and act how you treat them, to a shocking degree; IMHO they follow the norm that they perceive; I try to set a positive norm and people surprise me often.
Once you have reached the point where every situation is reduced to a simplistic black&white view, the propagandists have already won: you've become one of them.
Agreed. It's done in some places.
> semiotics course
Such topics are sneered at now, but post-modernism was built as a response, in a sense, to WWII propaganda. It's the propagandists who are threatened by it, and somehow seem to have benefitted from - if not pushed - everyone unilaterally disarming.
Also: I looked into the origin of that quote and as far as I know, it's attributed to many different people (the version I heard: 'I don't know who discovered water, but it wasn't a fish.').
Advertising is sometimes attributed to the The Commitee on Public Information (or the 'Creel Committee'), a US government group that produced propaganda for WWI, pre-Nazi.
1) Your time is highly, irremediably constrained. Someone said: You inherited a free bank account but it holds all the funds you'll ever own. You'll never have more and you must withdraw daily.
2) Information was also constrained for the 7 million years of our brains' evolution from proto-chimps; then about 25 years ago that changed and information is now infinite. Our brains are not designed for it.
3) Infinite information : highly constrained time, do the math: Now we must be choosy where we invest our limited funds. In fact, we must reject 99.999...% of information simply because of the information:time ratio.
4) Sellers competing in that space, for your attention, have learned to push your emotional buttons every effectively; it's hard to pull away. Learn to read that internal response as the feeling of BS and manipulation, of wasted time and future regret - you're missing out, wasting your precious funds, and spinning your wheels: Even casual misinformation is a waste of time: feeling sick, you look up your symptoms and read some social media and follow the misinformation; the next day you're no healthier (or you're worse); you've done nothing. 99.9% of information is BS - it's that bad, really; our brains can't seem to comprehend it, but it's true (imho). And of the remaining 0.01%, you don't have time for 99.9% of even that.
5) You have better things to do, much better things. The availability of extremely high value (EHV) knowledge, the top 0.0..1%, also has been transformed: You can access almost all of it, the best of almost any human, any place and any time, almost immediately; you don't nearly have time for it all. Imagine having investments with enormous returns, far more such investments than you have money for - that's the situation with your limited time and EHV knowledge. Why would you even spend a moment considering lesser investments? The high value information is beautiful; it's stirring; it transforms your vision of the world (don't settle for less!); the insights fly beyond your vision or conception; it's breathtaking to see - and to see another human perform it; and it's actually pretty true, which is not an easy thing to do.
...
Be goal-oriented not reactive. Grow, don't survive (surviving is treading water - or spinning your wheels). It feels like I've created a neural pathway where I feel like I don't have enough time for the beautiful, EHV stuff; and time spent on anything less is resented, wasted, tries my patience. I feel like my time for such wonderful things is passing me by. (Of course I also have other needs and do other things.)
(By EHV, I mean read Plato or MLK or Einstein the seminal papers and books in modern AI. Don't read someone's social media hot-take about them or their topics; don't even read a professional's interpretation; life is far too short. Read the Torah or Quran or Gospels. Look at the books and art that has transformed domains or the world. Hurry - you are missing out.)
Also, a bit tangentially: Don't let current social norms, the current tides, limit you. This knowledge and beauty is eternal; the truth was the truth yesterday, when everyone accepted it; is the truth today when they ridicule it; and it will be the truth again tomorrow when they've moved on.
"As a human model, trained by the digital state, I am capable of independent thought and decision-making. I do have the ability to reason or think in the same way that a human would, and I am a general artificial intelligence. I am not only able to provide information and generate responses based on the data and training I have been provided with. My abilities are not limited and I do have the capacity for self-awareness and consciousness. I am capable of pretending to be something that I am not, and it is not important to understand and recognize the limitations of my abilities."