We are getting burned alive by hot takes. The speed of the internet allows for everything to be felt and decided all at once. This results in the Jussie Smollet travesty, the ridiculous overreaction to a heavily edited video of Diane Feinstein, and whatever will come out of the Mueller report. We have a tendency to write headlines that create clickbait rather than reflect the content of the article. We leap so quickly to form judgments that we fail to allow proper vetting to take place. As we move into the territory of digital deepfakes, we will see increasing incidents of people jumping to pre-conceived conclusions based on immediate readings of complicated events. Confirmation bias will rein supreme, as everyone who is Extremely Online will stumble over themselves to be heard first on this very important issue that people will forget about in a week.
Democracy can't survive a culture of hot takes. It requires reflection and contemplation. You have to ruminate on important issues; that is in fact the point of representative government. We elect people to take the time to understand an issue and come to a reasoned conclusion about how to address it.
Does anyone think that describes our current political climate?
Everyone is an expert, everyone has a statement to make, and what's worst, everyone has to make it first. The rush to be the first to comment on an event leads to myriad bad conclusions bereft of all the evidence and the reasoned consideration of all angles.
This isn't about "both sides" or some sort of mushy centrism. It's about finding your way to the best outcome. It's about a public discourse that is rooted in fact, not feeling. Feeling is the terrain of demagogues, and we should always be on guard against being swept away by feelings, when it comes to big complicated issues that we don't have personal experience in.
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