The Truth Is Out There

Whether we're willing to accept it or not is another question.

Mesmeric therapy. A group of mesmerised French patients. Oil painting by a French (?) painter, 1778/1784 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons)

“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” — Friederich Nietzsche, 1878

Fake news is nothing new. Fake news at scale first became a concern in the 20th century, and in recent years has taken on a life of its own. A look at the Timely section below should make that clear.

When the United States first entered World War II, the concern of misinformation and rumor spreading was such a concern to the Roosevelt administration that they set up the Office of War Information (OWI).

As part of that, the War Rumor Project had a loose network of discreet informants who could monitor casual conversations held in public. The Project “relied on barbers, bartenders, doctors, hairdressers, police officers, and drugstore owners to eavesdrop on their neighbors and customers and report what they heard to their local OWI office.”

It’s not particularly …