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Propoghanda
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Image from Michael Figarelli
In some Anglic-derived languages, a term derived from a play on words and having to do with relationships between transapients and ordinary sophonts and their attempts to sway one another's behaviour.

Propoghanda may involve:
[1] Specific information, sometimes exaggerated or edited, intended to sway the actions of a transapient by causing many local sophonts to make the same or a similar request, or
[2] A transapient who brings about societal change via nonviolent civil disobedience on the part of emself or of eir followers (prophoghanda is the singular, propoghandi the plural), or
[3] A general reference to memetic influences that cross or are intended to cross toposophic levels. In this last sense the user is typically being intentionally ambiguous.

The first term originally referred more specifically to attempts by the local populace to persuade the posthuman AI-cyborg named Uganda. Uganda's name itself was a play on words, and so given Uganda's habit of responding to popular petitions 'propuganda' and later 'prophoghanda' seemed a natural development.

The second term is also a result of wordplay: 'pro' as in favour of or promoting, 'po' as in posthuman, and 'Ghandi', a late Industrial Age social activist on Old Earth.
 
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Development Notes
Text by Peter Kisner and M. Alan Kazlev
revised by Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 19 December 2001.

 
 
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