It's hard to believe how little we trust what we read in this age of the internet.
The US election of 2016 demonstrated just how profoundly our relationship to authority has changed. We're exposed to conflicting opinions from the online media. We hear facts followed by denial and statement of the opposite as true. Everyone lies, apparently. There's no way to make sense of this online world in the way one makes sense of a tree or a dog or a computer.
Perhaps relying on confirmation bias, we are forced to interpret events without resort to reasoned argument or weight of evidence. We have to fall back on what we already believe. You have to pick a side. Faced with a deafening roar of comments on Twitter, cable news, news websites, we shape what we hear to be create a stable, consistent worldview.
Welcome to a world of narrative where the truth is simply the story we believe. And pragmatically, it seems not to matter much. Believe what you will, since we mostly yield no power in the world.
So what am I to make of this nice new MacBook Pro that I'm using right now? Is it really evidence of Apple's incompetence or their desire to marginalize or milk the Mac during its dying days? Again, believe what you will, but I've got some work to do.
