jugglinmike

It also contradicts the author's earlier argument:

> I need to know there was intention behind it. [...] That someone needed to articulate the chaos in their head, and wrestle it into shape.

If forced to choose, I'd use coherence as evidence of care than use it as a refutation of humanity.

Great catch. I was getting ready to mention the theoretical risk of asking an LLM be your arbiter of truth; it didn't even occur to me to check the chosen example for correctness. In a way, this blog post is a useful illustration not just of the hazards of LLMs, but also of our collective tendency to eschew verity for novelty.

> Maybe there is a way to build a new web, a new kind of social media using a > hash graph to implement a decentralized web of trust, something that can > allow content verification without forcing everyone to sacrifice their right > to remain anonymous online.

Comparisons to OpenGPG are likely to make anyone cringe, but if you're willing to suspend disbelief about the usability issues, it seems like such an apt metaphor. Where signing a key is vouching for the owner's humanity, not their identity. I can imagine websites integrating my browser to attach a "humanity key" to the content I post, and my browser maintaining my collection of keys and my preferences for divulging them.

Granted, pseudonymity is not the same as anonymity. Maybe if the meaning (and lifespan?) behind these keys was constrained, then they could be sufficiently disposable to approximate anonymity.

This system is either fundamentally flawed or already implemented, but I don't know how determine which. Can anyone here share writing along these lines?

The real irony comes from the author's claims:

> Unlike reading books and long magazine articles (which > require thinking), we can swallow limitless quantities > of news flashes, which are bright-coloured candies for > the mind.

...and the manner of publication:

> This is an edited extract from an essay first published > at dobelli.com. The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better > Thinking, Better Decisions by Rolf Dobelli is published > by Sceptre, £9.99. Buy it for £7.99 at > guardianbookshop.co.uk

But there's a good case to be made for knowing your audience. In that sense, this version is actually much more likely to reach those who might be influenced by it.