Truth is not opinion. It is pointless to tell a truth-teller that you disagree with him. You can present a case that his facts are wrong. You can present a case that there is a better explanation of the facts.
In my experience when most people say they disagree, they mean that they prefer another explanation that is more congenial to their feelings and emotions. For example, many Americans believed the preposterous Russia-gate fib because they dislike Trump, just as today conservative talk radio has adopted the official explanation of 9/11 because it can be used against the outspoken female Muslim member of Congress. The facts have nothing to do with either belief. In both cases, the facts are resisted because the truth is not as emotionally comforting or as useful for the agenda at hand as the lie.
I have no objection if readers undertake to monitor and correct the account presented of me in Wikipedia. It will be an ongoing process, and will require the commitment of many of you. Those behind the attacks on me have a lot of money and a lot of hirelings, and they can erase your work as soon as you finish.
The digital revolution and the control mechanisms it provides makes it far more likely that we will end up in a locked down dystopia than would ever have been possible in the print age. But the digital revolution represents perhaps an even greater threat to humanity. It is making humans redundant.
What are humans to do when everything is automated? If the tech nerds have their way, we soon won't be allowed to drive cars.
What will humans do when there is no need for their labor? Boston Dynamics, a Waltham Massachusetts company, has come up with a robot that replaces warehouse workers. The prediction is that 40 million more Americans will be shoved out of the workforce by robots over the next 10 years.
Has anyone thought about who is going to be employed and have the money to purchase the products of robots? No doubt we will be promised all kinds of new and better jobs like we were promised to take the place of the offshored manufacturing and professional service jobs. The promised jobs never showed up. And no, this is not a Luddite argument. Everyone can't be employed designing robots to replace humans.
Each warehouse will rush to increase its profits by laying off employees, and none will consider the aggregate effect on consumer demand for the products in the warehouses. Will the warehouses have to give back their gained profits in taxes to support the unemployed? Will the warehouses have any profits if people haven't income from jobs with which to buy the products in the warehouses? Does the robot age mean profits have to be socialized in order to sustain human life?
An intelligent approach to technology would be to focus on technology that enhances human performance, not on technology that eliminates the need for humans.
At Stanford University technology has emerged, or is emerging, that permits real time changes in the movements of a person's mouth as he speaks in order to broadcast a message different than the one the speaker is speaking. The mischief possible with this technology is unacceptable. Television could destroy any unwelcome politician or leader by showing him delivering a message designed to destroy him. If people catch on, it would mean the end of televised speeches as no one would believe any speech unless they were present in person.
People already find it challenging to comprehend reality. The emergence of technology capable of falsifying reality in real time presages a future in which fact and fiction become indistinguishable. The unintended consequence of this technology may well be the death of truth.
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