Artificial Wisdom

by Thomas R. Weaver

That was the thing about the truth. Sometimes, you were judged more harshly for revealing it than for concealing it.

Maybe once upon a time, America would have clearly led the pack, but it’d squandered that leadership over many decades as the country itself had become more polarized and elected more extreme leaders on both ends of the spectrum.

That was the thing about the truth; it only came out when the cost of lying became too high.

But that was the thing about truth, once you’d set it free, you had to let it go. Whatever happened, happened, and it was just the price you had to pay.

“You can’t convince those who don’t want to be convinced. They’ll see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and studiously avoid anything that challenges their ‘truth’. I know what’s right and what’s wrong.” “And the allegation of illegality?”

That, of course, was the thing about truth. Those who hid it always believed it was colored in shades of grey, those who revealed it always saw the black and white.

Now a gaggle of several hundred men and women had gathered with signs proclaiming Tully was a firestarter, a Marxist of all things, and a Trojan horse for the extreme left. The latter amused him. He saw himself more as the extreme center.

that’s the thing about the truth. It’s not our job to decide whether it should be told or not, only that it’s told. Let others decide what to do about it.

I’m saying no matter how great the technology is, it’s been created by imperfect humans who can’t predict the impact their algorithms will have on the world. Look what happened with the first social networks. Look at the polarization and societal collapse they caused.

We should be putting the resources into turning around the current situation instead of creating safe bubbles from which the rich can watch the poor die.”

It wasn’t exactly evidence, but that was the thing about truth: you knew it when you heard it.

“You know, seventy-six years ago, a great newspaper editor sat down at his typewriter and wrote a statement I think fits this situation very well.” “What was it?” “We stand by our story.”

Losing family is like losin’ a part of yourself.”

The truth is not a luxury. It’s not disposable. It’s the bedrock of a civilized society.”

But the difference is the human brain is constantly fighting with itself; various networks are in constant conflict with one another. Emotion battles logic, willpower battles the desire for instant gratification, and hormones are virtually at war with each other. Some humans allow their emotions to drive their choices. That can be disastrous. Emotions alone don’t make good decisions.”

Emotion and logic have the same purpose. They’re both tools for guiding your choices and decisions, and for understanding the world. And emotion is important; it’s like a depth gauge for how important a choice is. But you need a threshold over which emotions can’t tread, so that decisions aren’t taken from a position of anger, depression or grief.

People seem to live in both the past and in the future, two big overlapping circles, but rarely focus on the intersection and enjoy the moments given to them right now.”

“I don’t think most people welcome the truth. I think they prefer to be told what to believe instead of discovering it for themselves.”

“Conspiracy theorists don’t hide. They thrive on attention. They proclaim their horseshit as loudly as they can, and the smellier the shit and the more confidently they proclaim it, the more people eat it up and tell each other how delicious it tastes. How other people should be eating it too. How anyone not eating it is simply a sheep in a pack. This gives them power, Tully. Power over what people believe and how they think. That’s a heady high. They don’t grow in the moldy shadows like mushrooms and bide their time with a small group of recruits.