We are at a time of non-consensus. With ideals marketed by ideas such as democracy, freedom of expression, pursuit of happiness, et cetera, non-consensus may seem ideal. What would our society be like at an extremum of consensus or non-consensus? I fear of dystopia. Living in the so-called information age certainly has its perks. Anecdotally, we produce a vast amount of information in just a short time span compared to humanity of centuries and millennia past. Part of this is due to enhanced ability to produce information. Part of it is due to exponential population growth; more people to conceive and vector ideas. The poignant downside of the increasing information flux is the addition of misinformation. Its this misinformation - a combination of opinions and fallacies as opposed to facts - that forms the roots on our current struggles with non-consensus. The affects of non-consensus are already observable in our culture: increasing political correctness, lack of long-term commitment to war, closing and near-closings of congress, controversies of climate change and GMOs, et cetera, et cetera... There is an implicit force driving us further and further apart when we are at a time when consensus is arguably imperative. This force is not directly the copious amount of information available, rather peoples differing interpretations of the information. Variances in reading comprehension, writing skills/styles, and speaking ability leads to innumerable ways information is distributed and then processed in the minds of individuals. Factoring in loose interpretation, as opposed to strict interpretation, and the common acceptance of opinion/fabrication as fact, we find ourselves in a blended quagmire of belief, superstition, preconception, and actual fact; all of which may be indistinguishable from a neutral perspective. This is simply my educated opinion/expression from years worth of memory, and many days of deep contemplation on the subject. If I am correct, even to a lesser extent, it becomes easy to see the source of at least some of the challenges that we are facing. Moreover, I do not mean to sound negative nor pessimistic. Non-consensus is simply the zeitgeist that we must either transcend or endure.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 22:14:43 +0000
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