CHAPTER 9Truth In the Era of Willful Ignorance: Is Trust Over?
In his 2007 book, The Cult of the Amateur, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Keen warned that the Internet not only had democratized information beyond people's wildest imaginings but also was replacing genuine knowledge with “the wisdom of the crowd,” thus dangerously blurring the lines between fact and opinion, informed argument and blustering speculation (Kakutani, 2018).
From post-modernism to filter bubbles, “truth decay” has been spreading for decades. How can we stop alternative facts from bringing society down with them? Well, we need to get back to basics, as well as to understand the incentive structures that got us here.
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality. In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as propositions and declarative sentences. Truth is usually held to be the opposite of falsehood.
Truth is the metaphysics and the philosophy of language, the property of sentences, assertions, beliefs, thoughts, or propositions that are said, in accordance with reality.
The opposite of truth is falsehood or lie or mistruth or misinformation. Misinformation can also often mean disinformation, fake news, a rumor, urban legend, conspiracy theories, spam, and trolls.
In recent years, the world has been facing an unprecedented assault on truth. Add exponential technology to the mix, and you have an infodemic. ...
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