31 Aug 2026
Internet – Veracity and Virality and Why Everything We do Matters
Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). In the last week of May 2026, I shared an excerpt titled ‘Contingent Convergence and Why Every Moment Matters’, which is from the book titled – ‘Fluke’ – Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas (https://brianpklaas.com/). In his book Brian points that Contrary to our instinctive beliefs, cause and effect are never simple and easy to understand: any specific outcome is dependent not only on what appear to be the major events leading up to it, but also on an array of seemingly insignificant, arbitrary, easily overlooked factors, “flukes”—some under our control, but countless others not. The excerpt highlights that, we, are often oblivious of how small, contingent changes change our lives and shift our societies. Some are random accidents, such as mutations in DNA. Others are deliberate, but minor, decisions we make. They’re happening constantly. We tell ourselves that we’re in control of our lives. The truth is that everything is constantly in flux, including ourselves. We live in a world defined by what we might call contingent convergence, which is broadly how change happens. There is order and structure, but the snooze-button effect is real. That leads to an unsettling, but also exhilarating, truth: every moment matters. Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, because, ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to’.
Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.
This week I bring to your attention an excerpt titled – ‘Internet – Veracity and Virality and Why Every Thing We do Matters’, which is from the book titled – ‘LikeWar – The Weaponization of Social Media’ by Peter Singer and Emerson Brooking.
This book traces the ways that social media has created a new environment for conflict. Although the truth, in the form of information, is more widely available than ever before, it can be buried in a sea of likes and lies.
Internet – Veracity and Virality and Why Every Thing We do Matters
Most people don’t ponder deeply when they click “share.” They are just passing on things that they find notable or that might sway others. Yet is shapes them all the same. As users respond positively to certain types of content, the algorithms that drive social media’s newsfeeds, ensure that they see more of it. As they see more, they share more, affecting all others in their extended network. Like ripples in a pond, each of these small decisions expands outward, altering the flow of information across the entire system.
Social media algorithms work by drawing attention to content that trends on their networks, even (and especially) when people are outraged by it. The result is the virtual equivalent of a grease fire, where widespread condemnation of something ensures that new groups of users see it and condemn it in return. Because virality is incompatible with complexity, as content trends, any context and details are quickly stripped away. All that remains is the controversy itself, spread unwittingly by people who feel the need to “weigh in” on how fake or nonsensical it sounds. Even as they complain about how big it has gotten, they make it bigger.
The internet has become the fastest and largest medium of global communication and is the apex coming together of individual connection and mass transmission.
The internet is integral to not just business but also to militaries, governments and activists.
Since virality clearly overwhelms truth, what is known can be reshaped.
Lines between “war” and “politics” have not just blurred but overlapped completely in each other.
Being online puts your attention as the most contested piece of territory. Everything one watches, likes and shares represents a tiny ripple on the information battlefield privileging one side at the expense of the other.
Excerpt from ‘LikeWar – The Weaponization of Social Media’ by Peter Singer and Emerson Brooking.
I am sure that you will enjoy reading the book and find it thought provoking too; to buy your copy and read a review, you can click on the following link:
Books (https://qsconsultants.in/resources/books/)
Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.
Namaste.
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