The Great Deceivers

Along with a number of vestigial organs which evolution has done away with was a basic necessity in our manipulative media era, the personal FRAUD DETECTOR.

The internet has eliminated an editor’s control over what
information and misinformation can be disseminated, by anyone, with
any motive, including malice aforethought. Unsubstantiated rumor can
be bolstered by citing fictitious authorities and distributed as fact. Scholarly
sounding tracts, based on zero evidence, are given titles which sound so
ominous that they must be read for survival. DIRE WARNINGS have
become the de rigueur choice of unscrupulous writers whose purpose is to
control behavior, not inform.

Before the extinction of our Fraud Detector, when the quantity of propaganda was more limited, and when the news media was more
honest, the individual reader had the time and self interest to examine
information that was being provided, and use reason and experience
to evaluate it. Now the propaganda is of such volume, and strident, urgent
tone that the reader is overwhelmed. His reason is subordinated to
emotion. He becomes the tool of the writer.

If it were only some individuals being deceived and misled, the harm to the nation would be limited. But when huge numbers of people are fooled, the consequences to the nation can be disastrous. We can be led into an unnecessary war, or to financial collapse. Group to group hate can be fomented to divide and conquer us from within. Our fears can be used to lead us into unwise choices of leaders.

So, lets use good old American ingenuity to reinvent the Fraud Detector for Individuals.
It could become part of the Green Revolution---for people.