Well, I mean we coped before we had cameras, right? In a sense, we would go back to that. We would have to rely more on witnesses we trust than on evidence.
One point of postmodernism is that often the facts (as in what happened when exactly) don't matter as much as the narrative (Unless you are a historian or a scientist). I think this is true to some extent, but we delude ourselves that only the facts matter. And then we can be manipulated by the narrative. It might be interesting to make the narrative explicit.
Imagine a politician that is exposed to a scandal with an old sex tape. This could ruin their carreer, no matter how good their work is otherwise. But if the tape becomes degraded to mere hearsay - maybe it happened, maybe it didn't - then it is about which image we want to believe. Then the sex tape is one narrative, the campaign is another narrative, and the only concrete thing we really have to judge them on is their actual policies, and their actual recent work. All the "image" will be drowned out in noise.
Same if you think about people posting stupid stuff on social media when they are young, and then having trouble when they try to find a job. If it is trivial and ubiquitous to fake drinking pictures and dumb old tweets, you can just shake it off with "oh yeah that is fake". The only thing that will count is your impression and your performance in the moment (and accounts from other trusted people).
I'm not saying this would be a good development, or a bad one, just that I think it is a possible interesting consequence of current tech developments...
>and the only concrete thing we really have to judge them on is their actual policies, and their actual recent work. All the "image" will be drowned out in noise.
Completely disagree. What will instead matter is purely someone's image and their ability to fool people. Those who will benefit most from this aren't good people affected by smear campaigns, it's bad people who can easily avoid real criticism of actual wrong doings.
Most political scandals I know of are not something inconsequential, but rather due to corrupt or truly immoral behavior, like the recent corruption affair in Austria. Making politicians immune to this seems like a drastic step backwards.
>Well, I mean we coped before we had cameras, right?
Well, yeah, humanity also coped with frequent famines. I'm not sure if going to back to something like that would count as 'adapting' to crop failures.
One point of postmodernism is that often the facts (as in what happened when exactly) don't matter as much as the narrative (Unless you are a historian or a scientist). I think this is true to some extent, but we delude ourselves that only the facts matter. And then we can be manipulated by the narrative. It might be interesting to make the narrative explicit.
Imagine a politician that is exposed to a scandal with an old sex tape. This could ruin their carreer, no matter how good their work is otherwise. But if the tape becomes degraded to mere hearsay - maybe it happened, maybe it didn't - then it is about which image we want to believe. Then the sex tape is one narrative, the campaign is another narrative, and the only concrete thing we really have to judge them on is their actual policies, and their actual recent work. All the "image" will be drowned out in noise.
Same if you think about people posting stupid stuff on social media when they are young, and then having trouble when they try to find a job. If it is trivial and ubiquitous to fake drinking pictures and dumb old tweets, you can just shake it off with "oh yeah that is fake". The only thing that will count is your impression and your performance in the moment (and accounts from other trusted people).
I'm not saying this would be a good development, or a bad one, just that I think it is a possible interesting consequence of current tech developments...