Tag Archives: society

Post Truth Era

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Never mind the ridiculous videos of Mr. Rogers chatting with Tupac Shakur or Bigfoot vlogging, these AI videos seem real enough while fully intending us to know they are AI. What we are seeing now is an indistinguishable bending of real and fake with videos that are completely altering our ability to know what is real and what isn’t.

Voice mimicking was already almost perfect. I saw a video post today from a man whose dad called him to ask what their shared bank account password was. One problem: His dad died last year, he just hadn’t taken his name off of the account yet. He said it sounded so real that had his father been alive, he probably would have shared the password, thinking his dad forgot.

Now AI videos are just as good as AI audio and the combination of the two truly are steering us into a post truth era. People are sharing AI videos completely unaware that they are fake. Even news stations are getting it wrong.

Soon web sites will become bastions of truth. Want to know what someone actually said? Go to ‘their name’ .com or .org and see the actual video shared there. Anything else will be questionable. And wherever else the video is shared must be watched with skepticism. Subtle or overt, very important changes in a message will occur as a result of someone, ultimately anyone taking the original video and making an AI version that gives their message instead of the intended message.

Following specific domains, and maybe a handful of legitimate news channels, are the only suggestions I have. Legislation won’t keep up, and the fakes are just getting better. Essentially, find reliable sites and distrust everything else. Intuition and common sense won’t be enough.

No Authenticity Without Sincerity

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I was listening to the Modern Wisdom podcast with Chris Williamson and he said something that really struck a chord with me,

“…society is obsessed with authenticity and terrified of sincerity.”

For me it’s the perfect vacation photo, but it took 20 minutes to take because that’s how long it took to have a split second of time when the scene doesn’t look over-crowded.

It’s the beauty advice from people with injection enhanced lips and inch long false eyelashes.

It’s the made-to-look-candid moments that are completely contrived.

It’s the ‘I’m an influencer’ entitlement.

It’s the beauty filters that remove wrinkles and age lines while enhancing complexion.

… I could go on. The point being all this happens with an air or attempt to share an authentic moment, a real, ‘this is me’ connection’, or a ‘I’ve got what you want’ attitude, all the while masquerading as sincere.

It’s conveyed as authentic, yet there is pretence, deceit, and/or hypocrisy. It’s the promise that you can have it all: the beauty, the physique, the wealth, the perfect significant other, the happy and fulfilled life.

‘If I can do it, you can too.’

Never mind genetics, forget about privilege, disregard the challenges that are proclaimed as easy or simple to overcome. Leave behind sincerity.

Real authenticity comes with vulnerability. But vulnerability is seen as weakness. So everyone’s afraid of sincerity because theky don’t want their message, and more importantly themselves, to appear vulnerable and weak.

What are we left with?

“…society is obsessed with authenticity and terrified of sincerity.”

What do we see?

False authenticity thinly vailed as sincere but really just an illusion. It’s performative rather than practical. And yet somehow it gains traction, and social media algorithms just feed us more. More vapid messages pretending to be genuine but never sincere enough to be truly authentic.

The upside down bell curve

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The bell curve, also known as a normal distribution, is a graph that depicts how values in a dataset are distributed. Most values cluster around the average with fewer values appearing at the extremes… those rare few that do very well or very poorly.

But there is a new curve evolving that matters more, the upside down bell curve where the ones on the extremes are where most of the data points are distributed. In an era of free and openly available information, this is the new learning curve. There is no more average majority, instead there are those that understand and those that do not. Those that participate and those that opt out. Those that engage and those that choose not to. Those that seek to learn and those that disengage.

The resources needed to do well are available. The access to information is there for all who want it. The opportunity to get that information in a format or delivery that makes sense to you is easy to find. The question is, are you willing to put the effort in?

If you learn how you best learn, then access to information is no longer a barrier and you will likely learn very well. You will be with the majority of people on the successful side of the distribution curve. If you decide it’s too hard, or choose not to engage, you will be with the other majority, ignorantly selecting the unsuccessful side of the distribution.

There will be anomalies, those that have learning challenges that are not met and struggle, and those that make no effort yet still find it easy to understand things. There will also be those few that just choose to squeak by, capable of more but neither excelling or struggling. But this is the era of extremes. This is a time when the ‘A’, the ‘Exceeding Expectations’, the ability to excel, is available to most… and yet will only be achieved by the ones who actually choose it.

The mathematical average of the curve might be the same, but the distribution will be starkly divided.

Fuelling my disillusionment

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A few months ago I wrote the following in response to a LinkedIn post, and then saved it in my drafts. The problem is, I didn’t copy the link to the original post properly. Furthermore, if I recall, it didn’t really answer the question that was posed. It was tangentially connected but not completely on topic.

I’ve edited my comment slightly, and I want to share it since I’m wonder if ‘it’s just me’ feeling this way?

