Thread by @davetroy

People across the spectrum have departed from reality, preferring the comforting embrace of 'vibes'. The level of fan fiction and unmoored speculation is unmatched. I've seen some things, and this is next level.

There is reality; there is what the government knows; there is what others know; and then there's "what the public believes." These are not the same, and the latter is completely unconstrained from fact — simply because it can be.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned about this a long time ago (Secrecy, 1998) and suggested a culture of government secrecy would breed speculation. But imagined public narratives now come first, and the government is then expected to corroborate them.

We have also been subject to decades of information warfare designed to sow distrust in government, specifically the US government. And many are oblivious to that, having been groomed to believe various strains of disinformation narratives.

It's not clear how we come back from this, short of becoming too stupid and paranoid to survive; at which point (soon) we'll have to make some decisions. But until then, it's just idiocy, all the way down. Look out below.

Back in 2020, Obama declared an "epistemological crisis." That was obviously correct, and even just today he's having to restate clear basic facts which are unrefuted by new, idiotic hallucinations of Gabbard, Putin, et al.
hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/our…

It's become something of a national sport to microdose news tidbits and spin new tales based on every additional morsel. It's addicting, and sometimes satisfying, but here's an idea: shut up. Think. Give facts time to come to the surface. Silence is a virtue.

People grind their gears (juicing themselves on cortisol, adrenaline, and dopamine) reacting to provocations with a stable shelf life of less than a couple of hours. Just think of all the time one might save by simply not taking the bait?

I say this not to chide but out of experience. It used to be tempting to think we could 'do something' about all of this and that it required maximum urgency and righteous anger. That didn't work out. A longer view and more strategic approach is needed. Action > reaction.