The noise to signal ratio is, roughly speaking, a way to refer to how much of what a sensor picks up is significant and how much is random. Old time radios picked up a lot of static from random interference between the radio and the broadcasting tower – that was the noise. Frank Sinatra crooning into the microphone – that was the signal. A lot of the random static that used to creep in to radio and broadcast TV has been cleaned up these days thanks to technology, but at the same time that selfsame technology has introduced whole new vectors for noise to creep in.

Social media is the obvious go to. Now we can all broadcast our inner thoughts to the world at the drop of a hat. But, as a wise man once said, they were too busy seeing if they could, they never stopped to ask if they should.

Every person must grapple with important questions in order to take their place in the world. What is right and wrong? How do we determine it when circumstances are murky and what do we do if we can’t determine where the line is drawn? What do we want out of life? Out of family? Out of the next twenty four hours?

Answering those questions is a deeply personal thing – or it was before seemingly every person on earth decided to broadcast their journey of “self-discovery” across Instagram. Suddenly, questions about who we are and how we’re going to take our place in the world are carried out not in study or thoughtful discussion with trusted confidants but in the middle of a screaming mob. A person with well-formed principles will have a hard time keeping hold of himself in the middle of that confusion, a person still struggling with principles is sure to be lost.

It gets worse.

People of good will with strong principles, reached after careful contemplation and held in firm conviction, will never agree on exactly what the best principles are or how to live them out. In order to reconcile the differences between them vigorous, and sometimes acrimonious discussion is essential. If we are to reach our full potential as people and live together in peace we must be able to try and work out the meanings of our principles with one another.

Sadly, this process can become part of the noise, rather than the signal. And in this analogy, the person with unformed or unsteady principles is like the primitive radio, less able to filter out signal noise and more likely to miss the useful information being broadcast. In the great confusion that reigns, it’s tempting to step back and be quiet for the sake of reducing the noise.

As a writer, I grapple with the culture and my own place in it by writing. Earlier this year, as I weighed the issues of Big Tech and social stratification, I stumbled on a story. Naturally, I began writing it down and putting it here, on this blog. My own little broadcasting tower, adding to the noise to signal ratio. But I didn’t like what I was seeing around me and a few months ago I stopped, wishing not to clutter up the radio waves without a firm message in mind.

I have to admit, I still don’t have a good handle on what the outcome of the issues I’m wrestling with might be. But I’ve reached the conclusion that I can’t, in good conscience, stop asking them just because the noise might be going up without much being added to the signal. The discussion of principle and conviction is not like radio waves. As we sort through the good and bad we can hone in on the signal and slowly turn more of our time over to it. At least, that was the process I was raised with and it’s the process I still believe in. Others might want as many people as possible to sit down and be quiet, to get the noise to signal ratio they desire. But I’ve never been one of them, and it was foolish of me entertain the notion that silence might improve things when it’s the signal that I’ve always wanted to find. I can endure a little noise until then.

All of this is a bit of a roundabout way of saying Pay the Piper will return next week. Thank you for your patience.