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

It’s the doing more with less that fuels my disillusionment.

  • Greater and often unrealistic expectations of parents and universities.
  • Greater student social-emotional as well as educational needs.
  • Greater demands to prevent litigation (more documentation, more protection of data, more health & safety requirements… all ‘necessary’, but time consuming.)
  • Greater demands and expectations from the Ministry of Education, and Worksafe BC.
  • Greater costs – pay hikes, heating costs, perishable supplies. Even with no cuts to education, less money gets to the classroom.
    I could go on. I’ve watched my role shift from educational leader to middle manager of an educational machine. I feel like a shield trying to redirect and manage the above impacts away from teachers so that they, rather than we, can do great things with kids.

Still an important role but a lot less personally rewarding.

Am I the only principal feeling this?

Knowledge Keepers

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For generations we have looked to our elders as the knowledge keepers. Now knowledge is stored in bits and bytes, and shared in video format. A boy doesn’t look to dad or granddad to learn how to shave, he learns on YouTube. A girl learns to apply foundation and makeup from Instagram Reels or TickTock. Changing a headlight on your car? There’s a YouTube video with your exact make and model showing you every step. Cooking, traveling, losing weight, gaining muscle, putting contact lenses in, or beating a level on your favourite video game? You are probably going to search for how to do it online before you ask someone for help.

Something to recognize is that many knowledge keepers are the ones sharing and creating the videos we seek, so in a way, their knowledge is still being transferred. Just like people before the internet looked to books for wisdom and insight, seeking a video of someone doing the exact task you are going to do is a very useful way to learn. This isn’t an issue of knowledge being lost, and in fact, is a useful way to store and share information. The question is, what is being lost?

What social interactions between generations are being left out of the YouTube ‘How To’ era? Is there a kind of wisdom being lost, or is it just a loss of connection?

I’m conflicted when thinking about this. Part of me thinks that we are disconnecting from our knowledge keepers, our elders, our storytellers, and that we are missing out in a shared, personal experience. And yet I also think of a kid in a remote town without a library learning about our universe online from physicist Brian Cox. Or a child of a single parent who works two jobs getting an online tutorial on a topic their busy parent has no time to give them. How lucky are they to have the internet fill the knowledge gap?

We can access our knowledge keepers online as well as face-to-face, it’s not an either/or situation… but I guess that what I’m wondering is if we haven’t forgotten that there is a richness to learning in-person from our knowledge keepers? Are we too quick to use Google or Chat GPT to seek quick answers and missing out on a story, an interaction that builds a core memory? Are we losing a richness of experience that comes with sitting with our elders and learning from them?

Stories that define us

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I heard a quote, not from the original source, which said young people today are going to be the first generation to die with more memories of other people than memories of themselves.

Social media has become so pervasive and so consumed that people spend more time watching other people do things than doing things themselves. And now it’s getting even more extreme with AI videos becoming a large part of social media, with some videos being obviously artificial, but many more seeming real… I fear that not only are people growing up living the stories of other people, but also living invented stories simply to keep them watching. Sure I can say the same about television. I still have memories of watching Gilligan’s Island, Get Smart, Hogan’s Heroes, Looney Tunes cartoons, and yes, even The Brady Bunch. Television gave us stories long before social media. But there was always a hard ending time for tv shows, or at least until the, ‘Same bat time, same bat channel,’ the next day or next week.

The entertainment stories now are not formatted the same. They aren’t designed to hold your attention for 20 to 22 minutes out of a half hour with commercial breaks. Instead, they are like an unlimited stream of commercial breaks. Quick soundbites to grab your attention. Short bursts of information, excitement, or extravagance. All designed to keep you watching the next clip, and the next, and the next. Soon an afternoon that could have been spent creating your own memories has disappeared and memories of other people (real or invented) sharing their experiences becomes the only thing you have to remember.

What are the stories that are defining us today? How are they different than ones previously shared? Are they making our lives richer, or slowing replacing our lives? At the end of a week, how much of your life are you remembering and how many stories that you share and talk about are actually not your stories at all?

What makes a cult?

  1. A charismatic leader.
  2. They build an ‘Us-vs-Them’ mentality.
  3. Community building through symbols, slogans, and rituals.
  4. Belief perseverance, even in the face of contradictory evidence (and persecution).
  5. Identity is born out of loyalty and faith.

Why am I writing about this now?

You know. I wish you didn’t… But you do.

Uncivility

The statements that I wholeheartedly disagreed with almost everything Charlie Kirk stood for, AND that I am deeply saddened and appalled that he was gunned down, murdered, are not contradictory. In fact, put together, these two statements make another statement: They say that violence is not an answer to disagreement in a civil society.

Violence is uncivil.

