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We got misinformed at a much slower rate though. The newspapers could only tell us so many lies at a time.

People made a living selling encyclopedias door to door. Just saying.

Before there was the Internet there were libraries. Your main reference books were dictionaries for looking up proper definitions of unknown words. Then you had encyclopedias for general topics. To get really specialized you had to consult the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. That was an index organized by topic of magazine articles, including scientific ones like Nature. Reference librarians were very helpful in finding specific information in a hurry, and there were some books that couldn't leave the library.

This is actually a pretty interesting topic.

I was born in 1982 and we didn’t get the internet until 1998. Which means I was a kid and teen in a mostly analog world.

Your day to day knowledge was formed by things you were taught in school, the things you saw on the news and the people you were surrounded by. That gave you a fairly broad understanding of the world.

If you really NEEDED a correct answer, you’d use an encyclopedia at school or the library, or any specific book on the topic. But you had to be motivated to do that. And even those resources might be limited in scope or unavailable. My local library in the Netherlands would’ve had some books on US history for example, but you wouldn’t really find say, a biography of Jimmy Carter. So at some point, you’d reach the maximum depth of knowledge to be gained in your particular situation.

The internet really helps us drill down way, WAY deeper than what we could find in the 80’s and 90’s. I can now have in-depth knowledge on the most obscure topic and drill down as far as I want.

It’s unfortunate that a lot of people don’t use the web for that. Or end up actually misinformed because of it.

This is the reason a lot of people have got fat, and also died.

Aunt Marge now lives in the Whatsapp family chat.

Now you are permanently overwhelmed by a tsunami of misinformation spewing out of your addictive phone instead. Progress.

“Why is the sky blue?”

“Because it’s reflecting the colour of the ocean.”

Now instead of your aunt coming at you with misinfo she learned from her aunt, it's your aunt coming at you with misinformation she learned from a russian bot farm.

My family had a full encyclopedia that they bought one book at a time right around when I was born in the 80s. By the time I was 10 it moved into my bedroom and I'd often stay up too late reading random things.

Downside was that it was already out of date geopolitically by the time I started thinking about politics.

aunt Marge has been replaced by AI now

And now instead of Marge, it’s ChatGPT.

"breakfast is the most important meal of the day!"

https://marketingmadeclear.com/kelloggs-marketing-lie/

tl;dr: it's fucking not.

related: you're not going to 100% die (or even get sick. yes really) if you skip a meal (or even 2), fatass.

edit: i have to add another thing

diamond engagement rings are absolute 100% bullshit, which, as a genXer, i only learned later in life. i wouldn't be adding this if there weren't still way too many people who are completely bamboozled by this fake "tradition" invented solely to make obscenely wealthy people even more obscenely wealthy.

It's better than what we have now though, which is going "I think elephants are actually seals that got lost on the way to the south pole" and then going on the internet and searching until you find exactly what you already believe, and then forming a social group around that, then voting in politicians who think that until that stupid belief becomes mainstream and there are politicians debating in congress whether to invade Kenya to transport all the elephants to Antarctica.

I had people arguing with me about blue blood long after the internet was available to everyone. I wouldn't ever tell them they were stupid, but I would say, "I don't think that's right" and they would usually say they learned it in biology or a science class in high school and I would say, "that still doesn't sound right. We should look that up later when get home to our computers" and then They would look at me like I was the idiot for suggesting they were misinformed in school... because you know... school teachers NEVER misinform their students... like ever 🙄

Speaking of misinforming your students; shout out to Miss O'Leary for saying Russia could Invade Canada with Tanks because we were landlocked during the colder months via the arctic.

Most people in my life still don't fact check. I'm constantly chasing the truth while the convo runs away full of misinfo

shit I still remember a primary school classmate explaining to me:

one sneeze is from dust
two sneezes in quick succession are from cold
three sneezes in quick succession are from allergies

It's been 30+ years, someone pls remove this nonsense from my brain 😩

There was also that one guy who was 3 years older than you but hanged out with your friend group on occasion and told you things like where kids come from.

My biology teacher taught me that peanut oil causes cancer. Can't get that out of my brain 30+ years later.

Encyclopaedia sets were expensive but there were all sorts of things you could subscribe to for facts. My parents subscribed me to an animal fact thing where i got some sheets to collect in a folder every month. I'd read the hell out of it and eagerly wait for the next issue. It allowed me to memorise a lot of information about animals.

I also visited the library a lot more before the internet, and there was also Encarta which died as soon as the internet became mainstream.

If you had a question that nobody could answer, you’d go down to the library, open up a drawer with a bunch of note cards in it, look to see if any of the note cards had a word about a concept you wanted to learn about, hope that the card existed, was in the right place, and listed a book that would actually give you the information you wanted.

Fun fact: You can still order a current print volume of World Book Encyclopedia for the low price of $1,349.00

proof

We only use 10% of our brains.

You went to a library and read a couple of encyclopedias.

Your face will not get stuck like that.

It is not illegal to turn on the light in the car while driving.

Bears do not sleep all winter long.

Bats are not blind.

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day.

Searing a steak does not seal in moisture.

Waking a sleepwalker is not dangerous to their health.

:)

This is why encyclopedia salesmen was even a thing.

If you didn't have that, go to a library.

Eventually there was encyclopedia britannica which was basically one of the coolest things you could have for free on your computer in that era.

Glad AI is finally taking us back to an era of disinformation