"Trust" is a question of "truth" and "identity" - we trust someone we know who usually tells the truth. The real difficulty that technology creates is double: we can't tell the truth from a fabricated lie, and we can't remotely verify identities in a reliable way. To solve these challenges, we must first understand what truth is, beyond …
"Trust" is a question of "truth" and "identity" - we trust someone we know who usually tells the truth. The real difficulty that technology creates is double: we can't tell the truth from a fabricated lie, and we can't remotely verify identities in a reliable way. To solve these challenges, we must first understand what truth is, beyond its logical/mathematical definitions (almost all philosophy today gives us on this subject). How can one hope to rebuild trust if there is no real understanding of what truth is?
There is a complex argument behind this, but what we call "truth" in our daily lives is linked to what we call "reality" - so there is a strong reason why "trust" and "truth" are most under attack in the era of synthetic, fabricated realities. "Reality" turns out to be a cultural construct, but not one that can be synthesized by anyone (through lies, manipulation, etc.), but rather a collective cultural construct resulting from a set of "truth-validating institutions". Such institutions were well established and strongly linked to identity, for example the institution of personal reputation for people, or collective reputation for newspapers, or the peer review mechanism for science. Even the school as a whole is really just a " truth-validating institution", but dictionaries are also another type of this kind of institution. In fact, all of our culture and knowledge would be unthinkable without these ubiquitous, but almost never seen as such, insititutions, since no one can verify everything they learn for themselves, and they have to *trust* that someone else has done so.
What is really happening is that all these good, reliable, old truth-validating institutions are being dismantled by technology but also by an aggresive pollitical campaign targeted at them (take the list above and you'll see that woke movement is heavily targeting them, mostly school, press, dictionaries); they simply don't do their job anymore under the new conditions. And yes, it is true that free speech is fundamental to the rebuilding of some new truth-validating institutions and there is a precise reason for this:
The problem is that too many people turn to institutions to define reality.
They said there was a super deadly, fast spreading virus coming ,so you can’t leave your house. Despite the fact that the virus had been detected two months earlier in this country (officially), and there was still no crisis to speak of, most people didn’t question the narrative. They stayed home and yelled at anyone who simply asked: is it that dangerous? Is this necessary?
All one had to do to answer those questions was to look around, talk to friends. All they had to do was see how things really were IRL. But instead they believed what the media told them about their own lives!
That blew my mind. I may not know what’s going on in Russia but I sure as hell know what’s up in my neighborhood and through conversations with friends all over the US I can figure out what’s going on in the rest of the country.
Trust in oneself and one’s own perceptions is key to the truth. Outsourcing truth to institutions will always deliver a warped version of reality and it has always been so. This is nothing new at all.
I have to say that I use "institution" in its most general sense. "Reputation" is an institution, but so is "gossip", close to what you describe as "talking to friends etc". In fact, for all its negative aspects, gossip is an essential informal broker of truth within communities, because it generates informal shared opinions that are mostly correct.
I heard something about how the word "gossip" evolved from "God sib". It was the information you received about what was going on from your godparents and the like - long before anything like our modern means of information travel. Everyone has a need to connect and chit chat to hear what is going on and sort out what they think about it. I don't know when "gossip" developed a negative connotation. But, the actual thing just got a new word, like "What's the skinny?" or "What's the tea?" "Do spill."
Now, we are moving towards a society where it is not ok to shame/point the finger at anything and say it's bad. Like, gee, Minor Attracted People cannot help themselves so let's protect them from any negative language. Oh, except for non-believers in the Latest Thing. Like, you are a phobe and should be screamed at if you "misgender" and think biology is a thing.
"Trust" is a question of "truth" and "identity" - we trust someone we know who usually tells the truth. The real difficulty that technology creates is double: we can't tell the truth from a fabricated lie, and we can't remotely verify identities in a reliable way. To solve these challenges, we must first understand what truth is, beyond its logical/mathematical definitions (almost all philosophy today gives us on this subject). How can one hope to rebuild trust if there is no real understanding of what truth is?
There is a complex argument behind this, but what we call "truth" in our daily lives is linked to what we call "reality" - so there is a strong reason why "trust" and "truth" are most under attack in the era of synthetic, fabricated realities. "Reality" turns out to be a cultural construct, but not one that can be synthesized by anyone (through lies, manipulation, etc.), but rather a collective cultural construct resulting from a set of "truth-validating institutions". Such institutions were well established and strongly linked to identity, for example the institution of personal reputation for people, or collective reputation for newspapers, or the peer review mechanism for science. Even the school as a whole is really just a " truth-validating institution", but dictionaries are also another type of this kind of institution. In fact, all of our culture and knowledge would be unthinkable without these ubiquitous, but almost never seen as such, insititutions, since no one can verify everything they learn for themselves, and they have to *trust* that someone else has done so.
What is really happening is that all these good, reliable, old truth-validating institutions are being dismantled by technology but also by an aggresive pollitical campaign targeted at them (take the list above and you'll see that woke movement is heavily targeting them, mostly school, press, dictionaries); they simply don't do their job anymore under the new conditions. And yes, it is true that free speech is fundamental to the rebuilding of some new truth-validating institutions and there is a precise reason for this:
https://antimaterie.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-truth
The problem is that too many people turn to institutions to define reality.
They said there was a super deadly, fast spreading virus coming ,so you can’t leave your house. Despite the fact that the virus had been detected two months earlier in this country (officially), and there was still no crisis to speak of, most people didn’t question the narrative. They stayed home and yelled at anyone who simply asked: is it that dangerous? Is this necessary?
All one had to do to answer those questions was to look around, talk to friends. All they had to do was see how things really were IRL. But instead they believed what the media told them about their own lives!
That blew my mind. I may not know what’s going on in Russia but I sure as hell know what’s up in my neighborhood and through conversations with friends all over the US I can figure out what’s going on in the rest of the country.
Trust in oneself and one’s own perceptions is key to the truth. Outsourcing truth to institutions will always deliver a warped version of reality and it has always been so. This is nothing new at all.
Outsourcing the truth to the FBI certainly wasn't one of our government's greatest achievements.
I have to say that I use "institution" in its most general sense. "Reputation" is an institution, but so is "gossip", close to what you describe as "talking to friends etc". In fact, for all its negative aspects, gossip is an essential informal broker of truth within communities, because it generates informal shared opinions that are mostly correct.
Gossip and talking to friends about their objective experiences in life are very different.
I heard something about how the word "gossip" evolved from "God sib". It was the information you received about what was going on from your godparents and the like - long before anything like our modern means of information travel. Everyone has a need to connect and chit chat to hear what is going on and sort out what they think about it. I don't know when "gossip" developed a negative connotation. But, the actual thing just got a new word, like "What's the skinny?" or "What's the tea?" "Do spill."
Now, we are moving towards a society where it is not ok to shame/point the finger at anything and say it's bad. Like, gee, Minor Attracted People cannot help themselves so let's protect them from any negative language. Oh, except for non-believers in the Latest Thing. Like, you are a phobe and should be screamed at if you "misgender" and think biology is a thing.