Fire and Earth: The Doomed Union of Nex and Daim

Another ogregore story, this time about a failed romance. Not a trickster story, like MoeV Unmasked or Wezl's Ghosts.

MoeV Unmasked: An ogregore story

Here’s the second installment of ogregore stories, this one about deception and regulatory capture. It’s another trickster story, just like the first one about Wezl’s Ghosts.

Wezl’s Ghosts: An ogregore story

 Marissa Grunes has encouraged me to develop mythic stories about ogregores. Here’s my first attempt, about a trickster who used ghosts to fool their ruler.

Myth definitions

This post is a rolling inventory of definitions and descriptions of myth – mine, and those of others. The date on which an item is added to the list is given in italics, in parentheses. I’ll move it to the top of the blog every time I update it.

Myths: widely known framing stories

Here’s my latest stab at a definition of myth: Myths are widely known stories that frame how groups of people think about, and act in, the world. 

I want myths to include contemporary narratives and not just ancient tales, and this description does that. I’ll unpack the new definition and then give a list of stories that qualify as myths.

Myth’s anthropomorphic heel

My post Heroes not ogregores lamented that a top-tier newspaper’s coverage of Detroit focused on celebrities rather than systems—aka individuals not ogregores. However, a mythological approach also veers perilously close to personalization.

Tech & Mythology Project Snapshot – Nov 2021

It’s time to revisit what the Tech & Mythology project means for me. There were previous snapshots in July and October 2020, and most recently February 2021.

Gartner’s Hype Cycle as myth

Most people in business know about Gartner’s hype cycle, many of them believe it, and some act on it, for example through corporate investment decisions and buying Gartner’s services. It’s a story (more accurately, a trope) that meets my know/believe/act criterion for myth. 

Dionysus on Wall Street

The GameStop saga was a big story in February 2021. It’s often told as David against Goliath, but I think there’s a deeper pattern that reflects the role of technology.

Research Questions for the Tech & Mythology Project

 My February project snapshot listed some of the questions the Tech & Mythology project is asking. S. V., a researcher I met through the ATLAS Institute, challenged me to document my research questions. After peeling several layers off the onion, here’s what I came up with.

Cyber-doom stories

Tobias Burgers alerted me to Sean Lawson’s 2013 paper “Beyond Cyber-Doom: Assessing the Limits of Hypothetical Scenarios in the Framing of Cyber-Threats” (DOI). Lawson’s article helped me further understand the servant/master narrative that seems to be a tropes of technology stories.

Tech & Mythology Project Snapshot – Feb 2021

 Here’s another update to the Tech & Mythology project outline. See previous snapshots from October and July 2020 for background.

"Know, Believe, Act" Stories

Since “myth” has negative connotations for most of us (“stupid, false things other people believe”), I’ve started talking about socially significant stories instead – that is, stories that everyone in a group knows; that many believe; and that some act upon.

Myth, Knowledge, Belief

“Myth” means erroneous belief to most people, and I often hear a contrast between science (associated with truth) and religion (associated with myth). That got me thinking about knowledge, and particularly Plato’s definition of it as justified true belief. 

Techies & Myth Part 4: More Gods as Tech

In the fourth and final part of the series of posts about mythology and the tech industry, based on an email exchange with Petri Mähönen, I try to work some loose ends into the tapestry. Like the previous one, this post focuses on myths but with an eye to the tech implications.

Techies & Myth Part 3: Goddesses and Tech

In this third part of the series of posts about mythology and the tech industry, based on an email exchange with Petri Mähönen, I explore the relevance of several goddesses of ancient Greek mythology to digital technology. The first two posts focused on the techies; this one and the next will focus on the myths.

Techies & Myth Part 2: Mythical entrepreneurs

In the second part of the series of posts about mythology and the tech industry, based on an email exchange with Petri Mähönen, I reflect on Apollo-Dionysus dynamics in tech entrepreneurs and their companies.

Techies & Myth Part 1: Apollo, Dionysus, and the Entrepreneurs

This post, and three more to come, aim to document a fascinating informal email discussion with Petri Mähönen in September 2020 about mythological ways of thinking about tech entrepreneurs and their companies. This was part of the on-going Tech & Myth project (see e.g. tech gods: Dec 2018, Jan 2019; project summaries: Jul 2020, Oct 2020). Massive thanks to Petri, and apologies for places where my paraphrases misunderstood or misrepresented him.

In the first post, I look at American digital entrepreneurs in the light of Nietzsche’s Apollo-Dionysus axis.

Tech Policy as Theater

I’ve been using myth to think about tech, but Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy has inspired me to think about public policy as theater.

War historians debate myths

John Mosier's essay War Myths (2005) contends that myths "are believed because they provide us with coherent and convincing explanations of complex events." His paper is the opening volley in a debate with several colleagues that has helped me think further about the definition of myth, and the roles of logos, mythos and pathos in argumentation.