American Thinker: The War on Truth

American Thinker: The War on Truth: "The greatest danger to our wealth, our liberties, our values, and our safety today comes from the deconstruction of truth. We live in a world driven by information. Almost all real wealth today is based upon information and knowledge. Almost all real power today is based upon mass communication, education, and entertainment. Even military power relies upon data and intelligence, not brute force.

This drift of modern life away toward an information-driven society is morally neutral. Our capacity to control nature, to order our lives, and to know much more than we ever have before allows us to do much more good than we ever have before. Knowledge allows us to cure disease, reduce poverty, expand our horizons of thought, and spend much more time in recreation.

This power allows us to do much more evil than men in the past. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China could not have survived without information technology. Orwell understood this well in 1984. Every slave in Oceania was subject to electronic surveillance. Meaningless global war consciously consumed all surplus wealth. Science was used to insure poverty, misery, and loneliness: only the Inner Party and Big Brother were allowed to have any meaning in life. History changed every day. Government statistics were altered without any connection to reality. Information in such a Hellish place meant only the momentary position of the Party, which changed constantly."