When I was a kid, “truth” was easy to find. I taught myself SO MANY different languages even without reading any actual books - the knowledge available on webpages was sufficient (in fairness, those that I learned from real books I have retained much more readily, especially having learned why not simply how things tend to work; also, webpages can provide merely a different form of packaging the identical material).

Even now, material such as the Crash Course or Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell YouTube series are still available, and I hear stories such as people in Africa traveling for hundreds of miles to a spot where often there is not even so much as a tarp providing cover from the blazing sun overhead, just 4 poles sticking up from the ground where one could go if/when it becomes available, and the entire class learns from a laptop or tablet screen (possibly with enlarged TV display). If people wanted knowledge, it is there for the taking, or was in the information age (except… it’s STILL THERE?!).

Now, I am finding it hard to adjust to the disinformation era.

Also, some things don’t seem to need “learning” to already know - it may be more about stripping away the lies, which again speaks to a willingness to engage. So I get it, but I think it’s sad as I watch what will eventually lead to the demise of Lemmy: an unwillingness to grow beyond what is here currently (though projects such as Mbin and PieFed - and perhaps Sublinks? - offer alternative avenues of hope).

Well, I actually somehow encouraged myself by typing this? Truth, even when sad, is soothing in a manner that lies will never be.