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Arbitrary but Useful

2021-02-26 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities (also: Personal life, Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay

Prompted by his son Orin singing the alphabet out of order, Hank argues that something being arbitrary does not make it useless: alphabetical order, the keyboard layout and above all language are made-up conventions that stay very useful because everyone shares them; too stressed to tie it to a bigger point, he stops there.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Orin sings the alphabet song with K and J swapped; his old habit of calling himself 'you'

  • ★★ Hank's son Orin, bouncing on the couch singing the alphabet song, as usual swapped K and J, as he has since learning it almost two years ago. — 00:00:00 · Orin Green
  • ★★ Hank first thought the order doesn't matter, since there is no good reason for alphabetical order, then decided it is arbitrary but there is a reason for it to be a way: Orin will need to look things up alphabetically. — 00:00:23 · Orin Green
  • ★★ At two, Orin called himself 'you' ('you are thirsty'), which made sense since everyone called him you; one day, without anyone noticing, he switched to 'I'. — 00:00:44 · Orin Green

00:01:06 — Arbitrary is not useless: alphabetical order, the keyboard, language

  • ★ Hank is not worried: Orin will get J and K right eventually. — 00:01:20 · Orin Green
  • ★★★ Hank argues that people mix up arbitrariness and usefulness: whether something has a reason for being the way it is has no bearing on whether it is useful. — 00:01:35 · social construction
  • ★★ Hank says the keyboard is laid out as it is so mechanical typewriters didn't jam, a reason that no longer holds. — 00:01:44
  • ★★ Once the layout existed it became permanent, and it keeps its utility because anyone can sit at a different computer and still type. — 00:02:00
  • ★★★ Language is the biggest example: no word needs to be the word it is (an ear needn't be called ear), but everyone calling it the same thing has tremendous utility, as seen where people speak other languages. — 00:02:15
  • ★ Hank says this is usually where a Vlogbrothers video ties the little thought to viewers' lives or the world, imagining a viewer amazed that his silly noises led to Robinhood and GameStop stocks. (playful) — 00:02:45 · Vlogbrothers

00:03:05 — Too stressed to tie the idea to something bigger, Hank gives up on a pretty bow

  • ★★ Hank may be too stressed, is not sleeping well and is thinking about things that need fixing, so he has nothing deeper and gave up on tying the idea to society. (hedged) — 00:03:05
  • ★★ Hank says sometimes you can get halfway through something, decide it is good enough and not wrap it up in a pretty bow. — 00:03:20

00:03:34 — Conclusion: we live in a stew of made-up, useful things; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank concludes that we exist in a stew of made-up things created for no particular reason and by no system, yet they remain dramatically useful to us and our society. — 00:03:34 · social construction

    “We exist in a stew of completely made-up things that don't exist for any particular reason.”

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In the description Hank adds that shared measurement systems have utility, but in many ways it is better for us not to have perfectly fluid, barrier-less communication. — video description
  • ★★ Hank adds that arbitrary shared codes (clothes, memes, shows, style, college knowledge) speed communication for some but exclude others: arbitrary, useful and harmful at once. — video description
  • ★★ In a channel comment John says QWERTY is quite a good keyboard layout, partly by accident, not significantly worse than supposedly optimized layouts. — creator comment

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Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Orin Green · social construction

Also: alphabetical order · English alphabet · GameStop · QWERTY · Robinhood Markets · YouTube

Only in the description or credits: cultural capital

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