Relative Truth [Meta Politics Idea Summary]

Misinformation is ... Edgy

The observable world follows a collection of powerful scientific heuristics to simplify repeatable ideas. The world is simply too interesting to learn about without summary. One of these rules of thumb is that things tend to get weird near extremes. Take this formula that you may have memorized in high school:

It describes time dilation - a rule of physics that only sets in around when an object is moving near the speed of light. In other words, its a special rule that applies when we stray too close to the fuzzy edges of reality.

The truth, like physics, is relative. Not in the moral sense, that objective truth doesn’t exist. Rather, in the physical sense, that truth is bending near the fuzzy edges.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, these edges are where the brain experiences information overload. Social media, cable TV, print media, algorithmic advertising and politics are all able to give their audience too much information in too short of a time to understand.

This enables plenty of exploits. Consider a buffer overflow attack, in which a computer’s limited memory is stuffed with instructions, leading to malicious code being introduced and executed in a targeted device.

This strategy is a hallmark of American political media. “News” elements are short, rage-filled and unending, leaving no room to think. This effect will also be explored later.

Certain Western democracies with free exchange of information, including the US, the UK and France are suffering heavily from this distortion. Their media is suffering a legitimacy crisis, with levels of distrust greater than many third world countries.

This data has been well-replicated by d o z e n s of sources. It is also only a slice of the evidence proving a new theory of communications that governs the exchange of ideas in the information-saturated environment - the fuzzy edge - where we receive news everyday.

I don’t expect anyone to be convinced in one day. But follow this list if you want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes.