In the 1990’s the world wide web became a thing. The technology behind it all started back in the 1960’s, a military thing. It was during the height of the cold war. The complete history can be found online. I first started using the web on AOL, you’ve got mail!

I’m not very knowledgeable about all the technology involved with this system. I learn bits and pieces, enough to know that I don’t know. I enjoy the games, the social media and the convenience of having a huge library at my fingertips.

I’m old enough to remember using the Dewey decimal system to find books and reference materials. That system divided all books (knowledge) into ten categories, with subdivisions in each one. That’s the simple explanation. Each main topic is assigned a number between 000-999 followed by those sub divisions. Kinda like a web address.

I’m glad I don’t need to go through that whole process to find whatever answer I’m looking for. I can just type it in the browser and out pops an entire list of references, articles and opinions. The big issue however is in determining which ones are factual and which ones are works of fiction, propaganda, spam, or just plain political ideology.

I suppose that has always been the case, even when getting things from the library. I do believe that this internet library, with its doors and shelves wide open, is filled with a bunch of misinformation, a new word invented by the internet itself. A politician’s term for lying.

We hear it all the time these days, what are your citations. Nothing is true without citations. Even false citations lend credence to misinformation. Statistics have proven to be especially useful when attempting to deceive the general public. Those controlling the search engines are driving the train!

The whole issue is in determining the truth. Never in history has the truth been more in question than it is now. There are citations, complete academic tomes, supporting what we all know to be false. Take the whole gender thing as a prime example, there are only two is the truth, and yet Congress, the Supreme court and indeed world councils are discussing that. Many claiming gender is now a spectrum!

In the past I would look in 616.8588 for information on aberrant behaviors. 616.85883 deal specifically with sex and gender identity issues. On the web you don’t need to ask, it’s all on display. If you haven’t already thought about that, it will be presented to you! Is that an expansion of knowledge, or simply spreading an ideology?

Trust and the truth. Those are the foundational building blocks for a great society. You need both of those in a family and you need them both in a nation. Unfortunately, the internet does not inspire either one of those qualities. You can’t trust the truth as it is presented on the internet.

Perhaps the saddest part of this internet thing is that it enables anonymity on a level never before seen. The reason is simple enough to understand. You can do that for free! Yes, in the past you had to pay to be published, except maybe for letters to the editor, and you were known. Someone had to sign that check!

When you remove accountability, you remove credibility. I can just say anything I want, expound on any theories, lies or ideology. Remember when Facebook was “censoring” everyone? Placing you in Facebook jail for saying things they didn’t like? Yeah, the Facebook editor refused to publish your letters.

The outcry was immediate. Facebook has since rescinded that policy somewhat; you can still get blocked from using that site. We all know we can’t trust the internet to tell us the truth, but we don’t care about that, we demand to able to say all of that!

We have reached a point in our society where the truth is an individual thing. I’ll decide what is true! Any group of people believing the same truth is now an organization, possibly a cult.

The second paragraph of the declaration of independence begins with these words: ” we hold these truths to be self-evident” and that was the case at that time. Today I have feeling that the truth isn’t as “evident” as it once was.