I’ve always wrestled with the idea of truth. Not just in the courtroom sense, where it’s reduced to a binary guilty or not but in the larger, more slippery way that it shapes our lives, our judgments, and the people we choose to elevate or destroy.
We like to believe that truth is solid. That it stands like a monument, timeless, unchanging and undeniable. But history tells us otherwise. There was a time when the smartest minds on earth believed the planet was flat. When entire empires punished anyone who dared to suggest the sun didn’t revolve around us. At each of those points, those beliefs were considered absolute truth. But they were really just context-bound conclusions, built from the knowledge and agreements of their time.
And that’s the uncomfortable reality most people avoid: truth isn’t a universal constant. It’s often a moving target. It hangs in the air, shaped by who’s speaking, who’s listening, and what the moment demands.
This isn’t to say that truth doesn’t matter. Quite the opposite. But if we’re honest, what we often call truth is just consensus. It’s what the majority agrees upon, in that hour, in that headline, in that courtroom. And when the crowd decides, there’s little room for nuance. People don’t want complexity. They want clarity. So the story gets flattened, the characters reduced, the verdict simplified.
Social media has only accelerated this tendency. We now live in an age of digital mobs, where a single narrative can sweep across platforms before the facts are even known. Judgment is passed not through debate or evidence, but through volume and virality. One tweet, one clip, one out-of-context quote, and a person’s entire life is boiled down to a label: fraud, liar, villain.
The irony is that the same crowd that once cheered a hero’s rise will just as quickly demand their fall. Because in the crowd, there is no memory. Only momentum.
We’ve seen this time and again. And yet each time, we act surprised. We ask, how could they do that? But we rarely ask, are we all a part of it? unknowingly
The truth is, humans are not just truth-seekers; we’re wired for herd mentality. Survival has shaped us to read the room, to fit in, to survive by aligning with the group. But that survival instinct comes with a price: conformity. And when that instinct combines with outrage, it creates a new kind of danger, public shaming without trial, moral judgment without balance, and punishment without proportion.
Now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, we may be entering an era where a new kind of observer enters the story. One that isn’t caught in the emotional tides of the moment. AI may never replace the human heart, but it can challenge the human herd mentality. It can remember what we forget. It can recognize patterns that defy headlines. It can force us to ask the questions the crowd would rather ignore.
We are approaching a time when truth will no longer be owned by the loudest voice in the room. It will have challengers, co-intelligences that don’t care about popularity, or fear backlash, or need to please. These systems might not give us truth in the ultimate sense, but they may help us return to something even more valuable: doubt. Humility. The willingness to re-examine.
Because maybe the real evolution isn’t discovering a final truth, but learning how to hold belief with open hands. To say: this is what I know now, but I’m willing to keep listening. To keep questioning. To leave space for the story we haven’t heard yet.
That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.
And in a world that rushes to judgment, that may be the most revolutionary act of all.
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