#92 | "No one wants Kamala!"
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?” ― Virginia Woolf
This week I've spotted two pieces of fake news. The first was Obama unveiling a picture of Deputy President Ruto as an endorsement in the upcoming presidential election. There is a typo in the fake headline; it's a meme. The second is a letter from Trump to Biden (embossed with Trump's 2024 campaign logos). The spoof letter reads:
I hope Sleepy Joe is able to bounce back quickly, much as I was. Doctors described my fight against the China virus as Herculean, and not meaning the woke Disney Hercules but rather the Kevin Sorbo one. The Lou Ferrigno one as well.
Joe, I wish you a speedy recovery, even though you are taking America in the wrong direction. No one wants Kamala!
Hilarious. Of course, I've seen more than just these, but I haven't noticed. I've either ignored fake news because it's unbelievable or ingested it because it isn't!
Yet I have only realised I'm seeing 'fake news' in these two cases in the last week. I count myself well-informed on politics (who doesn't?), and still, it's not easy to distinguish things I don't believe from stuff I don't want to think because they challenge my pre-existing misconceptions.
With the upcoming US election, there will be more and more noise designed to confuse and misinform us. It's also true with the Conservative leadership race, perhaps more subtly. Amid the noise, we will make conclusions, which will inevitably be messy and wrong. For propagators, it's not about creating myths; it's about distributing uncertainty. One of the best books on this topic is Win Bigly by Scott Adams. He writes:
"The grand illusion of life is that our minds have the capacity to understand reality. But human minds didn't evolve to understand reality. We didn't need that capability. A clear view of reality wasn't necessary for our survival. Evolution cares only that you survive long enough to procreate. And that's a low bar. The result is that each of us is, in effect, living in our own little movie that our brain has cooked up for us to explain our experiences."
No democracy is safe. It's not safe from fake news, and it's not safe from our inability to distinguish between what is real and what is fraud. Even legitimate-looking articles can be harmful. Sam Atis of Samstack recently wrote a "bad article" on the efficacy of capital punishment in deterring crime. Atis writes:
"...some people might underestimate just how easy it is to make an argument that appears to be evidence-based just by cherry-picking studies. And it's also easy for writers to fool themselves into thinking there is consensus in the literature by just flicking through the first few studies they find, even if they're not intentionally trying to deceive people."
Plenty of the articles we read and base our options on do not even go to the little effort of linking to cherry-picked case studies. They have no need. As Musk pithily tweeted this week, the establishment media is click-seeking, not truth-seeking. And once publised, these articles are disseminated and amplified on social media.
Social media use is now high almost everywhere (as of January 2022, it's 91% Malaysia, 69.7% Romania, 68% China); only some African countries appear to be trailing (Ghana 27.4%, Kenya 21.1%, Nigeria 15.4% — January '22 again). Social media penetration broadly follows internet use. (It's worth noting that while Kenya's mobile phone penetration is famously high (98%), its internet penetration is 42%, according to Digital Kenya: 2022. Consequently, social media use trails still further behind). Nevertheless, social media disproportionately influences elections because the people who set the narrative sit on Twitter. Election funding also comes from people who are on Twitter. Social media is where the crowd sets the narrative and where fake news is circulated.
On Trump, Dom Cummings comments:
"If Trump is the GOP candidate in 2024, it's a disaster for America and the world. … He has some showman skills, a good nickname game and a sporadically good twitter game. But like Johnson, he prefers to spend his time babbling about and at the media rather than the (often mind-numbing) problems of institutions and incentives you need to focus on to change big things. This combination meant Trump made a lot of noise but got very little done."
The point is that people like Trump, who make a lot of noise but can't get much done, have the best chances of securing elected office. Boris is another example. There is an apparently material difference between running a campaign and a country. Some, like Cummings, claim there is a divergence in the skills needed. Boring yet effective politicians do not rank electorally when social media dominates the landscape (aside from in Germany, perhaps).
We are at a tipping point.
Social media gives the individual as much reach as the mainstream media. It offers the same constraints (280 characters) and the same reach (320 million on Twitter). In essence, this is democratic –– you and I are equal to the New York Times. Yet it also means there is no consistency in thought, and public opinion twists and turns like a meme, not like a well-organised (however poorly intentioned) establishment narrative.
The world has not yet learned to live harmoniously with social media. We will either adapt or collapse under the weight of pervasive doubt, and we need organisations that help us adapt. The social networks won't save us, nor will the politicians. We need independent organisations that recognise (and solve) the fundamental problems with disseminating lies and can educate the electorate — us — on what to do.
My week in books
I'm offline for four days in the Swiss alps, so no book update this week. More next week, when I've plugged in again.
Hector Hughes and I are having a monthly book clubby-thing, where we read a book a month: This quarter, the topic is 'war' (!). Next up, starting Friday, we're reading On War, and in September, it will be The History of the Peloponnesian Wars. Reply to this email to join us.
Keep signing up
(My brother) Wandering Lex's first-ever album release party!!!! It's on August 12 (a Friday night) at Bush Hall, in Shepherds Bush.
It's being transformed into an island for the evening (samosas, watermelons and sand etc.), and they will be performing a soon-to-be-released full-length album made in Kenya! Listen to a flavour of the island sounds.
Book tickets (£16.80) ASAP (they are selling out). I can't wait to see you there! Link: https://dice.fm/event/gro9a-a-night-on-the-island-12th-aug-bush-hall-london-tickets
A new name: Vertigo
I've changed the name of this letter after #92 weeks! Milan Kundera describes Vertigo in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
"Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer Vertigo. What is Vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."
We can all agree that the abyss calls to us individually and as a society. I love the concept and will write more about its importance in the coming weeks. But don’t worry, nothing will materially change.
Live well,
Hector