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Perhaps we should speak of collective self-deception rather than a hoax. If alphabetic writing is phony, then people who have a lot of experience with it know deep down that the alphabet doesn't function as advertised. However, sudden exposure of a deeply buried act of self-deception can be traumatic, so we should begin gradually with common sense and circumstantial evidence.
Common sense tells us that the number of letters in our alphabet is slightly more than two and a half times the number of Hindu-Arabic numerals. Obviously that’s not enough to express millions of different ideas. However, if we use a writing system that has thousands of different characters, then it is possible to express thousands of different ideas. This brings us to some circumstantial evidence. Americans who win prizes in math and science contests in many cases are able to read Chinese writing. That would be a strange coincidence were it not for the fact that when people say they are “reading” Chinese writing, they are actually reading, and reading is good exercise for the mind.
In contrast, when a monolingual English-speaking person says "I am reading", it's simply code language meaning "I am resting while holding some alphabetic gibberish in front of my face." Of course, with the modern atrophy of the body and mind, lots of things mean "I am resting." For example, "I am in transit" basically means "I am sitting and waiting to arrive at my destination." For Beethoven, transit meant the physical exertion of walking dozens of miles to attend a concert.
To us, it seems odd that Beethoven is famous only as a musician and not as an athlete. Compared to us, he was an athlete. If Beethoven had been sitting on a couch in his living room and Sarah Palin had appeared on TV, then he would have simply gotten up and turned off the TV. In contrast, we sit and listen unless we can find the remote control somewhere on the couch. However, even Sarah Palin sometimes says something intelligent, such as when she said that she reads "all" the newspapers. Given that alphabetic writing is in fact meaningless gibberish, there is no reason for Sarah Palin to distinguish between different newspapers. They are all the same. If she rests while directing her gaze at one newspaper, then for all practical purposes she "reads" them all.
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