> We're slow-motion singing on to a future with a fundamental shift to receiving information in a completely opaque manner.
There's nothing fundamentally new about this. The average person is blissfully unaware of the conversations being had between powerful individuals, PR experts, producers, and so on about how said person should be manipulated.
I pretty much have this ever-present aura of "citation needed" floating around in my head when I listen to people speak. Any kind of news/press thing, politician speaking (lol), or just anyone trying to claim/assert anything -- I can feel nothing but "citation needed" until they provide some kind of supporting evidence. I feel like people expend a shocking amount of energy proclaiming things they literally do not know with even the slightest degree of certainty - they saw it on some guy's sensational YouTube video and repeat it uncritically. The fatigue is real.
Even a citation is insufficient nowadays. They will cite a "reputable" source like NYT, which in turn cites "an anonymous intelligence official", and so on. Unverifiable.
Misinformation and manufactured narratives are omnipresent and all we can do is consume as diverse a media diet as possible and develop a good nose for bullsh*t.
