No, we’re not talking technological singularity; something a bit more down to earth: just good old fashioned fake news really but with a new twist. A fairly, short, simple, not terribly deep piece this month, but combining with what’s gone before to lead to next month’s proposition broadly along the lines of “Is it possible for a race to ‘stupid’ itself into extinction?”

In an early original episode of Star Trek, Jim Kirk gets into trouble when some recorded video evidence is falsified, appearing to show negligence. As the storyline unfolds, it’s generally accepted that few people would have had the necessary expertise to do this, which eventually points the way to the falsifier. In fact, this concept continued to turn up in many Star Trek series and films as the years passed.

At the time (of the initial episode), in the real world, of course, such an idea would have been almost unimaginable. Back then, it was hard to credibly manipulate still photographs, let alone moving pictures. And it’s hard to say if many people were even speculating so far as, “I wonder how long it will be before we can do that?” Really, it was just bonkers.

But we’ve come a long way.

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