Information Inflation Equals Truth Deflation

In an interesting discussion online, Yuval Noah Harari brings up one of the most subtle changes in recent human history. Namely, the increase in information processing as a result of technological advances. Mass media, and, more recently, the internet, increased hundreds of times, if not by thousands, the amount of information that it’s produced, and that we have access to. But, and here’s when Yuval has a very interesting remark, “information doesn’t necessarily equals truth — information is just information”. And, if you really think about it, fake news is still information. Propaganda is still information. Advertising (which is a covert form of propaganda) is still information. How much truth is in these types of “information”? Not much, really.

He goes even further back and brings back something similar in human history, namely the invention of the printing press. You would expect that such a great invention paved the way for great works of scientists and philosophers to reach the masses. Alas, this is not what happened. Instead, the vast majority of the overall printing material consisted in “do it yourself witch hunting” collections. This resulted, over the course of almost one hundred years, in dozen of thousands of people (mostly women) to be burned alive, in public executions. You would even expect the executioners reasoning to be based on some of these…