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Edward Curtin‘s new essay is “Numbed by Numbers on the Way to the Digital Palace.” He writes: “We are pissing our lives away on abstractions, forgetting that notation is a system of symbols that direct us to what they intend. The key is to grasp what is intended. The cognitive construction of the number system is a useful tool, but when it is pushed as the essential tool to grasp the meaning of life it has become a tool of control…The Internet and digital media are the greatest propaganda tools ever invented. They have come to us on the wings of numbers. They are insidious in the extreme.” Along the way, Curtin cites Dostoevsky and Jonathan Crary, decries “The use of the term 9/11 to refer to the events of September 11, 2001,” and leaves open the implicit question of whether and how the “mathematization of our thinking” can be reversed.