THREAD
1/
I don’t read the news, but today I did, and it really got me thinking.
Internet culture has reshaped how we relate to knowledge. Alignment now seems to matter more than accuracy, and online, there is always some place, or some person, willing to offer alignment.
#Scotland #Internet #Knowledge #Truth #SocialMedia #News #Misinformation #Writing #WritingCommunity #Reading #Culture #TV #UK
2/
A kind of clan logic has replaced epistemic logic. Being ‘right’ now means expressing the correct things for your group. That instinct is deeply human of course, but what the internet has made possible is the ability to always find a group prepared to treat what you believe as correct, no matter how weak the evidence.
3/
Because of this, there is little incentive to self-correct. If one space rejects you, another will reward you. Being objectively wrong no longer carries a significant social cost. In fact, it can increase power and status! And in 2025 we see this all the way up to the highest levels of government.
4/
Opinion is now allowed to work as a psychological buffer against reality. Facts often demand something of us: responsibility, change, discomfort. But once an issue is framed as a matter of opinion rather than consequence, those demands dissolve. You do not have to act or adapt, or learn or think differently, you just have to belong. And the internet is a 24/7, 365-days-a-year belonging superstore.
"Opinion is now allowed to work as a psychological buffer against reality."
-this pisses me off so much, it's why I avoid some people sometimes.
5/
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but opinions are not the same thing as evidence, and they shouldn’t be the primary force shaping public decisions that affect everyone. Yet we increasingly see the opposite in government, where votes are currency and policy is shaped to match prevailing opinion, whether or not that opinion is accurate. Few politicians are willing to bankrupt themselves (except morally) by telling people something they don’t want to hear.
6/
Reality keeps going, yet no one faces it.
@kristiedegaris I think people are just tired of facts, and a lot of them really enjoy having opinions free of facts. It was so before the scientific era, and during a short time, people were interested in facts, but it made them sad, and now they are returning to the thing humans always did : not really caring about the facts.
@kristiedegaris I agree that "votes are currency and policy is shaped to match prevailing opinion" and I think, while the degree or method of it happening may be new, some of the basic structures of our system of government were built (successfully or otherwise) expressly because that has always been the case, to counter it.
Put another way, democracy has always had the risk of mob rule (by opinion). Right?
Maybe as a not all new phenomena it may have not all new solutions?
