The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'hair salon next to a yellow bus.'
When I was maybe 8 years old, a friend on the school bus told me that a blowjob was a kind of hairstyle popular with movie stars. So the next time my mom asked what kind of haircut I wanted, I told her that I wanted a blowjob. Fortunately, she thought it was funny. And I learned that kids on the bus aren't always reliable sources of information.
People on the internet are sometimes just as unreliable as that kid on the school bus was. This is a well-known problem that's led to countless attempts to separate authoritative voices from the nonsense of the masses. For example, Twitter now offers a paid verification service. To be authoritative on Twitter costs $8 a month. I got verified on Twitter today and we'll see if it makes a difference.
Of course, even authoritative voices get it wrong sometimes. Everyone who said lockdowns would stop the pandemic was wrong. So was everyone who said that masks would stop the pandemic. And everyone that said the vaccines would stop the spread of the virus. They were wrong, their pronouncements steamrolled over dissenting perspectives, and the result was catastrophic.
This has accelerated a society-wide crisis of authority that may never be fully resolved. It has also coincided with a massive cash grab by the rich and big corporations. According to Oxfam, "since 2020, the richest 1% have snatched-up almost twice as much as the rest of the world combined." And according to The Guardian:
"The analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings for 100 US corporations found net profits up by a median of 49%, and in one case by as much as 111,000%. Those increases came as companies saddled customers with higher prices and all but ten executed massive stock buyback programs or bumped dividends to enrich investors. ... The Guardian's findings are in line with recent US commerce department data that shows corporate profits rose 35% during the last year and are at their highest level since 1950."
In other words, corporate greed is primarily responsible for the high inflation we've been experiencing. Prices aren't rising out of necessity. They're being driven up by companies already enjoying record profits. I've seen seemingly authoritative voices attribute this inflation to the government's pandemic spending, and these voices are mistaken. As mistaken as that kid on the bus was about blowjobs.
Fact Check
Government officials. Scientists. Scholars. Economists. Journalists. These titles mean something, but they no longer mean what they once did. Now we're seeing so-called fact checking being used by the powerful to silence dissent. When direct censorship is untenable, attaching a fact check to a piece of information is the next best thing.
When the authorities keep getting it wrong and their fact checkers are bought and paid for, it's hard to know where to turn for reliable information. Beyond this, when facts themselves are in question, communication with others harboring alternative facts becomes much more difficult. Segregating ourselves into virtual communities where everyone agrees with everyone else probably won't solve these problems. I'm not sure what will.
One viable path towards solutions involves rethinking incentive structures. Hive does a great job of aligning incentives to produce valuable content. But most other social media platforms fall far short of this. And there's sometimes a difference between valuable content and true content.
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.
I'm thinking of a friend who taught me how to say "watermelon" in Cantonese, except she actually taught me a grotesque insult instead as a joke. When I came up to my mom and grandmother with that word, I was beaten to shreds, ha! My friend knew that she was misleading me. When it comes to societal issues, people may be spreading misleading or one-sided information without even realizing they are.
I'm also immediately thinking of the Sunflower Revolution in Taiwan, where online platforms were created to measure division, and construct consensus. Despite the chaos of the last few post-covid years, we're also seeing a total explosion of alt media sites and indy journalists. I hope we can continue building on this movement in more sophisticated and creative ways, instead of trying to reform corporate media systems.
I was also thinking about a whole collective/cooperative of journalists and media activists who create an updated code of ethics for journalism and media. News platforms can be certified and vetted to see if they align and uphold these code of ethics, with some space for nuance and dialogue. Staff members/leaders of news platforms can collaborate with this collective, and engage and openly discuss with the public their biases and values somehow. Hmmm... too idealistic?
What a line! I couldn't help but pause, and just take this statement in for a moment. I like that discernment.The consensus building platform in Taiwan is a great example.
I'd love to see a broad conversation about journalistic ethics take place, and maybe something more structured could come out of that.
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