Fantasy Beats Reality
My friend Bill sent me an e-mail this morning, which was a response to a chain joke about "how the Internet was created." Bill took issue with the long-standing dig against Al Gore that he claimed to "invent the Internet." Bill said he wanted to "lay this to rest once and for all."
Bill brought with him a preponderance of evidence - a wealth of well-documented facts that demonstrate that, while Gore did not invent the Internet, he also never claimed to have invented the Internet, and he did sponsor legislation that speeded the the Internet's development. So, yes, Al should get some credit, even though he probably tried to give himself more credit than he deserves. (Isn't it shocking that a politician would try to do this?)
But Bill's argument, no matter how well researched or documented, doesn't even begin to lay the issue to rest. I'd say it hardly even matters, because it ignores one simple truth (an inconvenient one, if you will):
When given the choice between believing a simple fantasy and a complicated truth, most people will believe the fantasy every time.
Or, as Mark Twain more famously said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Just refer to my previous post for further evidence of this. Why in the world are people going to accept the truth about Al Gore and the Internet - a truth that is older, more arcane, and technologically complicated - if they won't understand the comparatively much simpler truth about who's responsible for 9/11?
In both cases, fantasy overwhelmingly trumps truth. It always was so, and I'm afraid always will be.
Still, I hold out a slim, if fading, hope that people will someday realize the ultimate truth: that everything on Earth is controlled by a massive supercomputer run by aliens on a small planet near Betelgeuse.
Bill brought with him a preponderance of evidence - a wealth of well-documented facts that demonstrate that, while Gore did not invent the Internet, he also never claimed to have invented the Internet, and he did sponsor legislation that speeded the the Internet's development. So, yes, Al should get some credit, even though he probably tried to give himself more credit than he deserves. (Isn't it shocking that a politician would try to do this?)
But Bill's argument, no matter how well researched or documented, doesn't even begin to lay the issue to rest. I'd say it hardly even matters, because it ignores one simple truth (an inconvenient one, if you will):
When given the choice between believing a simple fantasy and a complicated truth, most people will believe the fantasy every time.
Or, as Mark Twain more famously said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Just refer to my previous post for further evidence of this. Why in the world are people going to accept the truth about Al Gore and the Internet - a truth that is older, more arcane, and technologically complicated - if they won't understand the comparatively much simpler truth about who's responsible for 9/11?
In both cases, fantasy overwhelmingly trumps truth. It always was so, and I'm afraid always will be.
Still, I hold out a slim, if fading, hope that people will someday realize the ultimate truth: that everything on Earth is controlled by a massive supercomputer run by aliens on a small planet near Betelgeuse.
No comments:
Post a Comment