Cap’n P. points from somewhere in the well-designed future to the inadequate user experiences of the early 21st century.
You might think that by now we would be getting to grips with the information age and that with endless data literally at our fingertips that certainty and progress would follow. The reverse seems more true. The combination of sheer data volume and vested interests make it harder than ever before for us to separate signal from noise.
The human mammal, supposedly superior to corvids, cetaceans, cephalopods (and other smartarse earth life forms not beginning with ‘c’) has built its success so far on exceptional pattern recognition skills and an aptitude for making sense of complexity. But more often the widespread response to our self-inflicted Infogeddon is a toxic combination of ignorant denial and rampant egomania, most obviously illustrated by (though far from limited to) rightwing US politicians and widespread fundamentalist religious groups. It often works: state your case firmly, loudly and often enough and like rust or some fungus, the maddest ideas take hold. Add power to such posturing and you can take any barking notion and Make It So (as I understand slaphead space commanders of the future will be fond of saying).
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