Choose your own reality, we’ll choose ours

Canada is struggling to make sense of a world where the rules-based order is under attack. The Second World War overcame fascism and began a long period of prosperity among nations, until the main architect of the postwar world order turned on its allies and threatened our sovereignty.

As Prime Minister Mark Carney stated in Davos, the strongest have often exempted themselves from the rules when convenient.

Rules were enforced asymmetrically and international law applied differently depending on who were the accused and the victim. Stability in the world depended on the ability to “go along to get along.” Like it or not, the greater good relied on hegemonic power.

This arrangement was tolerated by all nations until the greatest among them began arbitrarily using these levers against them all. And now we find ourselves in a difficult situation, having integrated our economy with a country that has made it clear that they want to take us over.

From 1945-1990, the U.S. spearheaded globalization efforts by establishing the UN and many international organizations. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it became the sole superpower and was able to wield influence wherever it wanted. The ‘90s brought peak optimism and co-operation, with international trade (NAFTA) and global commerce (WTO). Open markets among allies proliferated and capitalism flourished. The ‘90s also brought forth the internet.

The dot-com bubble would see both these worlds begin to contract.

By 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq under a dubious pretext in 2003, the politics of globalization had turned inward towards protectionism. In 2004, The Apprentice began.

The internet took off as a bastion of free expression and individual empowerment, and so quickly became a target for capitalistic dominance. The difference in little over 20 years was stark.

In 2000, there was no concentration of usage by any one company, most traffic consisted of thousands of individual pages, email and early instant messaging. Counter-intuitively, the exponential growth of internet capacity did not result in a greater proportion of individual pages but now concentrates more than 50 per cent of all internet use to six companies (Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Netflix).

By 2010, smartphones and social media took off.

The attention economy was born, where truth is not important, having exempted themselves from liability for user content using Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act (1996). Companies take de facto ownership of content then categorize, organize, package and provide it back to us with ads.

They get all the financial benefits of your effort with little responsibility, creating an unfairness gap that displaces wealth from traditional media that legally follows stricter rules as publishers.

Other advantages shortly follow that erode trust in facts, experts, institutions and governments. Algorithms curate content, dividing people into silos. Emotion outweighs accuracy, preferably outrage, as conflict creates attention. Identity matching creates loyalty to keep you there.

If done right, you will be caught in a cycle of attention baiting, emotional manipulation, and identity grooming.

Then comes along the lucky loser.

Lying was a practised skill, outrage was how he communicated, and identity was his politics. A perfect match for a disgruntled population tired of competence and tolerance and primed by algorithmic xenophobia.

A broken system unbridled by wealthy influence allowed greed to overpower their politics. Their faulty justice system both allowed him to escape accountability and granted him total immunity for his actions. Two out of the three equal pillars of power crumbed at his feet, a constitution largely ignored, and the confluence resulted in a de facto king.

Then AI weighs in.

The lies are not enough to sway us anymore. Enrage us with images that can’t be ignored, deceive us with our own eyes. Make us distracted at all times with outrage that he creates. Now holding all the power, it doesn’t matter what we believe.

Flooding the zone is more effective not to convince us what is real, but to eventually convince us that nothing is real. A house of mirrors created to hide the real workings of a corrupt autocratic government.

His cravings become imperialistic and the world at first appeased the petulant plutocrat — but no more.

The rupture is clear, the capitulation is over, and the world is walking away.

How we got here was a confluence of factors culminating in unending potential for global catastrophe. Technology had its own influence, eroding social cohesion, trust and even the perception of reality.

The effect on Canada cannot be more direct.

As was stated in Carney’s Davos speech, Canada must take the world as it is, not what we wish it to be. If we don’t have a shared reality we have a shared anarchy, a world where anything goes.

False reality is an illusion, a slight of a bruised hand by a demented narcissist against our better interests. We will not take heed from an amoral shill of reality TV’s past, present or future. You may believe your own reality, but now Canada must choose our own.

David Nutbean is a technology writer and a forever Canadian.