I'm sure we've all seen our share of "fake news" and hoaxes go through our social media feeds.
While it would be easy — and tempting — to just dismiss it all with an aside comment about "that's just how things are," I find it a little more problematic than that.
We seem to have arrived at a place in our cultural development — or evolution as a species — where anything you see pretty much anywhere, or even things you hear from your friends, has to be examined very closely before you get to decide whether to actually trust it.
The fact that AI can now generate such realistic footage that looks almost indistinguishable from a newscrew film isn't making life any easier.
This morning, it seemed to reach a new low (at least for me) when pretty much everything posted — and this from looking purely at my friends feed — was of dubious veracity.
It was sad that I ended up having to fact check so much, and then send messages to people I know to tell them what they had shared was a hoax... and there was so little I could actually take it face value!
So why do we see all this stuff?
I guess either people are incredibly gullible, or they are too lazy to take the time to figure out whether something is actually true... choosing instead just to pass it along as received.
Maybe I'm some sort of weird outlier because I always check everything I get to see whether it actually makes sense or not, when compared to documented reality.
Makes me wonder whether the more and more people have reached a point in their world where "makes sense" is not even something they can arrive at... perhaps due to the lack of critical thinking being taught in schools and universities.
But why do people even post this stuff in the first place? What is the point?
To be honest, I'm pretty sure it's not because they have malicious intent, or an ax to grind, or some agenda they're trying to push. Mostly, I think they push this stuff because it's kind of sensational and they're hoping it'll go viral.
Because "going viral" seems to have become the de facto new norm for what many people want in life, because if something you post goes viral and you can become famous enough that everything you post gets a million views then you can stop working and just sit and doom scroll for a living.
Not much of a life, if you ask me!
Which makes me think about an interview/podcast I was tuned into a couple of weeks ago, in which the point was being made that more and more people are "tuning out" and simply "not caring" about pretty much anything... because life just seems that bleak to them.
That's pretty sad.
On a more personal level, it is very annoying because of the time involved. You can't take anything at face vaklue anymore, and be reasonably assured that you have something that at least resembles the facts.
And so, I feel annoyed, sometimes to the point where I'd just as well completely skip over trying to learn the facts about an event or a situation.
Maybe that;s what "they" want... who knows?
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your weekend!
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Created at 2026.02.07 23:32 PST
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