Recognized experts over time

And amidst it all the corporations and scientists and non government establishments largely marched in tune to the plan, and or sold their own lies and put people in harms way for their own ends wherever they could get away with it and justified the gains. Conflicting governments and private entities and business often spreading their own contradictory “truths” and even spreading that which they know will undermine opposing factions while posing as allies or even those factions themselves.

We caught our politicians in lies and time and again told them it was ok as long as we liked them, as long as they were doing what we wanted, as long as the lies could be justified for our good. We caught our journalists lying and we told them it was ok, as long as we liked their lies. We caught our industries lying and told them it was ok, as long as we liked their lies or liked their product, or were just too dependent to try and live without them. And so emboldened the lies grew in scale and scope.

And the scientists seeking fame or money or political favor and power, those using science not for discovery but to legitimize and spread their own agendas, and the scientists and experts who cooperated with them- they chipped and chipped away at the foundations of trust in society for experts and authorities to be impartial, to be accurate and truthful and open.

And so the idea gained more and more popularity, that the only person you could trust were those you knew and personally vetted. Friends and neighbors who you felt were honest and wise and impartial. But they all sold out without realizing it. They sold their data and they went to work for Facebook and google and Apple and a million other private companies who they are plugged in to at the fundamental levels- feeding those companies data on you and themselves and everyone else. Facing ads and feeds and searches expertly tailored to a certain world view and tailored to allow what these companies want you to see and experience- shaping those supposedly non biased perceptions.

At least when the politicians and scientists sold out their price was somewhat decent, but the average person doesn’t even realize that even if you personally avoid all the news and information filtered and served up by companies and special interests and ONLY go by observation and that which trusted friends tell you... chances are those friends are plugged in and feeding you second hand bias from whoever it is feeding them. Even your first hand observations are likely tainted- the world around you, it’s look, the way it works, all manipulated by those with the money and power to shape things subtly to their will- to realize their own vision of what they think the world should look like.

There are a handful of factories on earth that produce almost every autopart. It doesn’t matter if you have a Honda or a Mercedes or a Ford- you will find that the person who actually made the parts- that all those cars will have parts from the same actual maker. Only so many firms produce most of the fasteners and toothbrushes and so on and so forth. You could look to a future where you 3D print your own- but who makes the blanks for that? Who makes the printers or the printer parts? Who makes the designs? Who controls the physical and digital infrastructure that controls what designs you can have access to?

The world is full of lies. It probably always has been, but now we can certainly see much more of it. People will take the most comforting truth, the most agreeable truth, the truth that most affirms their world view when presented with multiple truths or- the most comforting lie when presented with multiple of those. But the sad fact, the fact that most people don’t realize- is the person to trust least of all is ourselves. We cannot reconcile our own failings by and large. We can’t admit our own biases and ignorance. Instead we “double down” and try to stick with what we know, what is familiar over what is best or true or right.

Change breeds opportunity- a chance for things to be better or worse. Most people are scared of change, really- not those who feels they have nothing to lose, or feel that they are above consequence to change- tend to favor it. Self change is perhaps the most difficult and perilous of change. We can’t give up the self image we have held so long- even to try and be better. Many people think that trying to be better means admitting you are not “good” not “capable”

Really, for their parts, experts could strive to better police their own ranks- to purge politics and bias and such as much as possible and establish transparency and trust through programs to make their work more accessible and understandable, giving ways for the “lay person” to challenge and self validate where practical.

Changing our society would go a long way too- creating a society that instead of pushing certain images and glorifying these things, we glorified the quest- the search for betterment as opposed to the ends of betterment. Shifting focus to more internal reward vs. external and working, each of us, to not shame ignorance but try to uplift it. To not gloat or shame those who change, but encourage it and celebrate it.