"It's Not Called the Net of a Million Lies for Nothing"

Rereading a 1995 article of mine reminded me of the late Vernor Vinge's then-recent A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) (one of my favorite science fiction books). Referring to an interstellar communications network seemingly modeled on the 1992 Internet, the characters say, like it's a proverb: "It's not called the Net of a Million Lies for nothing."

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Every lie put on the internet in 1995 (or 2005, for that matter) is now admissible as true, under the (still unamended) Ancient Documents Exception to the hearsay rule.

[Eugene Volokh]

Good point! The Federal Rules of Evidence were amended in 2017 to limit the exception to documents prepared in 1997 or earlier (rather than, as before, to documents that are over 20 years old):

The ancient documents exception to the rule against hearsay has been limited to statements in documents prepared before January 1, 1998. The Committee has determined that the ancient documents exception should be limited due to the risk that it will be used as a vehicle to admit vast amounts of unreliable electronically stored information (ESI). Given the exponential development and growth of electronic information since 1998, the hearsay exception for ancient documents has now become a possible open door for large amounts of unreliable ESI, as no showing of reliability needs to be made to qualify under the exception.

But many states still follow the older-than-20-years rule. (Of course, parties can still argue to the factfinder that the statements are unreliable, even though they are admissible.)

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks for responding. New Jersey, at least, has expanded it to 30 years, not 20. N.J.R.E. 803(c)(16).

[Area Man]

As the professor points out, just because something survives a hearsay objection doesn’t mean it’s “true.” Parties are free to argue it’s not, and probably admit contrary evidence. And, of course, the document has to be otherwise admissible. Doubt much random stuff on the early internet would survive a relevancy objection.

[John F. Carr]

More specifically, the novel was inspired by Usenet. Usenet originated on dialup lines and was largely carried over IP by the time the novel was published. I remember when email could spend a week in transit waiting for the right series of dialup connections to be made.

[Eugene Volokh]

Whoops, sorry, I said "today's Internet" because I copied the line from my old article; I meant to say "the 1992 Internet" (and I agree that it was at that point largely Usenet, at least as to the communications that Vinge had in mind).

[Krayt]

The lies are just as prevalent, though suites of lies and distortions, at least the political ones, called now "echo chambers", long predated even ancient usenet speeds or computers.

Usenet had analysis of data growth rates such that even isdn couldn't keep up at some point.

A bud ran a "fidonet" node. These all dialed their neighbors up when data rates fell in the evening, so emails around the world could take a week to get there.

[Eugene Volokh]

Krayt: Indeed, the phrase could equally be, "It's not called the Species of a Million Lies for nothing."

[Sarcastr0]

I would like to second the plaudits for A Fire Upon the Deep. Long but worth it.

I’m not as troubled by the lies but for how alluringly they are designed, to short circuit critical thinking.
The swiftness of evolution on the net towards stuff other than truth leaves us dangerously on our back foot socially and cognitively.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“A quote on your Facebook from a Nobel Prize winning climate scientist looks exactly the same as one from a hack paid for by the Koch brothers.” — a certain ex President

[Noscitur a sociis]

It’s like a death row pardon when all you need is a knife.

[Noscitur a sociis]

My one complaint is that the reader generally knows a lot more about what’s going on than the characters (by being explicitly told, not through piecing it together), which can make it a little frustrating going going through the long passages of the characters not figuring it out. Still one of the all time greats.

The sequel totally failed to engage me: I bailed a few chapters in and haven’t tried going back.

[William Cheswick]

I had lunch with Vernor once at a Google SciFoo camp. I told him I really wanted to know exactly what was going on in the center of the galaxy in that book.

He smiled, and his eyes sparkled, but he added nothing, of course. Alas, we will never know.

[Careless]

You know in that book when various AI/Civs are taken over and start broadcasting new messages to infect people?

I was talking with my favorite high school teacher about 18 months ago via facebook, and suddenly something happened. His replies became completely robotic, practically automated, and all I could think of was that book.

He died of brain cancer a couple of months later.