Netizen are under an informational cross fire. On one side our access to the world is filtered by agorithms: this is confirmation bias on AI steroids. On the other side we are constantly watered with fact checks, debunks and conspiracy -or presented as so- theories. You want to believe and are shown that many major news stories are not worth the pixel they are using to be printed on your screen. The final state of the average netizen is to no longer believe anything at all, but what he already knew or thought he knew. Any new information that does not fit with the presupposition of the netizen is rejected as fake news etc.
We are no longer living in a Democracy. We are living in Denycracy.
Fact checked to death
The most striking recent example is the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. I am not going to point out to an article or a video because you can find everything you want with a modicum amount of effort - the bombing never happened - it killed 800/500/whatever - it only happened on the parking lot of the hospital - it was done by Israelis on purpose or by accident or by Palestinians groups here again on purpose or by mistake - pictures are AI generated - videos have been edited… It has been a week since the explosion occurred and nothing conclusive has been published. Ironically the media acknowledge they know less now than 17 seconds after the explosion. Since this event took place everything has been subjected to fact checking, even the fact checkers themselves are fact checked. But you don’t even know who said what and when so fact checking is in fact useless: it is nothing more than a fancy name for cherry picking or straw-man hunting. Every news story is fact checked to death. Nothing remains.
Skepiticim’s Poisoned Well
It is not the product that makes the poison, it is the dose. Skepticism is a healthy habit until it is used as a weapon of massive denial. The amount of denial displayed from October 7 and the Hamas attack has gone through the roof. Every news story, from each side of the conflict are denying everything and anything in particular coming from the other side. Fact checking has been weaponized.
Denial of Service
In Denycracy the point is not to make things work. It is precisely the opposite. The idea is to make everything unable to work. Top down control doesn’t work anymore because of digital technologies. You can’t control every entry point of the internet. So the strategy to remain in control is to flood the system with garbage. Drowning citizen under data and ever changing news cycle is very efficient. Nothing holds and if you care for the truth, well two weeks from now no one will care about the fact that what was said before was utterly wrong. The 2016 electoral campaign of Trump was a precursor. Trump used this technique to fly from scandal to scandal like a lizard walking on water. To the surprise of the elite it worked. They got it. They have perfected it and what was artisanal crafting has become an industry, a new technique to control the population. Welcome to Denycracy. Free speech is irrelevant when you are denied the access to truth and honest conversations.
The Most Stubborns will inherit the Earth
We are living extraordinary times. Ancient institutions are still clinging on to power. But as they live under the democratic illusion, they try to follow the crowds. Due to the nature of Denicracy the crowds go everywhere without a clear goal. From trend to trend. But not everyone is lost. In this environment the most stubborn are rewarded because the one having an idea will profit from every move to push their agenda. Look at organizations like C40 Cities, the WEF, or this extraordinary example “NGOs call to the EU to end support for new hydropower”. This new model of governance will be the subject of another post, but it is clear that the ones that are organized along ideas rather than simply reacting to emotional triggers will go further ahead. A bad plan is better than an absence of plan as we say in chess.