#infocalypse

By Rev1, CyberpunkOnline.net

There used to be one internet. You typed something into a search bar, hit enter, and out came truth. Or at least something close enough that you didn’t need a fact-checker and a priest.

Now? Search feels like asking a drunk man to explain quantum physics while he’s being paid by six brands to mention their shampoo.

Google—once the cathedral of clarity—is a bloated marketplace of SEO scams and attention bait. Type “who was in that film?” and you’ll get ten listicles, three affiliate farms, and an AI summary written by a toaster that’s trying to sell you NordVPN. The algorithm doesn’t serve you; it serves you up.

Meanwhile, the grown-ups are leaving. They’re paying twenty bucks a month to talk to machines that actually answer questions. Call it ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever flavor of silicon oracle you prefer—doesn’t matter. The revolution isn’t in AI; it’s in trust. For the first time in twenty years, people are saying: “Yeah, I’ll pay for the truth.”

That’s new. That’s terrifying. Because it means we’ve accepted that free information is dead.

You can feel the split forming:

The Cognitive Upper Class — people who can afford or understand the tools that strip the noise. Their assistants are utilities now: always on, always learning, feeding them a frictionless, ad-free reality.

The Information Underclass — everyone else, still trapped in the algorithmic swamp. Drowning in recommendation loops, doom-scrolls, and AI-written content about AI writing content.

Neal Stephenson saw this coming a decade ago. REAMDE, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell—the guy basically wrote the user manual for the present. A world where information doesn’t just divide people by what they believe, but by what they can afford to know.

You want accuracy? That’s twenty dollars a month, friend. You want the truth? Better have a debit card.

So yeah, maybe the real cyberpunk future isn’t neon cities and chrome limbs. It’s this: a world where cognition itself has a subscription model. And the rest of the planet? They’ll still be arguing in the comments section of a search result that doesn’t even exist anymore.

Encourage yourself and your children to ask these 6 questions?

Do you overly believe or blindly believe in authority so that you fall into the authority bias? There is no guarantee that information provided by experts are always 100% accurate. Even though a point of view is raised by a figure with authority or high credentials, we STILL need to read and verify the details of the references they quoted to confirm whether the opinion had been exeggerated or misjudged.

Do those so-called experts raise an opinion or narration because they benefited from doing so? i.e. is there any hidden or open or undeclared conflicts of interests?

Does the person who raised their points or perspectives encourage people to query, oppose, debate their arguments? If they answer is no, then you have to scruntinise with cautions. Unless you have verified that the narration or points is believable and accurate, you can only treat the narration as AN ASSUMPTION ONLY. You then pay attention to whether there are sincere and serious debates of whatever points being raised. When you listen or read different views of information, DO NOT take any pre-positional stance. Self-check whether you have already taken a pre-existing stance because you may fall into the confirmation bias. Treat yourself as a juror or scientist, NOT a defence lawyer who wants to win.

Does the point or view reasonable? Is it far-fletched or only supported by weak logic? If it is the case, it is better to reasonably doubt.

What do most evidences point to? It is very hard to make clear complex issues by relying on just one person or one paper as support. If different chains of evidences point to the same direction, we are more confident to find the answer. If the evidences are collected by different INDEPENDENT people free from conflicts of interests via different means or channels and still point to the same direction, we are almost certain that we can find the answer. Therefore, in evaluating any point of argument or view, DO NOT only listen to one side view even though it sounds convincing. You have to verify whether the point of argument or assertion can test the verification examinations, verifications and tests from people with different stances.

Does the narration or point raised by a person supported by verifiable base or evidence? Can these evidences being substanted INDEPENDTLY? If no, you can take it at the best a piece of SUBJECTIVE OPINION ONLY.

Develop the habit of VERIFICATION FIRST AND FACT CHECKS FIRST before take in any information. Don't jump or rush to make a conclusion. Stay calm to analyse every piece of information with a critical thinking mindset.

Development of these skills are not just philosophical in a AI enhanced deep fake world, we still can't excuse off our own part of ability to adop methodological and vigirous processes to DISCERN what can be taken and what can't.

#2 Verdade ou Consequência?

Eu fiz um bom ctrl+c / ctrl+v semana passada de um texto que joguei no facebook sobre o voto útil no primeiro turno e lá eu dizia que “algumas” coisas precisam ser colocadas na mesa. Outra dessas coisas é sobre a veracidade de todas as informações que hoje circulam na internet e até chegam em canais mais críveis de notícia e que baseiam nossas leituras sobre a correlação de forças e intenções de…