Who to Believe?
The narrator of Richard Powers’ brilliant and sensitive novel Bewilderment writes about tuning into the news service he distrusts the least. We live in a time of great distrust. Politicians lie. Sometimes they are intellectually dishonest, sometimes intellectually sloppy. We see worlds created for us on screens that are unbelievably unreal. Yet they lull us into believing they are real. We are often asked to disbelieve what is happening in front of us and to accept a belief that contradicts what we are perceiving. Then, there are deep fakes. There are works written by AI. And the people who created that AI don’t even understand how their creations work. It is a lot to be alive today and just to figure out who we can trust or who we can believe. It can be overwhelming.
Have we come to a moment where we have to choose who to believe based on who we distrust the least? Is that pervasive in all realms: politics, media, science, commerce, in our daily social interactions? Is that the best we can do at this point?
What if we think about motivation and the practical consequences of believing one person over another? What if we ask why someone or some group is motivated to get us to believe some particular idea? Why does that person or group have a stake in what we believe? What does that person or group have to gain or to lose? And then, what are the practical consequences of believing that person or group? In our lives and in that person’s life? What might we have to gain or lose by believing? Will believing that person increase the person’s wealth or power? Or both? Will it enrich us or empower us? Or will it enrich or empower some other person? Will it impoverish or marginalize us or someone else? Are we just being manipulated? How can we tell who or even what is manipulating us?
These are hard questions. There may not be any good answers. But we do know that some people cannot be trusted. Maybe it is just intuition. We feel that this person or that person is not trustworthy. But we can’t figure out exactly why. Could intuition be good enough in some situations? Do we tend to ignore our intuitions or feel skeptical about them? What if we have been manipulated to distrust our own intuitions in favor of trusting others? Politicians, corporations, religious leaders?
If you’ve gotten here, you have probably read a lot of footnotes. Do you believe me? Should you believe me? Should I believe my self? Should you believe your self? I mean, what is all of this anyway? Am I trying to convince you of something? What stake do I have in you believing in something that you may have read here? What motivation do I have to write all of this? What do I have to gain? Or lose? What do you have to lose? Or, is there anything for you to gain here? Why are you reading this? Are you looking for something? Does looking for something make us vulnerable? Can we be more easily swindled into believing something if we are looking for something? Do you want answers? Do we want answers? Are there answers?
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I don't know.