Divided We Will Fall?

We humans have always been an argumentative lot but, one might have naively hoped, that the world-wide web (www) with its improved and diverse communications might have helped us to curb our antagonisms. Far from it! Although we can get information at the touch of a button, we can just as easily locate misinformation by following different links. The trouble is that many of us can't tell the difference between the two (and we often don't care, because we know what we like and just want a bit of entertainment). Even worse, many of us are pathologically suspicious of some of the people who tell us what we should believe (sometimes, with very good reason) and/or are uncritically supportive of someone we 'like'. I have been stimulated to write this as we have just had the conclusion (I think it's over now?) of the US Presidential election. Record numbers of people voted (hooray for democracy!) but we now have millions of people who appear to be living in two distinctly different universes. Getting anything like 'civil' agreement, from this point on, between the 2 Americas is, I think, going to be next to impossible. In 2016, the UK had its vote on Brexit (leaving the Economic Union of Europe). Years later, 'leavers' and 'remainers' are still in different camps and far from being reconciled. Also, all over the world, people have vastly different takes on what to do about the Covid-19 pandemic. Things are, consequently, not looking too good for urgent, sensible decisions, which need to be made, about protection of the environment and limiting climate change. Our species has the scientific name Homo sapiens, meaning 'wise man'. I have always thought this was a bit self-aggrandizing. Whether we are wise or not, however, our apparent inability to amicably 'beg to differ', directs our species into some very dangerous places. I appreciate that there has always been misinformation and disagreements (probably pre-dating our species) but the www currently makes them ubiquitous and wilder. We really should try a bit harder to stop dividing ourselves into opposing groups.