One challenge of this moment is that the means of communications have once again outrun our ability to understand how they can be used and misused. (Did we ever really understand how television separated us and put us to sleep? How the whole "dream factory" has encouraged our taste for fictions?)
What shall we do when people we have trusted in one important realm of our lives are engaged with something that seems transparently false to us?
How many of us have even started to think the concept "psychological warfare"? Or considered how our opening to some "special" kinds of knowledge that have proven their worth again and again may also leave a door open for intruders whose intentions are not worthy?
Thanks, Elaine. I actually wrote to them after they made the Joe Rogan statement, but never heard back. I'll send them this piece and see if I hear back this time (and maybe I'll look up the author of that October 5th article... sometimes it's easier to reach individual writers as opposed to their general inbox).
This article encourages me to examine the allegiances I've made with groups, positions, philosophies. The inside/outside of myself is important to me. A college course in Philosophy was not much help in answering the questions I've had since childhood about Truth. This notion of a post-truth society scares me mightily.
Hey Nick - great to hear from you. I was a philosophy major in college and after about a dozen of those courses I was still left with all those questions about truth :) Glad the article resonated.
Interesting follow-up to this story: It obviously hasn't just been the Times calling ivermectin a livestock deworming drug, it's how it's being framed in general by liberal media outlets. So when Joe Rogan interviewed Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, he asked him why CNN had told its viewers that he had taken a livestock deworming drug when it clearly wasn't true. Here's their 5 minute exchange about it.
One challenge of this moment is that the means of communications have once again outrun our ability to understand how they can be used and misused. (Did we ever really understand how television separated us and put us to sleep? How the whole "dream factory" has encouraged our taste for fictions?)
What shall we do when people we have trusted in one important realm of our lives are engaged with something that seems transparently false to us?
How many of us have even started to think the concept "psychological warfare"? Or considered how our opening to some "special" kinds of knowledge that have proven their worth again and again may also leave a door open for intruders whose intentions are not worthy?
Some questions.
What shall we do? Thanks for sharing your questions, John. There are some big ones in there.
Great example Seth. Send this to the NYT!
Thanks, Elaine. I actually wrote to them after they made the Joe Rogan statement, but never heard back. I'll send them this piece and see if I hear back this time (and maybe I'll look up the author of that October 5th article... sometimes it's easier to reach individual writers as opposed to their general inbox).
Even if they don't respond, it's worth calling them out. Might make some editor pause in the future.
Yeah, that makes sense. Good call.
This article encourages me to examine the allegiances I've made with groups, positions, philosophies. The inside/outside of myself is important to me. A college course in Philosophy was not much help in answering the questions I've had since childhood about Truth. This notion of a post-truth society scares me mightily.
Thanks for the article.
Hey Nick - great to hear from you. I was a philosophy major in college and after about a dozen of those courses I was still left with all those questions about truth :) Glad the article resonated.
Interesting follow-up to this story: It obviously hasn't just been the Times calling ivermectin a livestock deworming drug, it's how it's being framed in general by liberal media outlets. So when Joe Rogan interviewed Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, he asked him why CNN had told its viewers that he had taken a livestock deworming drug when it clearly wasn't true. Here's their 5 minute exchange about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkTXEexNB2E