this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026
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I think you're on the wrong track. Reality is still immensely accessible to you if you go out in the world and critically check the information you've been given against the human reality out there.
Don't lose yourself to the despair or confusion.
Plenty of things make social sense from the last 10 years in local communities, national contexts and international contexts. Both the good and the bad, e.g. a broad normalisation of LGBT and a backlash against it, progress in renewable energy and fights against different diseases, the rise of vaccine skeptics after COVID, the pandemic itself.
Or look at the "Ceuta crisis" in Europe. Images spread, right wing panic ensues, critical media investigates, it's clear that the real situation is completely under control, the whole story becomes about an opportunistic right wing trying to create panic about immigration and left wing Spain.
All of this has played out in a natural, organic human way. Yes, social media has been a big, ugly shift in how communities work, and yes, they definitely work on purpose to simplify things that would previously die off most likely. But if you go outside and open your eyes, the world can make plenty of sense without some inhuman conspiracy beyond regular greed.
And please don't say that anyone that disagrees with you are just victims of propaganda, that's the ideal way to detach yourself from reality.
Your suggestion is to fact check events happening in other countries you read about in person?
No, rather my suggestion is to start rooting yourself in the reality around you, understand the relationship between that reality and the media reporting on it, and then try to understand international events through that lense.
If certain media reports on things in your area in an unreasonable way, it might be that it's a fundamentally unreasonable media. If some group's messaging and ideology doesn't match the reality you see around you, it might be a group detached from reality. Use these learnings to build critical thinking and find media and sources you can trust, or where you at least understand their angle and blind spots.
Of course, it does really help to see the situation around your own country and in other countries with your own eyes. Not everyone has that opportunity, but if you do, seize it, and talk to real people in the community.