2025-06-24
I think it was Socrates who made that observation - but then he didn't have the internet to enlighten him. Perhaps it was attributed to Socrates, or perhaps "Socrates" himself was just a pen-name for a disgruntled ancient Greek philosopher?
Perhaps if he had had access to an internet he would have ... doubled down on that observation?
I suppose we should add AI and CGI into the equation to make certain that invention (whether of necessity or of an overarching need to maintain the pack of lies we are fed daily by media of all stripes and none) continues to pollute our intake of news.
I suggest that anybody who assures us that they have the real deal on news is suspect. There are so many ways to generate fake news that the ratio of fake to real probably follows the 80-20 rule. When you factor in that much of it is generated by those who own everything, or even whizz-kids who do clever things simply "because they can", we have a problem - what to believe? And don't get me started on "fact-checkers".
Is it just fake news that we have to worry about? How about fake science ("global warming", "fossil" fuel, "pandemics", "modelling" etc), fake politics (MPs "work for those they represent"), fake "defence alliances" (NATO), fake "history" (ancient megaliths built using "hammers an chisels", "ropes and donkeys") and so on?
Is there hope, and if so, where?
