with
Peter Cochrane
All civilisations live or die by the quality of their fundamental truths. Governments, legal systems, commerce, industry, engineering, science and education are built on verifiable and hard won knowledge that is tested and continually honed by new discoveries and revelations based on evidence and accumulated experience. However, truth, facts, knowledge and expertise are now under attack and suffering in accelerating rates of distortion and corruption.
In an age of information wars, establishing ‘the truth’ and/or applying verifiable facts and knowledge are no longer easy or straightforward. Modern media, the internet, social networks, has given everyone a voice, and an assumed right to express their opinion even if they may be totally ignorant. So, plagiarism, errors, and deliberate falsifications have become a new tool for some political and commercial operations, and a new form of information warfare!
Truth is expensive and hard to comprehend, and it is far easier to unthinkingly accept simple (and often crude) misrepresentations and lies from anonymous sources, bogus media and pernicious sources including criminals, rogue states and corrupt political groups. At the click of a key they can distribute the falsehoods to millions of screens where quantity and not quality define a new truth!
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