A group of teachers nationwide are devoting classroom time in helping students to spot fake news.
The complexities of the contemporary tax-payer funded public education system are overwhelmingly convoluted and interwoven with a maze of subtleties and underlying nuances indirectly snaking a pathway to non-linear directives that the would cause the probability gurus of the AI statistical analytics to cringe at the maelstrom and prime illustration of chaos dynamics. Random and spooky collisions of nuclear components sculpt and imperfect and concise bureaucracy relentless as a gargantuan quantum singularity garishly harvesting processed currency, rather than light.
Amid this ever changing world of wavering policy, vast allegiances and loyalties to labor unions, and the perpetual campaign for the unanimous scholarly gravitation to higher education in the absence of standards, exists a purposeful attempt at discovering and embracing common sense. A growing group of teachers are proactively responding to the future shock ultraviolet matrix of a digital galaxy echoing a science fiction style scenario of reality, in instructing pupils how to effectively process information that is channeled through smart devices and traditional mediums. A point has finally been reached where students are being instructed on the tax payer dime how to watch TV and streaming media. Within the vicious education current cycle of government funding predicating how primary educators prep their students for the future, which is contingent on the diminishing admission standards of higher education, and finally the overall effects on society as a whole, the minuscule ray of light is barely perceptible under the layers of formative indoctrination and staffing levels holding together the hive.
The traditional phrase of “seeing is believing”, which is applicable to golden years of television and the broadcast of objective news, has been replaced “believing is seeing”, as the pliable individual tendencies of perception dominates a world where the truth is just not exciting or profitable as the foundation for a business model. The tabloid newspapers and magazines first tested this premise in the early part of the 20th century, as subjectivity was introduced to build a subscription base, and allowed the publisher to push an agenda by adding a slant to a black and white news story. Radio and television soon followed suit, as the three network infrastructure embracing trusted journalism, was expanded and the standards of fact were relaxed as fierce competition on the secondary market evolved over a forty year period. Finally, as households gained access to the world wide web, skeptics coined the phrase, “Don’t believe what you read on the internet,” which was actually a job at the entire scope of information purveyors recklessly flooding the web with content.
Developments within the digital realm, have moved at a faster than speed of light transition since the inception of DSL, as the implied pure deregulatory environment of the internet was supposed to offer an unabashed and uncensored series of variations on news story, without fear of reprisal from the FCC or legal sanctions in the presence of libel and slander laws. Instead of providing multitudes of transparency, the ambitious digital experiment has failed epically, as the emphasis on clickbait and cosmopolitan trendiness has effectively rendered the truth nearly obsolete, and the youngest generations have nothing else to compare the subsequent madness to. Simply put, what is beamed directly into their brains, even content generated from a ridiculous rogue bot rewriting history, is perceived as fact and reality, and between lack of strict parenting, and the prevalence of technology, the damage is readily apparent as accidents involving head buried in softscreen mishaps have increased by 1214% over the last two years. Their living and breathing ever changing world is a flashy effulgent pixelated wonderland created by software engines ceaselessly offering the candy and ice cream experience of perpetual accomplishments and continuous positive feedback, the omnipresence of instant gratification fueling the addiction to comfort and detachment from reality. With the unlimited access to lucid dreams, who would want to face the harsh and cruel rewarding challenges of real life, where positive moments are embraced, and a happy ending is not implied, but earned?
Disturbingly, digital information and currency are interchangeable as the contemporary business model emphasizes jump cut snippets of an attention span in as many places as allowed by the sensory organs crammed and measured within 15-second sprints of frenetic brain rewiring techlish worship sessions. Since truth and the correct answer are becoming exceedingly less financially lucrative, it is only natural that kids need to be deprogrammed in a retro-session of good old-fashioned teaching, where the pace of life is slowed down to a speed conducive with learning, and no devices are allowed on the premises. The industry of politics is hoping that this recovery effort fails, as uniformed voters are ballot gold for left-leaning candidates.
It may be too late in the game to elicit the change needed to ensure a stable future, but the idea of students in the classroom actually struggling to differentiate between nightly news content from the unbiased Cronkite era, and social media fantasy generated from a troubled soul or a programmed bot, proves more than troubling as the inevitability of Moore’s law reaching a fruition transforms the fabric of society on all socioeconomic levels. And this educational milieu is absent from specific gender pronouns. Tomorrow’s job market may be transformed completely as a result of innovations and developing social mores.
Quite possibly, the future may not require those with possessing discretion or critical thinking skills as the fate of humanity is with AI, and whatever HAL wants, HAL gets. However, the sobering lesson to that plausible reality, is that reality is indeed fleeting, and as long as the automated systems are functioning and happy, who is really concerned with a swarm of inane digital gossip smacking of tribalism that will never directly affect the crucial processes of nature and life.
If perceived truth within the online communities through individuals and groupthink keeps society happy and stupid, what is the harm in losing a few pseudo-intellectuals to natural selection forced by the complete saturation of innovative technology? The answer is that nobody dares imagine such a frightening world of shimmering data based off of imagination and fantasy, where “believing is seeing” overtakes the classic input of the senses in ultimately defying tangibility, and truth is never evident or relevant. “Blank” is fleeting.
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