Collectively and individually we are accruing more and more questions about this and that or that and this. Great you say. The truth is that on one side of the equation there are more and more questions and on the other there are fewer and fewer "acceptable" answers. This is what I mean when I say we have been Googled [see photo].
Most of us refer to Google [or a proxy] at least once every day. And the experience is empowering because we feel we have been granted access to all the information on the planet. In one sense this is true because at Google they have Web crawlers who retrieve data from every nock-and-cranny that houses data. However. As well as Web crawlers Google has a series of screens [algorithms] that slice-and-dice this nock-and-cranny data to present you and me with a ranked selection of links. Back in 2008 these rankings were based on citations just as a one does in academia so the data links at the top of the list were there on merit. Today that is no longer true. Today the rankings are skewed not by merit but by ideology.
If you share the ideology embedded in the Google screens [algorithms] then all the "information" delivered by its search engines is just fine. Indeed it is great because it will always support your "confirmation bias". However. Over recent years the answers you get to your more probing questions are becoming less and less meaningful. Indeed the answers you get are no match for the legitimate questions you raise. Instead both you and your question has been sucked-up into the Google box of question, search, screening data, and the provision of contrived answers. You are trapped in a real world version of The Matrix, The Simulation, or The Mountain View Googleplex.
Today we live in a fool's paradise if we think we have access to all the information we need to answer the perceptive, insightful, and truthful question posed by a five year old about his or her world. Let's just Google it you say......
Richard
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