“It is man’s right to determine truth for himself. If we take away humanity’s right to define truth, then we also take away the right to define the paths to goals, which ultimately reduces us to machines. Humanity has been made great and strong by errors and new beginnings; this is our evolutionary path. If we filter out errors from our decisions, we lose our potential for development. Since the Truth Stamp currently presents itself as the custodian of universal truth, it necessarily provides a false picture. Avoiding debates and dialogues dulls the human mind, which endangers our evolutionary development. Therefore, the availability of the Truth Stamp must be eliminated.”

  Excerpt from the New-Humanity Manifesto.

  The Truth Stamp

  On the Knowledge Network, all information discovered and explored by humanity was available, and all current events were also stored and analysed.

  Alongside digitally available content—whether live broadcasts or static text—, a small square, the stamp, indicated the truthfulness of the information.

  Since the truthfulness of most statements is not exact but context- and value-dependent, individuals had the option to set their values and receive an interpreted evaluation accordingly.

  The algorithm’s decision was always verifiable by the individual. For verification, one could look “behind” the stamp’s judgment, where a decision tree was outlined, showing the path to the decision.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  For statements verifiable by facts, the decision tree directly listed the facts supporting or refuting the claims.

  For other statements, it took accepted community norms as its basis.

  The stamp could take on blue, green, yellow, orange, or red colours, and could contain one or more black dots.

  A pure yellow stamp signified a “true” statement. The movement of the stamp’s colour towards blue and red represented “false” statements.

  The blue corner indicated “false” statements harmless to the community, while the other end of the scale, in red, denoted “false” statements harmful to the community.

  The role of the black dot was to mark “empty statements.” A statement is called empty if it is undefined or built upon contradictorily defined concepts.

  The functioning of the Truth Stamp was based on a complex algorithm, the maintenance and fine-tuning of which was the responsibility of Bhicoog, the ecclesiastical concern operating the Knowledge Network.

  The Truth Stamp’s decision and breakdown for the excerpt from the New-Humanity Manifesto above:

  Stamp colour: Red, with multiple black dots in the centre.

  Meaning: Red – a statement threatening currently defined values, which – indicated by the black dots – uses concepts that are undefined or poorly defined.

  Primary breakdown: Humans are fundamentally a species that thinks in short-term advantages, evaluating their interests within a short-term context. This has led to catastrophe in the past, which is why the truth of statements is consciously examined with algorithms capable of encompassing a larger context. This provides the world’s stability. The above statement therefore threatens current stability and operates with concepts that are not scientifically verifiable.