The standards have changed a lot in the last few millennia:
The big man said it.
The book said it.
The newspaper said it.
I saw a photo.
I saw it on TV.
I read it on the internet.
That’s what the AI said.
There has always been room for doubt. But the last century has been about doubt at scale, due to mismatched incentives and the impact of media and tech.
84% of the statistics we read are manipulated for impact. And every story, every narrative, every photo is curated and edited. The map is not the territory, and the map maker has a goal. It might be the same as yours–but it might not be.
One danger is that a story not worth believing lets us off the hook. The other is that it manipulates us into taking action we’ll regret.
It’s impossible to function in society without consuming stories. You’re never going to the moon, and the only way it’s possible to know it’s not made of green cheese is to find a story you can inspect and trust, one that, if you drill down far enough, is based on things you can engage with in real life.
People in society are often driven by the desire to believe what everyone else in their circle believes–people like us do things like this. But the change agent has the desire to be early in embracing ideas that others don’t believe (yet).
The difference between poison and medicine often comes down to the dosage. Belief at scale, fueled by omnipresent media designed to seduce, is unlikely to help us get to where we seek to go.
A coherent culture is often built on a shared belief system. When the entire group believes something that collides with reality, though, reality wins.
In the long run, the Earth doesn’t care what you believe. Eppur si muove.