Infomocracy (Centenal Cycle #1)

by Malka Ann Older

One thing Ken has learned in this job: people like to think they know things, even the unknowable.

Here’s looking at you, Nate Silver

“I agree that loosened immigration is often better. Economically, it usually is.

The endive-prosciutto salad mostly closely matches her nutritional needs, but that’s hardly portable. Mishima decides to splurge on the peanut butter–banana-honey sandwich instead, a true luxury given the rarity of both bananas and honey.

The new Heritage coalition of wealthy, experienced global corporates ignored the accessibility of Information, produced their standard glossy misinformation, and not only took the Supermajority but won centenals where, analysts agreed, it was demonstrably not in the interests of the people living there to vote for them.

Information workers, with their ingrained culture prioritizing rigorous truth, struggled to slap motivational music or abstract video of stunning views and happy faces onto their datasets, and it showed.

There was a study done with minimally educated voters who, given a hypothetical ballot, picked the names of famous serial killers over randomly generated names as well as over those of actual, less well-known politicians.

Our government officials are all chosen for their qualifications and capacity, not for their looks.

Straight outta Plato town

If she were the one to choose the quote that is found above the entrances of Information offices worldwide, it would be the one that says democracy is the worst system, except for all the other ones.

but democracy is of limited usefulness when there are no good choices, or when the good choices become bad as soon as you’ve chosen them, or when all the Information access in the world can’t make people use it.

the people who pose the greatest threat to the system: the people who can still remember, with rancor and longing and the inevitable distortions of time, what things were like before.

“What do you think is going to happen when people start figuring this out?” Nejime says. “When people in Singapore hear that Liberty citizens in Malaysia think they have conquered them, when Turks learn that, in Greek Liberty centenals, Cyprus is entirely Greek, and vice versa?” “We find that the people who hate each other that much rarely view the same types of Information,” the man says. “It seems terribly unlikely that they will ever know. In the meantime, everyone is happy, and the possibility for real aggression is being defused.”