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Homework
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I may not be the first to notice this, but it seems that every task is reducible to one format:
1. Do the homework
2. Turn the homework in.
3. Receive the grade.
It makes me wonder if there are other metaphors given in school that are fairly instantaneously applicable to the "real world".
Note: "Homework" in this case refers to work assigned to the student. It need not be completed at home, as many of my erstwhile classmates observed and exploited.
Noteâ‚‚: Each of the elements of the format are reducible using the same three steps, and the reducibility appears infinite. For instance, doing the homework consists of doing the homework for doing the homework, which always includes a prioritization of action. This in turn demands a classification of actions. The classification need not be verbal, but verbal classification encourages a recognition of the level of priority owing to some nascent importance attributed to the classification.
Note₃ : Levels of priority may be distinct from amount of importance. By this I mean that attributing a level of priority is not always the same as discerning the level from which a task is observed. For the purposes of this rubric, seeing a task from the topmost layer allows for each category to be subsumed within it, seeing a task from the bottommost layer allows for the fewest. What is interesting here is that the terms "topmost" ans "bottommost" are applicable only in terms of the observer. That is to say that the observer may take in only a few layers at a time, or may take in a great many. There are great tasks which demand observation from a great many layers simultaneously (or quick task switching between a great many layers) and there are tasks that demand an artificial constraining of layers of observation. For example, when you are getting ready for work, it would be less advantageous to be bothered by observation of the task from the topmost layer, as it may make you late for work, or in this case later than you already are. For the purposes of this post, we will ignore the many subdivisions within the term "late".
Noteâ‚„: Observation from a greater amount of layers (a greater amount than what is average) allows for reclassification of tasks, but not without a kind of diminishing of of the elements within them. For example, when the heads of Meta determined to label their "users" as such, the observed agency of said users is affected negatively. By this I mean that it becomes less obvious that the agents (as I will call them) may react negatively to being classified as users, which may have a direct impact on the implicit goal of running a social platform well.
Noteâ‚…: It may seem that greater amount of classifications is equivalent to a greater degree of classification. This is not always so. Classification systems are always measured in term of the task at hand. If we take the example of getting ready for work, any task that diverts from that reduces efficacy, and so observation from higher levels is both unnecessary are wasteful. But if we take the observation from a higher level (one in which a greater many of tasks are subsumed) to be an indication of adherence to a higher ideal, there is hope for attaining that higher ideal so long as it is a true, well-defined ideal. For the purposes of this post, we will strategically leave out the defining characteristics of a "true" ideal and a "well-defined" ideal.
