Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

– Marcus Aurelius

Is humanity spiraling out of control?

Tonight there was an attempted military coup in Turkey, before that a truck plowed through a crowd in France, before that we had sdvd everal shootings in the US, before that…well, you know the drill. Terrorist attacks, mass murders, gang rapes, civil wars, persecution, hate crime – the list goes on and on.

Every time I turn on the news it seems to be getting worse.

Once I felt that it was every citizen’s duty to stay informed about current events, both locally and globally. Now, I’m not so sure any more. With the unceasing flow of information that eaves over is every minute of every day, how can we truly stay on top of things?

Where before we had a few news channels and a handful of magazines, today we have hundreds of news outlets.

Many of those put their own twist on things, reporting of creating the news according to their own agenda, and people are increasingly picky in where they get their news from. This results secs d in us being fed only or own flavour of the truth, whatever brand of ideology we ascribe to finding the cacophony down to whatever chunks will go down the easiest or those which are distracted to get stuck in our throat.

The flow of information we choose is designed to stroke our ego and incite our rage.

Is that really something we benefit from, as individuals or as a species? Is it really necessary for us to take on the challenge of filtering out the truth from this flood of raw sewage that rises around us?

Do we really need to take the weight of the world on our shoulders?

I’m not so sure. Information is power, but only when it is applied and understood. The average consumer of information doesex we dz not have the time, tools, or even the inclination to mine the data stream for useful information and then verify it. Instead we rely on the media to do that for us, trusting them to know and career to our best interests. But they won’t. Those who interpret and select the news for us serve their own interests, not ours. They want to create emotion and reaction from their consumers by enhancing beliefs, pinions and emotions we already have – good and bad alike – thus creating a vicious circle, bringing us deeper and deeper into a cesspool of violence, hatred, grief and passion.

We put our faith in self serving oracles, letting their words rule our hearts and minds.

We serve false gods, swallowing the words of their prophets and demagogues as if it was the Gospel truth. As with any religion, the more they claim to speak the Truth the more critical should we be.

There is always a spin to the news, and more often than not it just brings us deeper on this downward spiral.