⛪ Truth
Before the Internet, nobody knew how old Sean Connery was. You’d read his age in a magazine, but the journalist hadn’t seen his birth certificate, they were just saying what someone else told them. In 1999, Generation X would argue in the pub about things nobody knew for sure. Like whether there really were aliens at Area 51, whether ghosts existed or spontaneous human combustion was actually a thing.
But nobody really cared. True believers were mentally unwell or thought they knew better. Maybe their parents bought an encyclopaedia set from a door to door salesman for two grand. The final bell of the pre-truth era was some Dude saying
“Yeah? Well, you know, that’s just like uh, your opinion, man.”
Truth with a capital T emerged along with the global network. After the Internet, Connery was born in Edinburgh on a damp and breezy Monday evening, three weeks after another wash-out bank holiday. We know this for a fact, and it probably is. But the existence of facts normalizes the possibility of Truth, which makes people believe much more through osmosis.
For example, Jimmy Wales unironically believes Wikipedia to be without bias. This is typical of believers in Truth, as Truth is a double-edged sword without a handle; Truthers are immune to conspiracy theories but vulnerable to conspiracies. So Rounders are blown the fuck out by thinking flat-earthers actually exist, and aren’t just a joke at their expense.
In 2016, in an incredible commitment to tradition, and a brazen falseness that outraged millennials, Donald Trump ushered in our post-truth era. Pre-truthers shrugged, he was doing what all politicians had during pre-truth. And they can tell when a politician is lying anyway – their lips move. But doing it so clumsily, and in opposition to skilled propagandists, revealed a deeper truth. The age of Truth was either over, or it was bullshit all along.
If given chance to adjust, later generations will become wise to the reality of Truths. But this is not looking likely. The next epistemology is inbound and it may be too late. Because it’s personal truths that come next. Fractals of mass-manufactured deceit. Individualized lies delivered instantly and at scale through the power of machine learning.
How convenient these truths are, and to whom, will seal the True fate of the world.