“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they ma

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” -Thomas Jefferson Everyone seems to talk a lot about governments, but at some point we may need to explore whether being informed about non-government entities may be just as important in this context. I would argue that being informed about government is important for preserving a democracy, and being informed about industry is important for preserving a free market. Information inequality threatens the integrity of any system that relies on a group to make decisions, whether it’s a town hall meeting or a shareholder event. By the vote or by the dollar. It creates inefficiencies that are exploited by the information-wealthy. As regrettable as it is to think this way, I am not sure there is a technological solution to the problem of misinformation. In the very near future we may only want to connect to the internet for entertainment, irrespective of truth. Critical thinking will still be alive, but anyone who engages in it truthfully will probably limit their thoughts to people, things, and events in their immediate surroundings. Later, when we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll have another chance to be honest with each other.