What influenced you to believe that?
There are plenty of things happening around me that influence me, like kind gestures big or small, the birth of my children, learning about things (that are verifiable), which I can assure you are not staged or driven by someone.
You’re being really pedantic with those examples - obviously, they weren’t talking about events like the “birth of a child”…
If I expand OP's statement, I'm a bit troubled by the (purposeful) spreading erosion of trust in society. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to distrust, especially now, but when you blanketly start distrusting everything, the trustworthy lose and the unscrupulous win. Further, you yourself lose.
TL;DR: trust but verify > distrust and don't verify. We might recognize that verification is the only relevant conditional, but I think it's safe to say that it's not what's being generally applied when it comes to media consumption.
Nope, you’re 100% being pedantic. OP said “things happening around you”, which most would not interpret as “birth of my child” or random “kind gestures”.
> I'm a bit troubled by the (purposeful) spreading erosion of trust in society
I hear this kind of misguided sentiment quite often. I hate to break it to you, but your hope/trust for humanity doesn’t change reality.
Eg, my European colleagues who call political corruption as “transgressions”, implying that somehow it’s a rare occurrence in the EU, but obviously developing countries are “deeply corrupt”.
There’s no way you could hold the opinion that PR and influence pervade our society, without having read “Submarine”.
Idk, I like PG. I've read the really long-form pieces like "What I've Done", etc., but from what I gather by following his Twitter, he's less and less defined by creative or unique ideas and has turned towards more standard neo-con, gen X silicon valley. More than anything, there is a noticeable lack of emotional intelligence that doesn't hold up to the standards of youth today.
He went to RISD; cool, awesome; he's a brilliant computer scientist; okay, cool. The world is more global now, a lot of people have these Renaissance man-type experiences, and haven't yet made the money that will put a veil over their eyes. A lot of the essays are mediocre. A lot of them are good. But I think it's just less his time in 2022 for what he was trying to do.
But yeah, anyone who knows how social media sites got started with faked engagement shouldn't believe most of the things they see online.