Duality of Denial

I really hate the term "fake news" not just because it is associated with You Know Who, but also because of what it represents.  The irony of the term is that many people if not the majority of people who use it, do so to undermine the content that they use it to describe, not because of any lack of validity, credibility, or journalistic integrity, but simply because it's something they don't like or don't want to accept so they claim it's not true.

You can deny gravity exists all you want, you can have the most fervent belief that you can fly, and you can convince as many people as you possibly can that you have that ability, but when you take that leap from somewhere tall when you finally convinced even yourself that your lie is true, you will still hit the ground, because the truth doesn't care what you think, and what you think, doesn't change the truth.

There is a rise in doubt online over almost everything we see and hear.  Every time we read something online we no longer evaluate the facts of what we read, instead we make a judgement based on our experience as to the probability or likelihood that it is actually true.  That means that our perception of reality has shifted from one of objectivity to one of subjectivity, where what is true to us is no longer defined by what we accept as true but what we believe to be true - the key difference there is that the latter requires prior experience, and the former does not.  The former can accept that the world is round even though you have never actually been to space to see that for yourself.  The latter will insist the world is flat because without the prior experience of seeing for themselves that the world is not flat, they can't accept it as true.

I have to wonder how we ever reached a point where this could happen.  It's easy to blame the Internet but really the Internet in and of itself doesn't have a mind, a body, or a consciousness - not yet at least.  What it is comprised of is almost in its entirety what we have contributed to it.  With the remainder being data and information that has been generated by computers, bots, AI, and all the rest of the technology that is able to contribute information - all of which we gave that ability to in the first place.  Really whilst the Internet can be blamed as a place of immorality, of animosity, a cesspool of hatred etc, the Internet in reality is simply a mirror, and it is reflecting humanity.  These things did not come about because of the Internet, they always existed, the Internet has just made them much more visible especially to people who liked to live in denial that they ever existed in the first place.  There was a time when I was growing up when we heard about people who thought the world was flat and we brushed it off as one of those urban legends of things that people make up but don't actually exist.

There is a duality there that exists, two sides of denial, those that deny truth claiming it false and those that denied falsehood believing it was self evident and so obvious that no one could actually draw such false conclusions and hold them with conviction.  Fast forward to the present and we now live in a world where the divide of denial is a lot more visible.  We can see those who deny truth and we can see those who still, even to this day, deny those falsehoods exist - there are people who believe that every single person who claims to believe the world is flat is a troll and that none of them actually believe what they say - that is incredibly dangerous.

We are living in a world where those who are realistic and choosing to live in reality and becoming increasingly separated from those who are unrealistic and don't accept reality.  It's easy to say that's a good thing, but it's not.  You can't control the numbers of either side, and despite the desire to compartmentalize the population they don't live in segregation, there is no country for those that believe and those that do not, they live side by side and it would be a very bad idea to try and separate society physically based on which side of that divide you are on.

Both sides are living with the belief that with enough time, and perseverance, their side will prevail.  The deeper that divide becomes however the harder it becomes to bridge.  When civilisation as a whole develops a rift such as this, which continues to grow such as this, with historical precedent it almost always leads to civil war.  The goal of such wars have always been to wipe out the other side and leave behind a world were only one side remains.