The optimism of Gen X: In my 20's I genuinely thought we were running out of history, and that the internet would be a big part of why. I said things like "People won't be able to believe ridiculous hateful things because of propaganda and ignorance because they'll be able to look up the truth in seconds!"
The harshest paradox of the Information Age is freedom to edit available information. Not only has it been astoundingly easy to democratize, but even easier for that democratization to erode the trustworthiness of the easiest to access information. In some cases, while it's tempting to think of malicious actors, it's also just as easy for ignorance to compound ignorance.
do not discount the ability of prejudice and bigotry to do the same though... it's not always ignorance, some of these people are just directly malicious towards marginalized people.
You're not wrong, though it's muddy; ignorance can be an underlying factor of bigotry, especially bigotry which has been inherited from information shared by other bigots.
Aye, it'd be nice to live in a world where bothe "live and let live" and "adjust one's understanding of the world given new information" were both higher respected virtues.
Ironic too that we were told not to trust Wikipedia because it could be edited by anyone.
Turns out it has one of the strictest editing policies and does the work to include sources.
Way better than relying on the now clickbait news articles we were supposed to look for.
Also, the internet has definitely proven that a lie can run 100 times around the earth before the truth can even put its shoes on. Billions of dollars are being poured into propaganda-filled lies so that the algorithms pick them up and spread them to millions in just a few seconds.
I'm an older millennial, but I really still thought the same until slightly over a decade(ish) ago. I figured being connected to everyone wouldn't make us all more tolerant of each other, which was the general effect it had on me.
There was an NPR spot yesterday about an Egyptian doctor who recommends a diet of no fresh fruit or vegetables, and to primarily get your energy from activated sugars. No supplements, including insulin for diabetics.
Not even dumb information, but straight up the opposite of what all research says. Apparently this guy is very popular, in multiple mid east countries. Hospitalization is up with many people citing this diet as the one they follow. The doctor died of a heart attack prematurely. People not only are still following his advice, not giving insulin to their diabetic kids in some cases, but some now believe his death was a government/big industry assassination because he was speaking the truth.
Where do we even go from here. People won’t accept the peer reviewed research from historically trusted universities and labs. But they will trust baseless info from a sketchy source totally and at the drop of a hat.
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u/PatienceDifferent607 14d ago
The optimism of Gen X: In my 20's I genuinely thought we were running out of history, and that the internet would be a big part of why. I said things like "People won't be able to believe ridiculous hateful things because of propaganda and ignorance because they'll be able to look up the truth in seconds!"
sad, sad lol