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Forget about "equipped and capable". Who decides what is "true"? Is it the the US government's official version of "truth"? Is it "truth" that has the most o
by StanislavPetrov 7y ago
Forget about "equipped and capable". Who decides what is "true"? Is it the the US government's official version of "truth"? Is it "truth" that has the most objectively provable information? How are vague and/or ambiguous claims, about anything, supposed to be regarded in relation to their "truth"? Only someone who is incredibly stupid and/or trying to advance their own agenda would suggest that there is some sort of indisputable "truth" that can be discerned, let alone discerned by Facebook.
The easy answer to this problem is, and has always been, to teach everyone how to think critically. Teach the Socratic Method to every child from birth, and reinforce that mode of thinking continually through their entire educational journey. But there lies the rub. The powers that be aren't interested in "truth" or people who are able to discern truth. They want to be able to disseminate their message, and have it uncritically absorbed by the masses. That isn't possible if the people are intelligent and equipped with the tools to think critically and recognize logical inconsistencies. For decades they had it both ways. The government had a population who largely lacked critical thinking skills and uncritically absorbed what they were told as "truth". The government also largely controlled the message disseminated by the corporate media outlets, which were very few before the explosion of the internet. They controlled the narrative, and had conditioned a population that uncritically accepted this narrative. Once the internet exploded on the scene, they lost control of the narrative. All of a sudden you had people who weren't equipped with critical thinking skills, who were extremely vulnerable to whatever narrative was being pushed, and you had a wide variety of people pushing a whole range of messages on the internet and over social media.
Now the genie out of of the bottle. Information and (dis)information spreads like a virus across the internet and social media. How do you deal with this? There are two ways. Either make a concerted effort to teach people how to think, hash information and employ logical consistency in their thinking (which the powers that be don't want to do, because it means the permanent loss of control), or try to put the genie back in the bottle and silence all competing narratives. Its clear that the powers that be have chosen to attempt the latter, and it won't end well for anyone who believes in freedom of speech, freedom of action or freedom of thought.