Next week begins my 2021 attempt to teach a class called Religion and Science Fiction. If a sufficient number of people implore me to do so, I’ll feel sufficiently incentivized to share our required readings. Somewhere early on we’ll get to talking about disinformation, and I’ll offer this definition from Philip Kindred Dick:
[Disinformation] is noise driving out signal. But it is noise posing as signal so you do not even recognize it as noise...If you float enough disinformation into circulation you will totally abolish everyone’s contact with reality, probably your own included.
I sometimes think a good chunk of my prose is an attempt to popularize and make more accessible insights like these. This passage opens my chapter dedicated to The Matrix and The Truman Show in Everyday Apocalypse, and I recently tried to frame it further in a piece about Public Servant 45, Nikki Haley, Larry David, and response versus reaction here. And in today’s news, many of us are waiting to see which of our elected officials has the courage to resist the effort to knowingly enter disinformation into our Congressional record. As of right now, both my Senators appear prepped to do just that. I offer PKD’s wisdom as a starting-point for trying to discuss the fact of it with friends and family in its grip.
Like controversy, disinformation sells, wins elections, and garners ad revenue for the arrangements we refer to as media companies. Do y’all know anyone who, upon examining this image, would feel compelled to click it? I do.
Do you imagine a conversation about the false covenant baked into the ad is worth having? Welcome to Religion and Science and Fiction.
Thoughts? Questions? Hopes and dreams?
where's the link to unofficially audit the class?
👏 Share 👏 the 👏 required 👏 readings!