ArcaMax

Despite Americans in 2024 having access to more high-quality, well-sourced information on every topic known to man, somehow, we're seemingly also the most ill-informed people in human history.

I turn for evidence to a statement that a member of Congress was forced to release in response to what he called Hurricane Helene "response myths." The first item, and I quote:

"Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock."

He goes on to say: "Nobody can control the weather."

Now, lest you think this guy's just another Democratic stooge, let me reassure you that Rep. Chuck Edwards, a Republican born in Waynesville, North Carolina, is about as far from being a Democrat as I am from being an attendee of "Star Trek" conventions.

But Edwards and his fellow North Carolina Republicans have had to spend the last several weeks battling the rampant misinformation surrounding the federal response to Helene in no small part thanks to the efforts of clowns like his colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted this after the hurricane hit:

"Yes, they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done."

This came after she posted a map that suggested the federal government intentionally sent a hurricane straight toward Republicans in swing states.

Inspired, I googled "Can the government control the weather?" to see if, perhaps, I would be swayed to the side of the "they-ists," conspiracy theory proponents always saying "they" do this and "they" control that. Instead of finding evidence for their rightness, though, I found an extremely rational explanation on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's website about how the government has tried, and failed, to artificially reduce the impact of hurricanes.

Then, I went on to read about cloud seeding, a practice that has been around for decades in which clouds are treated with a substance believed to increase the rainfall onto the land below. The process can't make clouds, though, and there's still argument about how much good it even does.

It was all fascinating, but I certainly didn't come away convinced that the government is full of supervillains carrying out secret plans to create and deploy deadly hurricanes in America. I mean, Donald Trump was president for four years. That man would have sent hurricanes at New York and California every time a governor even so much as insulted his comb-over.

It makes me worry, though, that so many people can be duped by rumors that are so easily refuted. It took me all of 10 minutes to find and read everything I could ever want to know on the topic of weather control, and I had a variety of high-quality sources from which to choose. I had Republican congressmen on the ground in North Carolina giving me information about FEMA's response. I had the word of scientists who've devoted their lives to the decidedly unglamorous study of the weather.

And anyone who wants it can have that information, too. It's in their pockets, in their hands, at their fingertips 24 hours a day. If they can't afford a cellphone, they can walk into any public library in any town in the country and look it up for free on a computer there. If they don't know how to type, a librarian will help them research the topic. Heck, there's probably an app that will read the information aloud to them if they don't feel like taxing their eyes.

We are spoiled with information, surrounded by it, and we have to almost push it away to prevent it from seeping in.

But prevent it we do, by allowing the hucksters and the conmen and the insane to persuade us that truth can only come from them.

There are no trustworthy medical sources other than me, says the man peddling vitamins that promise to cure all your ailments.

There are no trustworthy politicians other than me, says the woman taking donations for her campaign.

Maybe we have too much information, too many sources. We desperately need to narrow them down, and some of us narrow them down to charlatans, to people who tell us what we want to hear and who confirm our previously held beliefs.

That's the only conclusion that I can come to. The alternative, that we are, as a nation, so credulous as to eagerly adopt insane positions about weather-controlling lasers, actors deep-faking school shootings and pedophile vampire celebrities, well, that's information that I'm having trouble believing. Now that just can't be true.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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