Went by the title, did you? Ha! This is less about fake news, and more about what could be called its second order effect. In Against Empathy, Paul Bloom writes about how many beliefs are not the products of reasoning, and gives sports teams fans and even political support as examples. He also brings up the point that these views don’t really matter because of the minimal impact one person’s belief has on the world at large. The contrast offered is one’s everyday morality that affects those around. He goes on to say that because of this minimal impact, we should look at people’s views on global warming, health care etc in the same light. The difference between truth and their views does not really matter because it doesn’t really cause a huge impact. To be fair, he is not happy writing this. I wasn’t really happy reading it either, because I saw at least one horrible exception – think personal hygiene values (“I won’t use a deodorant because.. global warming”) and you’ll get the picture. That definitely has an impact!
But moving on, he also explains how people are capable of rational thinking on things that matter. This is where I differ. I am not denying that people are capable. They probably begin that way, but I think the capacity is lost over time. Why do I think so?
In Tyranny of Convenience, Tim Wu writes about how convenience is the most underestimated and least understood force in the world today and has the ability to make other options unthinkable. He traces the journey of convenience and how it came to be a powerful force, and then reaches the relevant point here – convenience today is about minimizing the mental resources, the mental exertion, required to choose among the options that express ourselves. And further – today’s technologies of individualization are technologies of mass individualization. Customization can be surprisingly homogenizing. Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. That’s why I go further and say that convenience is the biggest enemy of our times. That’s an opinion and I had shared that earlier in Life Menus, where I wrote about the can-want-need framing in consumption.
What I didn’t write about (because it was a little early and I hadn’t formed my own thoughts on it) is the consumption of media. It is convenient to consume content on social platforms, and share them without any level of rational deliberation. Because we can. Not even want, let alone need. Just “can”, because it is convenient. My belief now is that this is a behaviour pattern that will be ported to other facets of life, including the scenarios where Paul Bloom thinks we will apply rational thinking.
The signs are already there. We can start from an example he has given – politics. Once upon a time, a person’s political beliefs were arrived at after much thinking and soul searching. Or one did not have a stance at all. That has changed – taking sides without a lot of effort in understanding nuances and points of view is the norm. Or take personal finances, and the number of people I see who take a loan on account of #YOLO without a thought of paying it back, let alone retirement. I realise I probably sound old, but I’m just bored of seeing reruns of “Default in our stars”. Switch to another example – the inability of many people to now read a book because their attention spans have been destroyed! And why bother, when superficial arguments are a daily phenomenon on social platforms. And finally, the easiest – blind WhatsApp/Facebook fake news forwards despite Google and Snopes. Forwarded as deceived. Because we can. Who has the time to fact check?
Now read the examples in the paragraph above in reverse order because the last happens most frequently and the first least, and you’d see the point I am trying to make. The daily non-use of rational, deliberate thinking starts playing at higher levels until this capability is completely lost! But hey, maybe that’s convenient too. The larger picture? I’ll quote Tim Wu again, this time from his book The Master Switch – “Habits shape markets far more powerfully than laws“.
Related read: Your First Thought Is Rarely Your Best Thought: Lessons on Thinking
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