Chapter 195 Information Explosion
Chapter 195 Information Explosion
After becoming an ascender and getting in-depth exposure to some past events in the strange world, Ning Zhe has always had this feeling:
——In recent years, the frequency and intensity of strange events occurring across the country seem to be much higher than in past years.
This is just a feeling, a speculation based on the existing information, or just a few blind guesses, but Ning Zhe has always had this feeling.
Until today, he seemed to have found the reason for this incident.
"If the point in the paper that 'the more people know about the existence of strange things, the more frequent strange things will happen' is true, then the increasingly frequent strange things that have appeared in recent years can be explained."
Ning Zhe folded up the papers printed with the thesis one by one, put them back into the file bag, and gave his own conclusion:
"——Because of the information explosion."
The popularization of the Internet has brought the impetus to drive the continuous progress of an era and has also provided unprecedented convenience for communication between people.
In the past, channels for disseminating information were very scarce. Even the most skilled riders would ride the best horses, cooperate with the post stations along the way, and change horses when they got tired, traveling day and night, and rushing for 800 miles. By the time the lychees from the south were delivered to the capital, their leaves would have already wilted.
In modern times, even though the telegraph and the post office have increased the speed of information dissemination to a whole new level, people working in seaside cities who want to send a letter to their relatives in their hometown still need to carefully consider every word - in some places, telegrams are charged by the word, and are quite expensive.
It was not until the 21st century that the Internet became popular in thousands of households, and the four simple words "communicating with people" truly became something that every ordinary person could reach.
An ordinary housewife can just casually shoot a short cooking video and it is likely to get millions of views on the short video platform. Even if you remove the water content, it can still be viewed by tens of thousands of people.
A high school teacher filmed a calculus course five years ago, and hundreds of people were still staying up late to watch it until last night.
A farmer in the countryside used his own account to live broadcast this year's spring ploughing, which could be seen from the first-person perspective by people far away in Beijing.
Extremely cheap communication costs and extremely convenient channels for obtaining information, things that people in the past would never have dared to imagine, together constitute the Internet's special term for the new era - the information explosion.
"The information explosion brought about by the Internet not only provides convenience for the dissemination of knowledge and sharing of life, but also another thing that enjoys such convenience."
Ning Zhe sighed and murmured, "That's a 'rumor'."
The Internet is an excellent information sharing platform, and the platform is neutral. Knowledge is shared here, and rumors are also spread here.
In the past, if a place was haunted, it would only cause a temporary sensation in a small area, and the original events would be distorted and passed on by word of mouth over time, thus losing its persuasiveness and becoming just a story.
In the Internet age, a post published by a person that allegedly captured a ghost can still attract hundreds of thousands of netizens to dig up the grave and give likes, even 20 years later, exclaiming “Wow, that’s awesome!”
The education level in today's society is far from the level of 985 universities per capita. Once rumors spread, there will be no shortage of people who truly believe them, especially when it comes to bizarre anecdotes involving supernatural powers.
Not to mention the distant past, Ning Zhe’s own grandmother was once so frightened by a short video on a short video platform that added Buddha’s light special effects to the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva that she immediately placed her mobile phone on the table, burned incense and knelt down in worship.
"The popularity of the Internet has made it easier for rumors to spread, and the difficulty for the government to block information about strange events has also risen sharply. In particular, information and discussions about strange events that are already very eye-catching can easily go viral once released, and even if someone wants to control it, they are powerless."
The more people believe in the existence of strange things, the greater the probability of strange things happening in real life.
Isn’t this a self-fulfilling rumor?
But what can the government do? Can they just ban the Internet and streaming media? But the lessons of our predecessors are not far away. Falling behind will lead to being beaten... You ask me why ghosts have become more and more frequent in modern times? Because the Internet age has arrived... Damn, what a Gouba theory, it makes me laugh.
Ning Zhe shook his head, pulled away the two little hands that were tightly wrapped around Yin Lishang's waist while he was sleeping, bent down and walked out of the tent.
There is no moon tonight, only a sky full of stars that are scattered on the night plate like grains of rice, shining brightly.
Although the night was beautiful, someone was destined to be unable to sleep tonight, because Ning Zhe, who wanted to talk to Lan Shiwen after leaving the tent, could not find him. He asked the staff in the camp and got the following answer:
"He went to kill someone."
Who should be killed? The one with the surname Liu.
Specifically, it was the old man surnamed Liu who was placed in the ward next to Yin Lishang and was lingering on by the side of the God of Plague. Through communication with Lan Shiwen's men, Ning Zhe roughly understood what happened:
Yesterday, when the fire in Yanglao Village spread to the highway, Lan Shiwen advocated sending the God of Plague out of Yundu and to Yanglao as soon as possible in order to calm the situation, but the children of the old man surnamed Liu did not think so.
Anyway, with Lan Shiwen, a monster who can predict the future, the strange events will not easily get out of control, the impact will only be magnified.
The death of a civilian is nothing more than an extra line of numbers in tomorrow's news report. But when Old Liu dies, the younger generations of the Liu family will lose most of the connections that the old man had accumulated in the first half of his life in the officialdom.
Therefore, the children of Mr. Liu tried their best to stop Lan Shiwen from asking the plague god to leave, and said that they would be responsible for the corresponding consequences. Let the people suffer, and the Liu family will bear the blame.
Lan Shiwen’s answer was: I will kill your entire Liu family.
"Taking Old Liu himself as the starting point, there are a total of 3,527 people within the fifth degree of mourning in the Liu family. Lan Shiwen has decided to kill all of them."
"The vast majority of them are innocent, and only a few direct descendants, led by Liu Lao's biological children, are eligible for power. But in Lan Shiwen's view, this is meaningless."
There has always been a saying in the traditional culture of the Han people that "misfortunes should not affect one's family members".
But in Lan Shiwen's view, the premise for preventing misfortune from affecting family members is that blessings will not be extended to descendants.
Do the Liu family’s in-laws dare to say that they have not enjoyed any special treatment brought by being family members at the center of power?
They dare not.
There is no such thing as enjoying without giving. Since the Liu family has enjoyed the benefits brought by family members holding power, they should not think of shouting their innocence when they are liquidated.
If the emperor commits a crime, all nine clans will be punished.
If an official commits a crime, his five generations of relatives will be slaughtered.
This was Lan Shiwen's philosophy, extremely extreme and radical. Even his girlfriend's father personally came out to dissuade him, which did not shake his determination to kill all the Liu family members.
Once an Ascender of his level goes crazy, no one can stop him.
Ning Zhe thought about it and decided to go for a midnight snack:
"I heard from Bai Zhi before that there are a lot of delicious food in the old city of Yundu..."
(End of this chapter)