Yeah, I used to link this a lot (Just the game clip). The guy makes a point I have made on here, that we're living in an era "knowledge induced ignorance". It sounds contrarian to say that too much knowledge can make people dumb, but its not when you understand the human brain has an upper limit on data-storage and processing. Its an organ meant to hold enough information to interact with about 200 other people well. This is
Dunbar's number--and its a physical limitation on your brain. To exist in larger societies, we've had to use prosthesis for our brain--in a way we are ALL handicapped compared to the needs of modern society. We make up for this handicap in two ways--one is heuristics (Ideology) to shortcut rational analysis (Heuristics are just things that are "more wrong than right" usually, and thus serve as useful shortcuts to begin sifting information). The other is we use prosthesis, like writing things down, animals (To carry messages faster), roads, and now electronic communication. You can actual draw strong parallels here between society and evolution (Early colonies of cells used hormones/chemical communication, which evolved into neural/electrical communication, just like society used chemical imprints on paper, and later electronic communication. In a way, if we look at humanity as a single organism, we're slowly developing our first brain and neural system).
Here is the thing though, because our brains are so woefully inadequate, we need to hyper-specialize in certain things. This REQUIRES trust that information passed to us is accurate from other actors in the system. This leaves us painfully open to exploitation (Through manipulation). And there is no real way yet to combat this, as if you give everyone all the information, no one is going to have time to really learn it. Like how the fuck do I know if cancer treatments are truly effective? The truth is, I
don't. Even if I obtained all the information on it, I'd need to take years of school for the math, and biology required to make sense of the volumes of work. I need to trust doctors and researchers shortcutting a lot of stuff for me (Even if one is bright enough to read the studies, you'd need to do this, because studies rely on other studies for a lot of variables, and innate knowledge of systems the studies work within.). This same issue comes up with complex political and ideological issues--and with ideology its a double whammy because it ALSO affects those heuristics, so not only can you manipulate people but you can also program them to be less critical even when presented with contrary information.
This is why no matter what, the absolute most core principle we should all want is absolute freedom of speech and communication. No matter how bad the damage might be from a bad actor in the system, it can ALWAYS be fixed if good actors can provide information. In essence, to get back to Kojima's comparison to evolution, the fix is the same fix our bodies developed with the immune system. We always need to be prepared to identify, explain and neutralize bad actors. Which is why censorship is like AIDS--because it hijacks the only system that can prevent this kind of cancer. Once you shut down the ability to communicate, then you also shut down the ability to be objective. And if NO ONE is willing to agree with you the king's dick is hanging out, then you can never really be sure if you're right, you'll begin to assume you're just crazy and if you're rational, in order to appease the group, you'll begin to say the King's wardrobe is fantastic, even though you don't see anything at all. Because objectivity relies on communicated information--everything before that point, your subjective experience? Could just as easily be delusion.
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.....And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then
