On the way home from dinner, I wondered, “What am I gonna write about tonight?” Then I opened Twitter and faced this headline: “Hacker breaches the US agency that certifies voting machines” (only semi-confirmed).

So, ah, there’s that.

Cybersecurity is vital but hard and also the most important institutions seem to ignore it. Great!

Also, Adam Elkus said something funny:

This is 2016, so I should be able to back a secessionist kickstarter with bitcoins sent via virtual reality

It’s kinda possible if you donate to Liberland. Apparently a lot of their funds come through bitcoin.

Avalanche in progress. Photo by Sean Gillies.

Avalanche in progress. Photo by Sean Gillies.

Anyway.

What I really want to talk about is something else. I feel angsty. It’s a result of the cacophony. The unfettered flow of information that we’ve set up for ourselves, where people’s opinions about the news go straight into my face for hours on a daily basis. (What? I could choose not to do this? Preposterous.)

I like keeping track of what’s going on. But I hate putting up with the constant ambient wrongness.

Now, I’m a reasonable person, so I know that I’m not right about everything. I have natural biases, delusions engendered by tribalism, and often I must draw conclusions based on incomplete information. Some of these flaws will be discovered and fixed at some point, but others will continue to taint how I perceive and analyze the world. Just another stellar perk of being human!

Since I am human, even though I intellectually know that I’m wrong about some things, on an emotional level I think that all of my firm opinions are correct. It is extremely grating that everyone goes around disagreeing with me all the time. Especially since I have an agenda — a way that I want the world to proceed — and pesky other people never stop working against it.

This isn’t new, of course, but I can’t help but think that the volume has increased. There is so much of it. In the “olden days” did people with opinions have to restrain themselves from starting arguments left and right?

(Pun intended.)