You can’t handle the truth

My typical day is spent with news channels in the background. It makes me feel like I’m in an office. The non-stop chat and talk of people about the problems of our world. Thing is that, the more you hear global news, the more you get depressed.

Good news is not news. The celeb gossip, and bits and bobs about Barbie and Ken, are the filler pieces for the main headlines, which are usually about those who died, are abandoned or on the run. It’s about humanity.

So, should we stop listening to the news?

In fact, one big point here is that news is now 24*7 and global. It wasn’t when I was a kid. My dad was hooked on News at Six and News at Ten, but now we have news non-stop, if you want it. News non-stop and it’s everywhere. It’s floods in Italy, landslides in Sri Lanka, typhoons in Thailand and tornadoes in Texas. It’s the militia in somewhere versus the militia in somewhere else. It’s about a bomb here and a bomb there. It’s about humanity.

So, should we stop listening to the news?

It’s about some corrupt government official being taken to trial or some artful dodger being captured. It’s about the illicit links between power, government, the system and the citizen. It’s the reason why citizens want to recreate the world outside the system. It’s about the friction between those who run the system and those who want to get out of it. It’s about humanity.

No. If you stop hearing the news, you stop hearing humanity.

All of our news, entertainment, games and movies is about how we connect to one another and behave. The weird thing, at least for me, is the complex metaverse of these connections. Maybe that is why the metaverse appeals to me.

We are building new systems, new states, new laws, new governments and new worlds, all of the time. It’s called progress. But what is progress? Is progress making life easier or harder? Is progress creating systems that support the citizens or make them more stressed? Is progress giving us the platform to be ourselves or be part of the system?

Oh, shoot. It’s Friday and I had to go and get all philosophical. But then, I guess part of the reason, as I listen to the news headlines once more, for the tenth time this day, is that I wonder what’s the truth?

You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!

If you think about the truth, so much of our world and our thinking is shaped by government and media. Government use media to tell you: this is the truth. What if you had your own truth?

This is the point that rebels make: can we create our own truth? Can we use the network to create our own world, run by the citizens of the world? Can we create our own government, that is decentralised and democratised? Can we create our own currencies that are decentralised and democratised? And can we create our own media that are decentralised and democratised?

Hmmm …

I often wonder if we are at an impasse or a dislocation, where there are those who are assimilated and those who are not. It reminds me of a visit to Moscow years ago, where my host said there are those who live in Moscow, who connect to the world and they hate Putin; but then there are those who live across Russia, outside Moscow, who receive the state media propaganda and believe that Putin is their Master.

Believe what you want to believe, but our world seems weird today. It is like a world connected by different universes. A metaverse world.

Or maybe it’s just me, sitting in my office, listening to the news, and wondering: what is real.