Post-truth

When how a thing feels beats whether it is so.

Post-truth does not mean people have stopped caring about the truth. It means that, when a claim feels right and the evidence says otherwise, the feeling usually wins — and that this is now normal enough to be unremarkable.

It is not mainly a problem of lying. A lie can be corrected. The harder problem is that a claim which fits what you already believe takes almost no effort to accept, while one that does not takes real work to consider. Effort is asymmetric, so belief drifts toward comfort without anyone deciding to be dishonest.

The usual response — more fact-checking — helps less than it should. Being told you are wrong by a stranger is an unpleasant experience, and unpleasant experiences make people defensive rather than curious.

What we try to do here. A crib is a claim stated plainly, without its author's argument attached to it. You meet the claim before you meet anyone's case for it, which buys you a moment to decide what you actually think. Whether that helps is an open question, and one we would like to be argued with about.