Too Much Information?

Interesting to reflect on what that futurist fellow said:

“We invented representative democracy when information was scarce. You didn’t know what was happening in California if you were in D.C. so you had a representative from California.  The speed of a horse was as fast as you could find out. When you have an abundance it can be misinterpreted, misused, faked. Democracy does not work in an abundance of information.  How do you update that? System was designed for a scarcity of information.”

He labels information abundance as a negative - “misinterpreted, misused, faked” -  but any populist would know it also makes elites uncomfortable given it’s harder to hide, misuse, or fake information. The hedge funds would prefer they get to work in concert but not the day traders. The plentitude was exploited by the redditers who gamed GameStop stock. So would Gov. Andrew Cuomo prefer to hide his sordid covid statistics.  Would that nursing homes scandal have been swept under the rug circa 1850 or even 1950? 

“Too much information” is certainly driving some of the distrust of institutions and individuals which is why the elites are hellbent on locking it down, suppressing news and shutting down free speech. 

Data in the 2020 election came in like a fire hose; I’m not sure trust in elections were made to withstand the transparency of fraud (all elections have fraud but before the ‘net and vote spikes in real time - including vote decrements as well - it seemed like it was a bit harder to see then).  Similarly the exposes of folks like Matt Baynard and his Voter Integrity Project would’ve been infinitely harder to conduct and publicize before we peons got access to data.