How weird (and dangerous) will it get? | News, sports, jobs

“Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind of man could conceive.” —Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Case of Identity – A Sherlock Holmes Short Story”

Two murder attempts.

White powder is sent to election officials across the country.

Election workers and other local government officials are consistently harassed across the country.

All since this summer.

And now federal workers trying to help North Carolina residents affected by Hurricane Helene have been chased from their jobs by reports of an armed militia hunting Federal Emergency Management Agency employees.

The ‘militia’ turned out to be a lone man, William Jacob Parsons, 44, armed with a pistol and a rifle when police arrested him, but Parsons’ threats against FEMA workers forced recovery teams on Monday to evacuate an area where they were were found to be evacuated briefly. clearing roads to provide access to hurricane-ravaged communities.

Crews were back on the scene Monday afternoon, according to the Washington Post.

However, as a precaution against violence, many FEMA crews are now working in static locations and asking victims to come to them, rather than going door to door as usual.

Although Parsons was the only armed perpetrator and rumors of truckloads of militia members on the hunt proved to be unfounded, Parsons was not the only one harassing FEMA workers and others as they tried to reach hurricane victims. Scores of other North Carolina residents yelled at hurricane relief crews (“We don’t want the government here!”), kicked the crews off their property and told them to leave town.

FEMA and other emergency management leaders blame the tensions on a wave of misinformation about FEMA and its response to Helene.

Too many people believe that FEMA is only giving $750 to each hurricane survivor (that’s an initial payment to help with immediate needs while claims are processed) and that FEMA has given hurricane relief money to migrants (the money for migrants is on a separate account created by Congress and FEMA cannot legally tap that fund for hurricane victims). Other untrue rumors include stories that FEMA would flatten hurricane wrecks with bodies underneath and that FEMA only helps areas where residents vote for Democrats.

“It’s terrible because a lot of these people who need help are turning it away because they believe the things people say about FEMA and the government,” Riva Duncan, a former U.S. Forest Service official who lives in Asheville, told the Washington Post. “And it’s sad because they’re probably the ones who need the help the most.”

Never in my life could I have imagined that hurricane victims would not only reject federal aid, but actively work to drive federal workers out of devastated communities.

How weird can it get?

How dangerous?

Old-fashioned disinformation—conspiracy theories, exaggerations, and outright lies from politicians, political groups, and even foreign adversaries—is bad enough. We have seen countless times in recent years how normally rational people can be driven to do irrational things when they believe a lie.

But this election cycle we are also dealing with artificial intelligence.

AI technology – which is being improved and adapted every day – can easily take photos and videos and imitate people’s voices. Initially, AI generated slightly anomalous images, with extra fingers and arms and enough quirks to easily recognize the deepfakes. But AI is learning, and those quirks are becoming increasingly rare.

Even if it isn’t used to craft deepfakes to try to paint a politician in an unflattering light (which it has been), the existence of AI undermines trust. It makes people doubt whether what they see or hear is real.

If a photo, video or audio clip could be produced, people will brush aside real photographic, video or audio evidence and believe nothing.

Except what they want to hear.

That will harden people’s beliefs, worsen polarization and increasingly remove the chance for compromise.

The risk of violence will increase.

A highly polarized population – and we are a deeply polarized population – is like dry kindling lying in a parched summer sun.

And right now, lit matches are falling everywhere, coming from the mouths of politicians and from foreign governments who are working to disrupt our democracy and from our friends and family who are doing their best to make us believe as they do. With social media, matches happen faster and multiply faster.

It’s raining fire.

What will catch?

What will happen then?

As you read this, we have 18 days until Election Day, 80 days until Congress certifies the Electoral College count, and 94 days until the next president is sworn in on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Will we make it to all those dates without further violence?

Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-354-3112 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley.