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The first problem with truth is that it is expensive... costly. Fiction, on the other hand, is much cheaper and more accessible. Just think of a very practical example. Imagine that a reporter wants to do an investigative report on a particular situation (political, social, or even economic). In order for this report to be done, there is a lot to be done before the report is even written. Fact-finding, interviews, hours of reading material, consulting various sources, and comparing various versions that may even be contradictory. On the other hand, if that same journalist wants to write a work of fiction or a novel, all they need to do is use their imagination and be consistent in the ideas they present and develop. It doesn't have to make sense or be based on any real facts, which is rarely, if ever, the case, and there just needs to be a common thread connecting the ideas and their participants.
Energy, time, and money are necessary to produce something true and well-founded, unlike fiction.
The truth is also, besides being very expensive, inherently complex. Ideas can be so intertwined that it is not easy to understand at first what led to what. Whereas in fiction everything is simpler, and sometimes easier to understand.
Take B movies, for example. They do not have a very extensive plot and are relatively simple to understand for those watching and following the film.
People tend to prefer things that are easy to explain.
The truth can also be painful, unattractive. Often we don't want to know the truth about ourselves when it is painful and ugly. We don't want to know it as individuals, which is one of the reasons why we sometimes resort to therapy for many years, to find out things we don't want to know about ourselves in the first place.
But this is not exclusive to individuals. It even applies to entire nations. Every nation has its darkest episodes, its own skeletons and even graveyards in the closet. Many of its citizens do not want to know, or at least do not want to remember certain aspects of their country.
There is virtually no politician who, in their election campaign, tells only the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is impossible for such a politician to win votes.
Therefore, in this competition between the truth (which is expensive and time-consuming, sometimes painful, and even complex and unattractive (initially)) and fiction (which is cheap, quick to construct, usually simpler, attractive, and even makes sense according to our standards and levels of knowledge), the war is practically decided.
If we look at large-scale network and communications systems, historically they are often built on fiction rather than true facts.
So how can we know if something that is being presented, explained, or narrated to us is true? Only if we have time, some availability, and critical thinking skills will we be able to get close to what may be a path to something real, true, and that has a grain of truth.
Nowadays, societies live for immediate consumption. Information is disseminated every tenth of a second. All over the world, through multiple networks, and in multiple ways. How can we make a clear, unequivocal, and fair judgment about what we are seeing? And how will we do it in the future?
If we decide that we should not pay for information; if we do not pay for a channel, a subscription to a social media outlet, or a newspaper (physical, online, etc.), how can we demand that the information be true and not fictional?
I fear that, day by day, it is becoming increasingly complex to make a clear distinction between fiction and reality, or that the information that is disseminated is done so without the slightest concern for comparing it with other sources.
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Original text written by me in Portuguese and translated with DeepL.com (free version)
