Lying & the rise of distrust

[Biglibido99]

An interesting topic came up on a thread about catfishing - the rise in the prevalence of lying & it's acceptance. How such practices & their acceptance has led to the growing level of distrust in society. How the truth is a victim in all of this & the ensuing confusion in people is the perfect fertile ground for nefarious characters to plant their seeds & control people.

The unashamed lying of Trump being the epitome of this but it's also the general direction of society - AI bots, cybercurrency, TFTs, online sites which filter what you are fed based on engagement algorithms.

I've seen it stated that humans have been hacked, in the sense that hacking involves finding the weaknesses in a system & exploiting those weaknesses. Our weaknesses have been identified & exploited for engagement & monetisation purposes via these controlling algorithms. It is a well-documented fact that algorithms often prioritise "high-arousal" negative emotions like outrage and anger because they trigger rapid responses and retain attention

 

[ll74]

Gaving bias makes it easier for folks to accept lies.

If you already believe in something, having someone make up shit to prove it allows you to ignore the lack of rigor on that evidence.

It's sad.

 

[Biglibido99]

Gaving bias makes it easier for folks to accept lies.

If you already believe in something, having someone make up shit to prove it allows you to ignore the lack of rigor on that evidence.

It's sad.

Indeed but a lot of people are just swayed into acceptance for a number of reasons - the main one being they have lost trust because of the prevalence & acceptance of lying.

It's also more & more difficult to investigate matters & "truth" becomes "vibe" or "what I feel is true"

 

[ll74]

Indeed but a lot of people are just swayed into acceptance for a number of reasons - the main one being they have lost trust because of the prevalence & acceptance of lying.

They are swayed into acceptance because their bias makes them want to see what they want to see.
They don't poke the bear if they've been given the meal.

It's also more & more difficult to investigate matters & "truth" becomes "vibe" or "what I feel is true"

Absolutely an issue

 

[RoryN]

An interesting topic came up on a thread about catfishing - the rise in the prevalence of lying & it's acceptance. How such practices & their acceptance has led to the growing level of distrust in society.

Agreed. And I believe this is related:

Article: Sex is dying out.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/17/sex-is-dying-out-this-is-why-it-matters/

If you can't get past the paywall, there are (unfortunately) multiple articles and studies elsewhere published within just the last 6 months concerning the premise of the title.