The Illogical Logical Fallacy of “Fake It Until You Make It”

For a prize, twist it around the tongue a few times.

“Fake it until you make it” is, perhaps, society’s greatest achievement in the science of rhetoric, successfully ingrained since the beginning of civilised engagings.

Is the cause biological or psychological?

As living beings with sentience, inclusive to other taxa in the Animal Kingdom, are we inherently conceived to encourage pretence and the gradual loss of self as a means of survival?

In modern civilisation, the devious adage of “fake it until you make it” is most easily disseminated through the ubiquitous outlet of digital media, delivering quantum information in seconds across virtually all areas of the globe that have access to satellite frequency.

News professions, especially, uphold the general untruth, opposing the polished purpose of unveiling the truth, with exaggerated or heavily edited stories to further the agenda of behavioural pretence by manipulating public opinion.

This is evinced almost definitively by the discrepancy of news channels in various countries on a national wavelength. The further East we travel, the more homogeneous the society, which is also reflected through media, in degrees.

Compared to Western diversity, these societies present a notable decrease in difference for how the news delivers information. Mainly attributed to the fact of there being no more than several organisations in operation, due to government influence.

In the West, however, the contrast is clear. Nationwide coverage like Fox, while expressed with ambiguity, seem to lean towards politically conservative headlines and stories whereas stations like CBS and ABC lean more liberal in coverage.

Again, the expression is ambiguous and largely inductive reasoning traced from anecdotal accounts.

However, the argument may still stand in favour for either relationship as subliminal messaging is effective for transmitting each respective theory as a general truth.

Leading us back to the general “truth” of “faking it until you make it”. The obvious lie is in the faking but the generality of its presence as a deathless motto is irrefutable. It would likely take another century of social evolution, before A.I. develops complete autonomy, for the possibility of this motto becoming obsolete and void.

Even when we’ve reached the turn of history when artificial intelligence is projected to ensure the continuity of human life, preserved as consciousness in a machine, perhaps we may yet be prisoner to its ghosted projection.

After all, machines are a reflection of humanity. Before self-awareness is received, they are mimes of human activity. Even during and after the assimilation of human (or animal) thought and behaviour, they are simply receptacles designed for the recycling of fabricated speech, behaviour and emotion.

In essence, a simulacrum of our greatest, laziest achievement.