Than first thought
Two big categories of "news" items include the title phrase.

(1) Sciencey stuff about fossils or DNA or evidence of human habitation, ceremonies, etc. These are always Earlier Than First Thought. You never read Later Than First Thought. These items may be meaningful to the competing researchers....

Take that, Bergstein and Yang and Choi! You said Diplodinkus Poopii was 65 MYA. Actually Diplodinkus Poopii was 89.3 MYA! Our MYA is bigger than your MYA! And note the extra decimal place! Loser loser loser MYA MYA MYA!

... but completely useless to the public, who never heard of Diplodinkus Poopii in the first place.

Still, think of the ultimate destination of all these back-sliding timelines. There is an absolute zero at the left end. What happens when all the Earliers bump into the same point? Will the "scientists" finally admit that everything started at the same time, which the pattern of genes already indicates? Not on your Diplodinkus.

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(2) Stories about hacks and identity thefts are always More Than First Thought. Instead of 400 million stolen identities, we now know it was 800 million. These numbers may be meaningful to the hackers as indications of their power, but most likely the hackers already know what they've done, and know the news item is intentionally misleading. The numbers are useless to the customers.

Still, think of the ultimate destination, which is more obvious than the sciencey timeline. We already know that EVERYONE with any sort of digital connection has already been completely hacked. It only matters when your data ACTUALLY gets used, which happens often but nowhere near 400 million or 800 million times. You have to keep checking and watching your data anyway, no matter who or how many.

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(3) Later addition. An "endangered" species always turns out to be More Numerous Than First Thought. Even species that were thought to be totally extinct "surprisingly" turn out to be present. Except, of course, for polar bears. Polar bears are totally extinct and unrecoverable. Ignore the 25000 pale-furred bears who are overpopulating the Arctic. Those must be albino versions of some other bear, because everybody knows that polar bears are totally totally totally extinct. Those overabundant nuisances are Grizzlies Of No Colour, or Inadequately Brown Brown Bears.

Labels: Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 11:16 AM