In my now 10 months of being on nostr, which is more broadly included as social media, I've observed a strong unchallenged proliferation of what Ayn Rand called "context dropping". Narratives, memes and even simple statements are bombarding us in a constant stream and it takes a fair amount of analytical thinking and research to tease out and objectively look at the issues being presented as reality. In real person to person communication it should be possible to have a to and fro discussion about a topic, where we challenge assertions made by the other party in real time and hopefully both benefit from the exchange, but the images and statements flashing before us online make objective and rational thought less easy. Even in real life, as supported by the fact that Ayn Rand identified this tendency before the internet was so prevalent, it is probably not the default position that when we express our arguments we present the context honestly. An image, graph or piece of data can be presented, and while it may be factual, it sorely lacks usefulness unless a much broader context is considered. Without effort on our part it seems we open ourselves to being manipulated. We land for or against, we project narratives so confidently based on the belief that our interpretation of the world is correct and we ultimately seem to be alienating ourselves from one another.

Don't trust, verify.