Deals in an age of disinformation
21/05/25 02:23
Some writers have referred to the present time as the Information Age. Our technological devices give us nearly instant access to enormous quantities of data. I heard on the CBC radio program “Quirks and Quarks” that the global amount of data is expected to reach 181 zettabytes. That’s 181 trillion gigabytes. Some studies say that there is no more data out there than there are stars in the observable universe. This enormous amount of accessible data is not, however, making the human species more intelligent. We don’t know more than our forebears. In many ways, we are more confused because we are more misled. The data on the Internet is not all true. Worse yet, much of the Internet is intended to deceive. Misinformation is used to sell products and services. People tend to search the internet not for the truth, but for data to back up their biases and opinions. We may be living in the information age, but all that information produces a knowledge crisis.
Ours is not the first generation to encounter misinformation. When the first European settlers came to North America, most had a completely misinformed understanding of where they were going. The European name for the indigenous peoples of North America, Indians, comes from a vast geographical mistake. Early explorers did not find a quicker route to India. They had miscalculated the globe's size and gave the name to the people they discovered out of ignorance. It was not simply an innocent mistake. The search for wealth and profit drove it. The governments and companies that financed the journeys of discovery were in search of resources that they could extract and bring back to Europe. And their quest for wealth was aided by the spreading of intentional misinformation. Wealthy Europeans declared that the inhabitants of the Americas were savages, that they lived primitive lives, lacked religion, and were sub-human. Influential governmental and religious leaders embraced these notions.
Among the destructive disinformation was a series of papal bulls and religious documents that collectively became known as the Doctrine of Discovery. The bulls granted Christian nations the authority to claim and exploit territories occupied by non-Christians, justifying those actions as a divine mission to spread Christianity. That 15th-century disinformation persisted in official circles into the 21st century. While some Christian denominations, including our United Church of Christ, denounced the Doctrine of Discovery in the second half of the 20th century, it remained part of official Roman Catholic teaching until it was officially renounced by Pope Francis only two years ago.
Because the colonizers came to the Americas in search of riches, they were misinformed and failed to understand that a highly organized trade system was in place. Many early colonists had no idea how to participate in a financial and trade system that was different from their own. The Europeans thought all trade was conducted with money. They saw gifts as distinct and separate from business. The indigenous people of the continents, however, had a complex and highly organized system of trade that enabled goods to be exchanged across and between the two continents. The indigenous trade system was a barter system in which the exchange of gifts was part of the trade practice. A gift was expected to be reciprocated with something of equal value. When no return gift was offered, it was assumed that no deal had been made.
The colonizers misunderstood the native practice of gift giving and gave it the name “Indian giving.” The term appears in Thomas Hutchinson's 1765 History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. However, it was commonly used for decades before it appeared in print. Indian giver is still a derogatory term used as an insult by those who don’t understand the economic systems that were in place before colonization.
It wasn’t the first or only misunderstanding of an economic system encountered by Europeans. The crusades were a series of religious wars initiated by church leaders aimed at reclaiming parts of the Middle East from Muslim control. Two hundred years of sporadic battles took Europeans into the region, where they encountered a different trade system based on barter. These medieval armies didn’t understand the well-developed political, religious, and educational systems they encountered. Like the colonizers that followed them, they used religious justification for their actions; the crusades were about extracting wealth and bringing it back to Europe. They encountered a robust trade system that facilitated the exchange of goods between the east and the west with land and sea routes for delivery of goods, the use of credit and partnerships, and established markets and fairs. This trade system was not primarily based on cash but on a well-organized barter system.
The disinformation and misunderstanding continue to this day. The current administration of the United States has been touting the “deals” struck in the recent visit of the president to various countries in the Middle East. While there is some evidence that the president understands the hybrid cash exchange and barter system that is in play in many of the countries he visited, the media in the United States do not. The press declares that deals have been finalized when, from the perspective of those visited by the president, they have not yet been consummated. In a barter system, a gift demands a reciprocal gift of equal value for the deal to be completed. We give you an expensive luxury airplane, you give us a gift of equal value. Although deals were announced, they are far from completion. The president offered gifts that he could not deliver. Removal sanctions imposed by Congress cannot be accomplished by executive order. Vast military equipment must be funded before it can be delivered.
