Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder

Great article. A couple things that crossed my mind...

  Stress testing technology in the context of the worst moments in history might have illuminated what social scientists and propagandists have long known: that humans are wired to respond to emotional triggers and share misinformation if it reinforces existing beliefs and prejudices. 

Maybe the largest problem here is the appeal of popularity.

The effects of internet-brain used to be theoretical in my life. Over the past couple years, though, internet-brain has started claiming people near and dear to me. I have seen that reactionary propaganda, on social media, can persuade smart people whose personalities are not at all reactionary.

This has taught me that which, and how many, people share a message is more important than the actual content of the message. If enough of my family and friends are certain that sugar is a health-food, I'll likely come to believe it is, too.

  Trust in institutions is falling because of political and economic upheaval, most notably through ever widening income inequality.

The internet popularized cynical narratives about the world that remind me of Noam Chomsky or Hunter S Thompson. Those narratives usually strike me as correct, but I'm mindful that it might just be the zeitgeist that makes them seem so.

I've recently started thinking about how much of this societal dysfunction is real, how much is hype, and how much is real but real as a result of hype (a vicious spiral of dysfunction). When we talk about the effect of the internet on public consciousness, it's easy to forget that the internet has warped our own consciousness, too.