A lot of things are enabled through processing of information. That does not mean that I should automatically approve of the outcomes. What we have here is normal research or experimentation. I would question the extent to which it was enabled through "advancements in the processing of information" and suggest that it's a simple case of "hey, why don't we look more at ... ?" And what do I know, maybe this plastic cookie is actually metabolised just like a protein and contains nothing that may cause any adverse health effects whatsoever. What my bio refers to is the problem that the amount of information we are bombarded with every single day has rapidly increased over the last few decades and will likely continue. The amount of information (good or bad) that exists on any given topic well exceeds the sensemaking capacity of any human being. X is a good example. Our timelines are full of (often random) fragments of information. Posts are deliberately kept short, often sacrificing clarity or useful background information. Quite often we also see how supposed synopses of linked articles or videos don't actually match the content of those articles or videos, but are the poster's (potentially invalid) conclusions drawn from that content. Yet people liberally take on and spread those conclusions without ever questioning the underlying (mis- / dis- / mal-) information. Take the plastic cookie. It randomly appeared on my timeline because it got sufficient traction for the algo to spread it around. I have no interest in plastic cookies, but got triggered by certain words in the post combined with my existing knowledge (or rather beliefs) that PET is made from petroleum, doesn't actually contain any microbes that could be "taken out", and that proteins are complex chains of amino acids that you don't just "rebuild". The fact that something may technically be "edible" raises all sorts of questions in my head and reminds me of the 1920s Crisco commercial, in which refined cottonseed oil (an industrial waste product) was advertised as "It’s all vegetable! It’s digestible!" Is that good sensemaking? No. I didn't even read the article. I'm guessing neither did you. I actually just asked Grok and it told me that Dexerto's post is (surprise surprise) a gross distortion of the content in the actual article. I attach Grok's summary of what actually happened in the experiment below. So here we are. We both took time out of our day to discuss a random headline neither of us asked for and that was grossly misleading. THAT is what I am concerned with. Now replace the cookie with something that actually matters: Covid, election integrity, climate change, Epstein, public policy, etc. Are we collectively trying to figure out the truth? Or are we tearing each other to shreds based on what we believe (not know!) to be true because we picked up some random bits of information online or on TV somewhere?