Truth
Nowadays you can deny the colour of the sky
and as long as you make your disagreement with the truth known loud and wide enough,
you still get a sizeable following.
Back in the day, when the village idiot proclaimed a blue sky to be green,
the community laughed and turned away.
Agreement on the observable was a healthy stage-gate, a bulwark against the proliferation of ignorance,
a safeguard of the permanence of truths.
In today's world, to reach a thousand others,
all the village idiot needs to know is how to
operate a twenty dollar device.
The community still turns away,
but that no longer matters.
By the press of a few virtual keys
a thousand others
equally blind to the observable,
are summoned.
Not only has the squeaky wheel won,
but half the time it's not even round anymore.
Truth no longer refers to what really is,
but to what the bigger, more numerous, or powerful desire it to be.
Truth used to be a universal constant.
Now it comes in facets and flavours,
its essence diluted by a million viewpoints.
Some like strawberry, some like vanilla,
others question the product
or the ice cream vendor.
Once upon a time, to win, you had to get people to believe.
Today, all you need to do is make them doubt.
From great unifier to principal divider.
From unshakable foundation
of common understanding
to manipulable, negotiable plaything.
In the absence of unity,
he who controls context and narrative,
controls the truth.
The downfall of the observable,
soon to be replaced by a new authority,
Artificial Intelligence as the collector
and distiller of voices
creating new truth to be absorbed
by the legions lost in their quest
for certainty in a world turned upside down
by village idiots.
Peace and stability through commercial, electronic proprietorship?
I shudder at the prospect.
