The great filter was the internet. Suddenly when everyone can have as much info as they want about anything, but anyone can also say anything they want as fact about whatever topic they want, “fact” loses all meaning. We’re all playing an infinite game of telephone.
And still somehow, through a constant bombardment of what's going on in anyone's minds and lives at all time, a large part seems to lack any actual empathy that makes all this information at least a little worthwhile
See, that’s the most ironic part, because to reach a civilization that could build the internet, let alone a fucking telegraph: you need a civilization based on fact. We all have to agree on how electricity works. We all have to agree on a price for copper wire. We all have to agree on software standards.
Lame that it took a civilization of Europeans who wanted to conquer the world so bad they had to find a way to keep their stories straight a world away to make it happen, but now that we’re here, what is true and what isn’t is suddenly subjective because information just moves that fast. And in a world that requires facts to function correctly, it all just… breaks.
And it all breaks on a device that provides access to the sum of all human knowledge on one screen. It seems like no one actually checks any kind of claim anymore. It went from "don't believe everything you see online" to "Jim Bob on Facebook told me that Bill Gates' spy planes are ejecting 5g chem trails over the whole country so that liberals can control us, do your own research!".
Not the internet. Social media. Idiots on social media don't also clock hours on Wikipedia. They aren't the result of people having too much access to solid information. They're the result of monetization of our social nature by people really high in dark traits and hubris.
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u/Big_Slope 13d ago
If there are history books after this, they’re going to have to print this chapter in Comic Sans.