There Are No Alternative Facts: Some Rules For Discerning Reality In This Hallucinogenic Hellscape of Misinformation
Misinformation has evolved far beyond the art of the possible and become pure science fiction--and the better it gets, the more of us will not be able to tell the difference
I am a professional science fiction, fantasy, and horror writer. It is what I live and breathe. It is what I love. For twenty years I have stretched my imagination to tell the most out-there stories I can to as many people as I can. To imagine the future and the past, new technologies and philosophies and how to function within them.
So when I tell you people are getting really fucking weird about the line between imagination and reality, you need to believe me. It’s not ChatGPT that might end up putting me out of work, it’s the way we’re apparently just allowing millions of people to announce their personal epic science fiction spec script is reality, act on that conviction, still be treated as serious people to be taken seriously, and given influence and power. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WE DO NOT HAVE WEATHER CONTROL OR MEDBEDS OR CLONES AND JAY-Z IS NOT A FREAKING WEREWOLF.
Now, the way this Substack works is that each public post has a companion piece under the paywall containing all the things I wanted to say but didn’t want to deal with the usual horde of bad-faith concern trolling and screaming misinformation in the comments.
On top of that, this particular one is locked because I’m going to start off by telling a story about a family reunion I went to awhile back and the truly acid-addled-raccoon genre fiction presented to me, to my face in real life, by human beings I ostensibly share DNA with, as objective, common sense fact. To be completely honest, the last time I mentioned their worldview online, one of the relations in question popped up in the discussion and not only doubled down hard, but insisted on con-splaining how the sun works (spoiler: nope), not quite realizing that their version of Being Online and mine are very different. That person subsequently had no fun at all while fifty thousand people or so laughed at them and threw digital tomatoes.
I don’t totally know which I’m trying to avoid, that happening again and family members getting their feelings hurt/yelling at me, or my total fucking despair if it didn’t, because I can no longer be sure anyone on Twitter knows the difference between whatever they dreamed the last time they took Benadryl on an empty stomach and reality. God DAMMIT, Planet Earth.
But I’m going to unbury the lede and put the first rule for discerning What Is from What Is Fucking Squirrel Nuts above the fold. There’s a few other rules, but this one is just a simple and effective question to ask yourself when evaluating whether some stupid outlandish thing you heard is reality or JUST TOTAL GIBBON-SHRIEKING INTO AN INFINITE HALL OF NIGHTMARES. As a public service.
DON’T BE AFRAID, IT’S CRITICAL THINKING TIME. If the answer the following is yes…
Would life be massively easier, more fun and interesting, or at least massively more dangerous/exciting and interesting, than you’ve ever known it to be for one single second of your lived experience if this thing were even half-true?
THEN IT’S PROBABLY VENOMOUS DREAMPUKE EJECTED FROM THE SUGAR PLUM FUCKING FAIRY’S MONEY-SUCKING BILE-CLOACA, YOU CANTELOPE, STOP BEING SUCH A GORMLESS SUCKER.
Okay! All set? Time to talk shit about what my second cousins believe!
Let’s hop in the definitely-real Democrat-controlled time machine fueled by baby blood and straight men’s tears. Reserve yours now for 47 non-refundable installments of just $47.47! Product launch date: MAYBE!
I suspected something was about to shake dangerously loose in the collective American psyche around the summer of 2016, at a reunion of my maternal family in upstate New York, about six weeks after my maternal grandfather had died, a fact which will be quite important in approximately 35 seconds, the precise amount of time it took between getting out of my car and someone I’d never met before just bellyflopping with gusto into a Smilex vat of bugfuck nonsense…