Truth Isn’t Supposed to Be Convenient

Truth isn’t hard to find—people just choose the parts that fit their narrative. We’ve traded real argument for comfort, and if we keep it up, we’ll lose our shared reality.

Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to live in a shared world again. Not one of total agreement — that’s impossible, maybe even undesirable — but one where at least we’re arguing over the same map.

That kind of world feels almost quaint now. The more common experience today is watching two people argue with full confidence, each quoting facts, each waving charts, and each completely certain the other is insane. And you, standing in between, can see that they’re both perfectly coherent — and totally incompatible.

It’s not just that they disagree. It’s that they’ve built different realities. And they live in them as if they were permanent homes.

You can feel this shift most viscerally when you switch accounts on a shared device. Suddenly the algorithm changes — the feed rearranges itself, the tone shifts, even the rhythm of the language changes. One account lives in a world of optimism, national pride, and personal responsibility. Another lives in a landscape of systemic decay, moral urgency, and collective trauma. Both are populated with “true” stories, but they aren’t just different angles on the same event — they’re different universes entirely.

This isn’t just about social media. That’s just the interface. The deeper issue is cognitive — cultural. People don’t seek truth anymore. They seek reinforcement.

The modern problem isn’t misinformation. It’s not that people are confused. It’s that they’re deliberately avoiding the discomfort of being wrong. People aren’t stumbling into falsehood. They’re curating truth. They’ve turned reality into a playlist.

The Rise of the Personal Mosaic

We all build internal maps of the world. But those maps used to be draft versions — rough sketches we updated as we learned more. Now, more and more, people treat their worldview like a finished puzzle. And once you think your puzzle is done, you only look for pieces that fit.

That’s the shift. People aren’t searching for better models of the world. They’re defending the one they already have. And they’ll ignore, distort, or outright deny anything that doesn’t fit.

This creates a bizarre kind of intellectual ecosystem: one where people aren’t stupid — they’re highly skilled in a narrow band of selective logic. They know just enough to prop up their version of the world, and nothing more. They’ve become lawyers for their own biases.

And the strangest part? They feel well-informed. Because they are. Selectively.

This is why debates feel so hollow now. It’s like arguing with someone in a different language who insists they understand you perfectly. You’re not just disagreeing on values — you’re not even perceiving the same terrain.

We used to talk about “confirmation bias” like it was a bug. But in today’s climate, it’s a design feature.

A Culture That Punishes Thought

Some cultures make this worse than others. In Czechia, where I live, the problem takes on a particularly painful shape. You see intelligent people walk around like they’re wearing social silencers. They think carefully before they speak — not because they’re unsure of what they mean, but because they’ve learned that meaning things clearly is dangerous.

There’s a real stigma here around intellectual boldness. People who speak too clearly, who argue too well, who know too much — they’re treated with suspicion. Intelligence must be cloaked in humility, constantly softened to avoid offending anyone who might feel outpaced. It’s not enough to be right — you also have to be likable.

So you end up with a strange quietude. A nation full of brilliant people pretending not to be. Conversations that never quite dig in. Arguments that dissolve into jokes. Minds that wear masks.

And the reason is always the same: “I don’t want to seem like I think I’m better than anyone.”

This isn’t humility. It’s fear dressed up as etiquette. And it’s killing any hope of a culture of ideas.

The Double Standard for Smart People

Let’s talk about that fear. Because it goes both ways.

Anger, for instance, is culturally permissible — but only for certain people. If someone ignorant gets angry, it’s seen as passion. But if someone smart gets angry, it’s seen as arrogance. That’s a double standard. And it tells you a lot about what we’re really afraid of.

We’re not afraid of being wrong. We’re afraid of being outshone.

We pretend the problem is tone — “He’s too intense,” “She comes off as cold,” “That’s not how you make people listen.” But what we’re really saying is: “Don’t speak too well. Don’t think too clearly. Don’t challenge the room too directly.”

Because clarity is threatening.

And yet, this is the exact opposite of what truth needs.

Truth isn’t polite. It doesn’t raise its hand and wait to be called on. It barges in. It interrupts. It makes people uncomfortable. It forces you to revise, to rethink, to admit that your tidy mental framework might have a crack in it.

We say we want truth, but we only reward it when it’s charming. And that means we’re not really after truth. We’re after reassurance.

What Happens When Nobody Argues

And that leads us to the real cost. The one that’s too subtle to trend, too slow to make headlines.

We’ve stopped arguing.

Not performative arguing — we still have that. Still plenty of social theater, still lots of “debate” shows and viral takes. But I mean real argument — the kind where people engage with ideas they don’t like, not to crush them but to test themselves.

That kind of argument is almost extinct.

And with it goes everything that keeps a democratic culture healthy: intellectual friction, policy innovation, moral clarity. Governments stop proposing bold ideas because boldness now feels like a liability. Thoughtful dissent becomes rare because every disagreement gets framed as a threat to group identity.

And slowly — so slowly you almost miss it — we replace truth with vibes. We don’t ask what’s true anymore. We ask what feels right, what sounds good, what our side believes.

We end up with a culture of consent, not conviction.

And in that vacuum, the people who actually do speak with conviction — even when they’re extreme, even when they’re wrong — start to win. Because they’re the only ones still speaking like they believe anything matters.

What We Actually Need

We don’t need more information. We don’t need better algorithms or more polite discourse. What we need is friction — honest, sharp, inconvenient friction between ideas. And not just abstract ideas, but real ones: about taxes, schools, cities, laws, meaning, the future.

We need arguments — not to destroy each other, but to remember how to see each other clearly.

We need to stop equating disagreement with disrespect. We need to let smart people speak without forcing them to apologize first. We need to stop performing niceness and start engaging in truth.

Because truth isn’t noble. It’s not sacred. It’s not waiting to be discovered by some morally superior class of philosopher-kings.

Truth is messy. It’s often ugly. It’s what’s left after all the wishful thinking is scraped away.

And it only shows up when you’re willing to be wrong.

The Final Cost

If we don’t do this — if we keep letting truth be curated, softened, and sterilized — we’ll lose more than just clarity.

We’ll lose our shared world.

Because the thing about parallel hallucinations is that they don’t stay parallel forever. Eventually they collide. And when they do, the people who’ve been curating truth like a playlist will be the least prepared for what hits them.

So let’s stop pretending this is about etiquette. Or tone. Or feelings.

This is about courage. The courage to think. The courage to speak. The courage to hear something you don’t like and stay in the conversation.

Because if we’re too noble, too polite, too emotionally curated to fight for truth — we don’t deserve it