接受無知

睇緊最新一話嘅間諜家家酒，都幾認同

嘗試去瞭解，同承認自己唔知道同樣重要，缺一不可

同Atlantic嘅一篇文章結合一齊睇都幾好（已同步加入八月刊草稿）

The Flattening Machine

The chaotic aftermath of the assassination attempt shows a toxic information system working as designed.

The AtlanticCharlie Warzel

Our information ecosystem is actually pretty good while the dust is up. But the second it begins to settle, that same system creates chaos. As my own shock wore off, leaving me to contemplate the enormity of the moment, I could sense a familiar shift on Reddit, X, and other platforms.
The basic facts held attention for only so long before being supplanted by wild speculation—people were eager to post about the identity of the shooter, his possible motives, the political ramifications of the event, the specter of more violence. It may be human nature to react this way in traumatic moments—to desperately attempt to fill an information void—but the online platforms so many of us frequent have monetized and gamified this instinct, rewarding those who create the most compelling stories. Within the first four hours, right-wing politicians, perhaps looking to curry favor with Trump, hammered out reckless posts blaming Joe Biden’s campaign for the shooting; Elon Musk suggested that the Secret Service may have let the shooting happen on purpose; as soon as the shooter’s name was released, self-styled online investigators dug up his name and his voter registration, eager for information they could retrofit to their worldview. Yesterday, conspiracy theorists pointed to a two-year-old promotional video from BlackRock that was filmed at the shooter’s school and features the shooter for a moment—proof, they said, of some inexplicable globalist conspiracy. As my colleague Ali Breland noted in an article on Sunday, conspiracy theorizing has become the “default logic for many Americans in understanding all major moments.”

人類普遍對無知感到不安，而令起底、陰謀論容易趁虛而入。尤其而家係資訊時代，喺信息可以輕易獲取嘅當下，要人冷靜地承認自己唔知好多嘢都幾難，但呢個係必學嘅一課，因為主流媒體都係噉做，寧願遲啲播送都唔好傳謠——一開始只係講有巨響，終止活動，後邊確認晒先講暗殺未遂，Trump受傷

What we are witnessing is an information system working as designed. It is a machine that rewards speed, bravado, and provocation. It is a machine that goads people into participating as the worst version of themselves. It is a machine that is hyperefficient, ravenous, even insatiable—a machine that can devour any news cycle, no matter how large, and pick it apart until it is an old, tired carcass.

In high-stakes breaking-news moments, reputable news outlets tend to approach headlines with extreme caution to avoid reporting false information. This has the unfortunate side effect of sometimes seeming absurd—especially in a televised moment such as the Trump shooting, where anyone can hear the pops of gunfire and see the former president move to the ground.
Saturday’s events demonstrated both how important these standards are and just how outmoded they can seem in a supersaturated information environment. At a moment dominated by attention seekers, on platforms that reward fast-twitch proclamations and bullshit, pausing to gather evidence is painted as suspicious behavior. Reckless opportunists have rebranded baseless speculation as virtuous truth-telling. This has long been a tactic of the far-right media ecosystem—in 2017, one conservative influencer told me that the reason hours-long livestreamed videos had become so popular among MAGA fans is the videos were deemed to be rawer and more authentic, unlike mainstream-media content, which they argued was filtered. Seven years later, reactiveness has become its own kind of trustworthiness. In that sense, perhaps the core of the fight over misinformation isn’t so much about the increase of fake news or alternate realities as it is about a societal devaluing of restraint, rigor, and other hallmarks of the journalistic process.
The overall effect of this transformation is a kind of flattening. Online, the harrowing events of Saturday weren’t all that distinguishable from other mass shootings or political scandals. On X, I saw a post in my feed suggesting, ironically or not, “I know this sounds insane now but everyone will totally forget about this in ten days.” The line has stuck in my head for the past few days, not because I think it’s true, but because it feels like it could be. The flattening—of time, of consequence, of perspective—more than the rage or polarization or mistrust, is the main output of our modern information ecosystem. The world around us erupts; our life changes. People know their role, take their place, play their part, and feel, for an instant, like they’re living in history. But then the window closes. The timeline flickers with something new—the appointment of a vice-presidential candidate, say, announced (where else?) on Trump’s own social-media platform—and the world moves on.

聽起身都確實幾諷刺，喺兩百年前，帝國「新聞」主要都係講緊幾個禮拜之前其他地方嘅「舊聞」，之後資訊傳播速度上咗嚟，有實時同步性，但而家膨脹到好似全部都冇乜所謂，睇咗即當歷史算……如果你問我，今年嘅月刊記得幾多，都真係唔會有幾多，但我唔覺得完全係過咗就算，因為今日之事有往事之延續，世界確實係繼續轉緊，卻唔係有個reset掣從一個復原點開始轉返，所以，所有嘅影響同後果都會繼承落去，冇辦法就噉當做翻篇