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The postmodernists (so far as I understand them) say that we are post truth - that all claims of truth are actually assertions of power. I always thought that

The postmodernists (so far as I understand them) say that we are post truth - that all claims of truth are actually assertions of power. I always thought that was bunk. Now it looks more like prophecy. How does society function when nobody can know if anything they think they know is actually the truth? And not just in the "deep epistemological thoughts" way. Even in the way that we used to be able to know things, with less than total epistemic certainty, but still with sufficient certainty to usefully be able to use information... we can't do even that any more.

at_a_remove 3y ago
I've alluded to this before, by I had an unfinished sci-fi novel in the decades past where this was the backdrop, that at one point faking everything that comes over the wire became trivially easy. My prediction -- and I have no idea how true it would be -- is that once this became really prevalent and media outlets just used this to keep the 24/7 news cycle going, election results were faked, dead celebrities were prancing around commercials, seamless insertion of just about anything into your favorite old movies, that we would collectively have a Reality Crisis. Imagine if some percentage of people who talked about the Mandela Effect were right and that number kept growing. Imagine if we could hide a Tuskegee or two for a little while longer before it came out. You would get a huge amount of digital distrust, and some percentage of people would retreat to "If it wasn't printed in a book before 2020 ..." as a standard. Wild paranoia would emerge and others would retreat into a kind of indifference because "Who knows?" Previous conspiracy theories, suck as a faked moon landing, might become plausible just due to how many other wild fakes existed. How would you know who really won an election?
- Towaway69 3y ago
  The good thing about the Internet is that no one knows you're a ~~dog~~ AI.
  - antifa 3y ago
    Every website will require your phone number and captchas to verify your humanity, but somehow none of them will do a good job keeping their content authenticly human.
gustavus 3y ago
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984 “Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” ― George Orwell, 1984
iwontberude 3y ago
So long as you need calories to metabolize in your brain to think about anything, we are in a truth world.
JohnFen 3y ago
> How does society function when nobody can know if anything they think they know is actually the truth? It doesn't.

at_a_remove 3y ago

I've alluded to this before, by I had an unfinished sci-fi novel in the decades past where this was the backdrop, that at one point faking everything that comes over the wire became trivially easy. My prediction -- and I have no idea how true it would be -- is that once this became really prevalent and media outlets just used this to keep the 24/7 news cycle going, election results were faked, dead celebrities were prancing around commercials, seamless insertion of just about anything into your favorite old movies, that we would collectively have a Reality Crisis. Imagine if some percentage of people who talked about the Mandela Effect were right and that number kept growing. Imagine if we could hide a Tuskegee or two for a little while longer before it came out. You would get a huge amount of digital distrust, and some percentage of people would retreat to "If it wasn't printed in a book before 2020 ..." as a standard. Wild paranoia would emerge and others would retreat into a kind of indifference because "Who knows?" Previous conspiracy theories, suck as a faked moon landing, might become plausible just due to how many other wild fakes existed. How would you know who really won an election?

Towaway69 3y ago
The good thing about the Internet is that no one knows you're a ~~dog~~ AI.
- antifa 3y ago
  Every website will require your phone number and captchas to verify your humanity, but somehow none of them will do a good job keeping their content authenticly human.

gustavus 3y ago

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984 “Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” ― George Orwell, 1984

iwontberude 3y ago

So long as you need calories to metabolize in your brain to think about anything, we are in a truth world.

JohnFen 3y ago

> How does society function when nobody can know if anything they think they know is actually the truth? It doesn't.