When societies accept violence as a natural consequence to disagreements, they lose site of what it means to be a free society. They permit further violence as a solution to disagreement. They invite and incite tyranny, control, and loss of freedoms. They go down a path to being less civil, and more dangerous. And they lead to a society more greatly restricted in both rights and freedoms as citizens.

I’ve said before, “We need a society that allows disagreement. We need to be civil about how we protest. Because there is no civil society where violence and damaging property works one-way… only the way upset people think it should. Societies that tolerate inappropriate protest are inviting responses that are less and less civil. And nobody wins.”

Nobody wins, civility is lost, and rationalizations or justifications of any kind promote the worst kind of tolerance… tolerance to violence.

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Related:

• Appropriate Protest

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New study: ‘Stupidity is Contagious’

Is this the newest epidemic?

New study: ‘Stupidity is Contagious’

Some very interesting findings have come from a new study:

  • Researchers at the Institute for Cognitive Decay claim stupidity spreads “at rates comparable to the common cold, but with longer-lasting effects.”
  • Dr. Helen Tropp, lead researcher:
    “It turns out stupidity is highly contagious, especially when transmitted through phrases like ‘I did my own research’ or ‘That’s just your opinion.’”
  • Study participants who spent just 10 minutes in a room with someone spouting conspiracy theories lost an average of 12 IQ points, some “permanently.”
  • Exposure is not limited to in-person contact: scrolling through the ‘For you’ section of X (Twitter) carries “a 73% risk of infection.”
  • In rural test sites, researchers noticed “stupidity clusters” forming, which they compared to “wildfires fueled by bad takes, energy drinks, and supplements promoted on ‘Bro Culture’ podcasts.”
  • One experimental group was forced to binge-watch reality TV marathons—nearly half had lowered basic math test results afterward, and 12% struggled to write in complete sentences when asked to summarize episodes in a paragraph.
  • Professor Alan Greaves, epidemiologist:
    “We tried developing a stupidity vaccine, but test subjects refused it, saying they ‘don’t believe in science.’ At that point, we gave up.”

And if these ‘research based’ bullet points weren’t enough ‘evidence’, let me be explicit in saying these were all Chat GPT inspired, following a response to my request for them stating, “Here’s a bundle of fake “facts,” bogus statistics, and ridiculous quotes you can mix into your parody piece.” I tweaked them a little, but none of them were my ideas.

Stupidity travels at the speed of laziness.

Stupidity isn’t contagious, lazy thinking is. We no longer live in a world where information can be taken at face value without some level of fact checking. Our bullshit detectors need to be left in the ‘on’ position. And we need to be sceptical of evidence, be that evidence in favour of or against what we believe.

It can be a quote, an AI generated video, or even a person of influence that you have followed and admired, but who was equally duped (or lazy) in their gathering of information… Misinformation, fake “facts”, and downright intentional falsified data is everywhere these days, and if we are lazy with our diligence, it’s easy to contribute to the spread of information and lies.

So while this study was made up, it seems to me that if we are lazy in the way we consume (and share information), as many people seem to be, this really is leading to the spread of stupidity.

Existential Drift

We aren’t getting rid of doctors, or plumbers any time soon, but large organizations have already started to reduce staff in areas that we thought only humans could do. Not only are robotics and AI taking over manual labour, intelligent agents are also taking over white collar jobs. The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, recently said, “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years”. Marketing and content production, data analysis, bookkeeping, and customer support are just a few key areas where layoffs have already begun. This isn’t some sci-fi future prediction. Rather it is a reporting out of current trends.

A combination of AI, robotics, and automation are redefining work. The cost to society is ever-increasing layoffs and unemployment statistics, leading to jobless members of society, with little or no prospects of retraining or alternative careers. What does our society look like when unemployment hits 20%?

At some point we are going to have to start thinking about Universal Basic Income, and ways to ensure that massive unemployment doesn’t lead to poverty and an ever-widening gap between those that have financial success (or at least comfort) and those that are barely surviving. But even if these low or no income people are provided for and supported, another question arises:

How does a large unemployed segment of society cultivate personal purpose and meaning?

Many people see purpose or self worth through their work. Creative expression and acts of service will fill some of the gaps but there will also be a fair bit of existential drift.

I think we are already seeing this drift occur. Work isn’t enough. I remember about a year ago I saw a video of a girl who got out of school, got a job in her field she studied for, and was questioning her entire existence. She couldn’t afford to rent a place in the town she worked in. She spent almost 2 hours commuting, 8-plus hours at work, and came home exhausted, barely making enough to pay for rent, food, and paying off her student debt. The comments were contrasted between people saying ‘welcome to life’ and others admitting that it’s definitely harder to make ends meet now than ever before.

So we have a growing number of unemployed and a growing number of people losing sight of the purpose of working just to barely make ends meet. Where do people find purpose and meaning? How is meaning being cultivated?

I have concerns rather than answers.