Paul Campos notes the growth of online conspiracy theories and the relative degeneration of even reasonably intelligent people. This was in light of the crazed person who lit himself on fire yesterday and died this morning. Embracing conspiracy theories is very common in authoritarian regimes, because you can't trust those in power for accurate news. What we have is something different, I think. We have killed off the gatekeepers like the Times and Walter Cronkite and nothing has taken its place, or perhaps everything everywhere has taken its place.
There's an argument that losing the authoritative voice has been a blow for human liberty, but I fear we are trending towards a 21st century Thomas Hobbes situation. The levelling nature of knowledge and authority leads to a sort of intellectual and cognitive anarchy that means that all knowledge if treated as equal.
What's more, the borderline lunatic person like Aaron Rodgers was trapped by these authoritative figures. Now, they are a few clicks away from like-minded people who can amplify the crazy. There was a music video from the '90s by Blind Melon - you'd remember it - with a girl wearing a bee costume wandering around until she finds a bunch of other people in bee costumes. It's great! She found her people! The internet is really good for that...until your people are similarly deranged. Then, instead of being checked, your cognitive fallacies are effectively multiplied.
Like the impact smart phones are having on your attention spans, I'm not sure there's a solution, but it's not great.
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