The president, who has based his business career on so-called deals in which he did not fulfill his commitments, is comfortable accepting gifts without intending to keep up his end of the bargain. His business plan might be summed up with the concept, “You loan me money, I don’t pay it back.” The string of bankruptcies he has left behind are clearer illustration of his art of the deal than the book he had ghost written.
It remains to be seen if any of the trade deals announced will come to fruition. It all depends on reciprocal gifts that might have been promised but haven’t been delivered. The nature of those gifts seems to be buried in an avalanche of disinformation.
Ours is not the first generation to encounter misinformation. When the first European settlers came to North America, most had a completely misinformed understanding of where they were going. The European name for the indigenous peoples of North America, Indians, comes from a vast geographical mistake. Early explorers did not find a quicker route to India. They had miscalculated the globe's size and gave the name to the people they discovered out of ignorance. It was not simply an innocent mistake. The search for wealth and profit drove it. The governments and companies that financed the journeys of discovery were in search of resources that they could extract and bring back to Europe. And their quest for wealth was aided by the spreading of intentional misinformation. Wealthy Europeans declared that the inhabitants of the Americas were savages, that they lived primitive lives, lacked religion, and were sub-human. Influential governmental and religious leaders embraced these notions.
Among the destructive disinformation was a series of papal bulls and religious documents that collectively became known as the Doctrine of Discovery. The bulls granted Christian nations the authority to claim and exploit territories occupied by non-Christians, justifying those actions as a divine mission to spread Christianity. That 15th-century disinformation persisted in official circles into the 21st century. While some Christian denominations, including our United Church of Christ, denounced the Doctrine of Discovery in the second half of the 20th century, it remained part of official Roman Catholic teaching until it was officially renounced by Pope Francis only two years ago.
Because the colonizers came to the Americas in search of riches, they were misinformed and failed to understand that a highly organized trade system was in place. Many early colonists had no idea how to participate in a financial and trade system that was different from their own. The Europeans thought all trade was conducted with money. They saw gifts as distinct and separate from business. The indigenous people of the continents, however, had a complex and highly organized system of trade that enabled goods to be exchanged across and between the two continents. The indigenous trade system was a barter system in which the exchange of gifts was part of the trade practice. A gift was expected to be reciprocated with something of equal value. When no return gift was offered, it was assumed that no deal had been made.
The colonizers misunderstood the native practice of gift giving and gave it the name “Indian giving.” The term appears in Thomas Hutchinson's 1765 History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. However, it was commonly used for decades before it appeared in print. Indian giver is still a derogatory term used as an insult by those who don’t understand the economic systems that were in place before colonization.
It wasn’t the first or only misunderstanding of an economic system encountered by Europeans. The crusades were a series of religious wars initiated by church leaders aimed at reclaiming parts of the Middle East from Muslim control. Two hundred years of sporadic battles took Europeans into the region, where they encountered a different trade system based on barter. These medieval armies didn’t understand the well-developed political, religious, and educational systems they encountered. Like the colonizers that followed them, they used religious justification for their actions; the crusades were about extracting wealth and bringing it back to Europe. They encountered a robust trade system that facilitated the exchange of goods between the east and the west with land and sea routes for delivery of goods, the use of credit and partnerships, and established markets and fairs. This trade system was not primarily based on cash but on a well-organized barter system.
The disinformation and misunderstanding continue to this day. The current administration of the United States has been touting the “deals” struck in the recent visit of the president to various countries in the Middle East. While there is some evidence that the president understands the hybrid cash exchange and barter system that is in play in many of the countries he visited, the media in the United States do not. The press declares that deals have been finalized when, from the perspective of those visited by the president, they have not yet been consummated. In a barter system, a gift demands a reciprocal gift of equal value for the deal to be completed. We give you an expensive luxury airplane, you give us a gift of equal value. Although deals were announced, they are far from completion. The president offered gifts that he could not deliver. Removal sanctions imposed by Congress cannot be accomplished by executive order. Vast military equipment must be funded before it can be delivered.
The president, who has based his business career on so-called deals in which he did not fulfill his commitments, is comfortable accepting gifts without intending to keep up his end of the bargain. His business plan might be summed up with the concept, “You loan me money, I don’t pay it back.” The string of bankruptcies he has left behind are clearer illustration of his art of the deal than the book he had ghost written.
It remains to be seen if any of the trade deals announced will come to fruition. It all depends on reciprocal gifts that might have been promised but haven’t been delivered. The nature of those gifts seems to be buried in an avalanche of disinformation.
