1/20/21
We have instability in the world due to excess data. Initially everyone cheered how the arab spring revolutionaries across Tunisia, Libya, Syria pin pointed locations via Twitter for the allied jets to bomb and liberate them. How easy it is now to connect different peoples and share truths and rise up and fight for same liberty equality fraternity what nots.
That same energy to link up has flooded us with maximum information and has lead to confusion in the minds of people. The world is so polarized due to this data overload that our elected representatives feel incapacitated to take difficult decisions. They throw the questions out to the electorate to make a decision for them. Ideally, them reps should involve experts, analyze available information, debate and make legislation. We vote them to make decisions, not to keep throwing back opinion polls back to us. Examples abound.. like Brexit. Like when US leaders hesitated to take stand on Trump's claim of "stolen election" because of their electorate, their "base". And with people's viewpoints and opinions spread across the spectrum, it is hard for countries to take definite steps forward.
Trump's rise is in a way is a result of information overload. Too much data distracted people from forcing them to accept the truth (truths like millions of undoc immigrants are here to stay - there's no machinery available to remove them; or that the USA of 2016 was already as great as it could have been, or for America to become greater we need to take care of problems like economic growth, systemic racism and climate change. If climate changes significantly, America and the West will lose markets and will face more immigration from countries that sink under ocean or become barren, etc.. etc)
If the police department is unbiased, for example, it generates less data. It is more predictable. We can assume blacks aren't racially profiled. We need to be assured that criminals are pursued irrespective of their race, people and property are secured, etc. Then people aren't swayed.
If the justice department (courts and government), provides swift unbiased justice, there's such fewer news bites people won't be bothered whether a republican leaning justice is named or a democrat.
If solutions to climate change are all encompassing, if the leaders make sure everyone affected (by the problem or by the solution) are taken care of, there is less data again. People give up dogma and accept climate science.
Too much information makes people cling to some preferred position dogmatically. Not because they like that position, but they feel all other positions are equally arbitrary. How many people would like to trade their lottery tickets before the results are out?
We need to see the current problems in this manner. People stick to inexplicable positions also because they are confused. Political leaders, business leaders, etc should work to make things simple. (Of course it doesn't help if they just work on marketing what is right/wrong, which is why we are in this situation to begin with. It is a very profound line of thinking. ) Trump indeed made it simple (for half the country) to understand and it worked. He curdled the country and ran away with the cheese. Democrats trip themselves trying to sugarcoat everything, which doesn't help. You have to call a spade a spade sometimes. Political correctness, romanticizing situations isn't a solution. One may sing praises to diversity all they want but if local people are losing jobs, it is dishonest and definitely not a solution. All bravado in the national anthem and no victory to show is useless. Simplicity results in less information.
