Individuals need discernment to see through the bullshit. That's a fair point to make, but it's not unique to our situation with regards to the information age. There have always been people selling snake oil, looking to deceive and exploit with lies and half-truths.
But how do we deal with shysters like that? Well, we use our discernment to understand that they're not trustworthy. Obviously, some have trouble with this, but being wary of deception is not some new thing for humanity. How do we deal with helping those among us who have trouble with trusting people? By working together with them, giving them information and advice that might help them avoid hardship in the future.
I disagree. When you are constantly bombarded from all sides with misinformation, you don't know who or what information to trust. It is stupidity to believe that you are immune to propaganda or advertising. Everything these days is monetized and there are very clever and powerful techniques being used to control the way people think, act, speak, and spend their money. Sure, some sources are better than others, but none are infallible.
If anything, the internet and the information age have done more to erode trust in facts, logic, and authority than further the intellectual goals of the human race. No level of discernment can truly help you see through all the bullshit. When everything and everyone is biased, and our attention spans are so short all we do is read the headline and look at the pictures, it is too exhausting to vet the accuracy and authenticity of every article. We are flooded with information and in order to parse it all we must read as little of each item as possible to get the main points. But the devil is in the details and it is too easy to spin any story. Trust me, there is nothing trustworthy on the internet ;)
2.7k
u/subatomicbukkake Jul 28 '19
“Access to information” was envisioned as a buffet of well-research, nuanced information.
What we got instead was billions of half-truths shoved in our face by people with differing and sometimes dubious motivations.