Back in the day when we couldn't read, the challenge was that those who could would use information to take advantage of us, by pretending that what they read contained magical secrets, and we had to just believe them. As a result, they were able to exercise control over our actions, by dictating what we should believe.
One of the challenges we face as individuals today is in the opposite vein, with the sheer amount of information that we are bombarded with so high, we just can't read it all, can't absorb it, can't verify and validate it. And we can't know if the source of the information is trustworthy, if it has rigor behind the collection, or if there are hidden agendas. As a result, the information landscape is a mess. It has become a junkyard of epic informational proportions, in a culture that is encouraged to believe whatever makes us feel good, whether it is right, wrong, real or fantasy.
Another control mechanism.
Just like ignorance can be leveraged, information overload can also be leveraged. It is like in those legal dramas, where the opposing legal team inundates the other with box after box of documents, in an attempt to hide crucial pieces of evidence. The time and resources it takes to go through it all, chase leads, and connect the dots, makes it almost impossible for a small team.
We are doing it as individuals.
So, what ends up happening is that we narrow our search, rely on the "feels good/ right" heuristic, and silo ourselves into informational buckets. And once we are there, we are able to connect up with "like minds" who have followed a similar path to ourselves to end up sharing the same informational bucket, or buckets as the case may be. But, it doesn't matter if they are like us in other ways, it just matters if in that narrow silo, they can support our way of thinking.
The problem is that as an individual, there is no way to get a clear, holistic view of what is right, and as a group, we get driven by groupthink and ramp each other up into more extreme perspectives. Not only this, there is the problem that we aren't trained to critically think through information, or vet our sources, which means that a lot of us end up trusting what feels right, from people who make us feel right, in a landscape of unknown people, who are getting their information from the same kinds of silos.
For an example of this, it is like following medical advice from strangers on the internet who claim that they know what is the right thing to do based on minimal information, in what can be very highly complex and varying situations. Look at all the people who cooked their phones in the microwave because someone on the internet told them it would charge it, and push that out to every human problem we face.
And, then consider that there are hidden agendas in pretty much all of this information. For instance, conspiracy theorists are largely ridiculed and perhaps they should be. Not because conspiracies don't exist, they do - but because the majority of them have zero direct experience with what they are talking about, but are just repeating and amplifying what they have heard from their "trusted resources" - strangers on the internet who make claims, essentially saying,
"trust me"
Now, what if that person or group sharing this information is purposely distributing poor quality information, information that is wrong. With the ability to identify those who interact with it, could be like a "honey trap" scenario - giving people what they want in order to lead them into doing something, supporting something, uncovering their belief system. Or collecting groups of people in order to bring them under "one banner" and then mobilize them, sending them into the streets, or into the internet to undermine an enemy.
Or just create informational chaos.
When there are too many choices, we end up making none, or choosing poorly, because we favor fast-thinking, low-research, feel-good decisions. We do what our intuition and experience says, and these are being informed by the information buckets we have been eating from, the silos. With no other way to organize the information and validate it, this is the best we can do. Especially since we don't have any time on our hands to do much else.
We have a building full of boxes, and the evidence is scattered and buried within.
While this has been a growing issue for a couple decades now, at some point a solution needs to be developed in how we can trust information in a trustless network. It is pretty obvious where the innovation should start, which also makes me suspicious, because it has remained a common person initiative, not driven by corporations and governments. These two groups have the most to lose from information hygiene and well-informed masses, because once that happens, they lose their ability to group and control us.
Talk to almost any conspiracy theorist and they will be adamant they are right, but query them on their information sources, and they will not be able to get back to the root. It is all hearsay, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt, because even with best intentions, everyone has an agenda. And we live in a world that monetizes attention, and encourages people to get attention any way possible, even if what they portray, isn't close to the truth. Conspiracy theory content is just like that of Instagram influencers, there to capture eyes.
Belief is a control lever.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]