Overload`103011

If it has escaped anyone’s attention the 21st century is known as the information age.  The last vestiges of blue collar production is rapidly disappearing, replaced by a horde of no collars and grubby sneakers who expound at great lengths on why they as information workers are more important than producers.

Just as the wheel advanced civilization by trade and communication rolling on to gears of the industrial revolution.  The information age is an evolutionary revolution of technology advancing from carrier pigeons through telegraph, radio and TV to a wireless instantaneous globe.

The difficulty is that while information may flow far, wide and fast the world becomes less informed. Anyone can now tap into a stream of data and watch pages and screens of numbers, letters and images.  With a few finger taps on a tiny keypad they can even add to the torrent.  Information brokers have emerged seeking to profit from the free flow by sampling the data in support of any agenda requested. 

It is the old academic principle of “Save the hypothesis,” that is only report data that supports your point of view and bury any data that contradicts it.  Governments and so called journalist now use sophisticated programs that swim down stream collecting favored bits and bytes while ignoring facts and realities they had rather not exist. 

Real people have to work hard just to live having no time, nor programs to capture the gems of truth needed to be considered an informed public.   Newspapers are dying and TV news has become entertainment where jovial anchors tease a story of the sky really is falling, but first a word from our sponsor, selling falling sky shelters.   TV journalists now use social media blurbs as factual news reports.  Politicians not only use positive social media blurbs as proof of popularity but also use social media for their own dis-information programs. Dissidents use social media to leverage fragmented agendas into power positions that mislead and guarantee dysfunction.  With no filter the multitude of voices overload democratic processes and fracture coalitions of similar interest into ever smaller groupings that destroy nation states. An overload that collapses into another dark age of xenophobic tribal warfare.

The real threat is that charismatic fanatic will learn to use the information flow to rise to power and then dam the river.   Only a biased trickle of information will remain. 

Is there hope for democracy?  Maybe, it is not government control and censorship but rather a public educated in how to swim in swirling rapids of information flow.  Once taught in schools, the art of critical thinking must become a rudder that can navigate the rocky shoals of social media’s self interest.   Social media can rally a mob that paddles around in backwaters, but to sail of a rising tide of information overload requires disciplined sailors and ethical merchants of information.

On reflection there may indeed be no hope!