________  ________  ________
   2019-08-15                                   /        \/        \/    /   \
                                               /       __/         /_       _/
   Shane   wrote[1]   of   the    unsettling  /        _/         /         /
implications  of  deep fakes on politics and  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
journalism and he makes  a very  good point,    /        \/        \/    /   \
however I'm not  sure the end result will be   /        _/         /_       _/
a bad thing.                                  /-        /        _/         /
                                              \________/\________/\___/____/
Caution, blue-sky thinking ahead.

   The media already lies,  the media is an industry built on lies. Journalism
may have  once been about the  facts and the  truth but that is no  longer the
case and likely hasn't been the case for a long while but people still believe
it  because the signs are too subtle  or too far  between for people  to care.
They'll be outraged for a hot minute but then go right on doing what they were
doing.

   Exposing lies, calling for correction, counter-articles, etc are hammers on
the walls of the Fourth Estate, for sure, and some people  do  take notice but
by that same  analogy something  like  AI  driven deep  fakes  are  a  nuke. A
relentless flood of disinformation, non-partisan and unaffiliated would poison
the media  at  it's root and  it  would  become  completely  untrustworthy.  A
vestigial stream of nonsense, unarguably useless.

   And  in a  post-Journalism world who would  people turn to for guidance and
information? Community. We'd  move away from  broadcasts and  talking heads to
town halls and  trusted leaders.  People  you know, people  you can  question,
people who are held accountable and in turn hold you accountable.

   Leadership becomes tangible again. People become closer again.

   Now I know,  I know. That's a pretty unlikely scenario. TV,  journalism and
the corrupt news  media will  never go away and some people will believe  what
they're told no matter how clown shoes stupid it is.

   But I can dream.

   The world  works  so different face-to-face.  The shrieking, the posturing,
the harassment, the  call-outs, all of that poison you see online just doesn't
happen, doesn't work or doesn't matter when you're standing  in a room of your
peers. Even  on the  phone, that one layer of anonymity stripped away,  people
are generally far more civil and genuine.

   Step back and  you can  see  that, everyone I've  ever spoken  to that quit
social  media  - REALLY quit, not just  rage  quit for a hot minute then slunk
back - has found it so  liberating, they started feeling a genuine  connection
to  people  again and found  it  welcoming  and warm  instead  of  a  constant
battleground or race to the bottom.

   Anyway, I'm just rambling and getting off-topic now, we all know how I feel
about social media and people's general behavior online.


[1] ascendingcreations.com/0/shane/DKcfOpIDJiyyHfybrLK2JvakpYNHX7J4.txt



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