Blog/2026-03-03/The Impact of Information Fakery is not Overrated

A short while back, I used to believe that The Impact of Fake Video is Overrated because people will just believe what they will and there's nothing you can do about that. But I was entirely wrong and I've encountered it directly recently. My friend Ben posted about this:

Ben Podgursky @bpodgursky

there's been this elite vibe of "misinformation is bad but a problem because of the masses who don't care about the truth"

but trying to follow the Iran war... no matter how careful you are are it's basically impossible to feel confident you aren't following a fake info reality

Mar 2, 2026

It isn't even all generative AI and this and that. The world has just transformed into a place where the things people are posting are wholly nonsensical. I can only guess that a lot of people were just relay nodes in the information network and when the primary sources transformed into robots pumping out fiction, the relays also became fiction amplifiers. The place where this struck me is that the latest trend on Twitter is to talk about impacts of the US attack on Iran and the resulting regional crisis. The claim constantly espoused is that Real Estate Is Collapsing. The truth is that it's not. I would live to buy a place that's way cheaper than it should be solely because people are panicking from the crisis, but no one is panicking from the crisis. It's all engagement bait!