I came of age at the beginning of the information revolution. I got a degree in computer science in 1984, was on my first set of networked computers in 1990, and first experienced the web a few years after that. I remember when it was uncommon to have an email and almost unheard of for average folks to have anything approaching a “web presence”.
A few years ago I read something by Isaac Asimov in which he predicted the Internet. He envisioned it as a great repository of knowledge where learned people all over the world would share information and truth and knowledge would flourish.
I’m not saying that hasn’t happened, certainly. But what Asimov didn’t predict is that liars, attention whores and knaves would also flood the Internet with their stories and outrages. In other words, he didn’t consider the human condition.
This brings us to today. It’s getting increasingly harder to separate the truth from lies.
We are awash in propaganda.