Editor’s note: Besides following tech developments, our author is a musical composer (Juilliard-trained). He has provided a musical composition for you to listen to while reading this column. This piece is called People Power
Back when I first got involved with the Internet in 1993, I had this pretty rosy idea that we’d all soon be able to triangulate the truth, thanks to the sheer number of sources available to us at the click of a button. In my mind, it was simple: more voices meant more balance. Falsehoods would cancel each other out because they wouldn’t line up the same way, and the truth would naturally rise to the top. I was confident in that.
Turns out I was a little too optimistic. I completely missed the possibility of social media bubbles and echo chambers—where people end up surrounded by only the ideas they already believe, just repeating the same points back to each other. And, naïvely, I thought I could just sidestep all of that. Avoid Facebook, avoid hearing what I wanted to hear, and I’d be good to go.
Yeah, that didn’t really work out either. What I didn’t expect was how the Internet could actively be used to manipulate people, not just by accident but intentionally. I never imagined it could mess with the order of things on such a massive scale. Instead of the triangulation I hoped for, where we’d get closer to the truth by comparing different perspectives, what we got was more manipulation and less clarity.
It wasn’t just about false information being out there—it’s the way it’s been engineered to spread. One thing that gives me hope in all this is the role of creative outliers—people who are genuinely expressing themselves, often through culture and, especially, music. Here in the Berkshires, we have an abundance of creative, culturally oriented people, many locally born and others who gravitated here from New York and Boston. Basically, the Berkshires is a cultural Mecca with an unbelievable number of educated, talented individuals, which might hold a key to combatting the manipulation miasma.
In a world where manipulation seems to be the norm, there’s something powerful about authenticity. When people get together to share their unfiltered thoughts and creativity, it feels like an antidote to all the noise. That’s where the idea of “expression salons” comes in—what I’m calling Positive Potentials Expression Salons. These gatherings are spaces where people can come together, free from the pressures of algorithms or outside influence, to really engage with each other’s ideas and art. It’s not about echo chambers but about a community where different voices can actually be heard and appreciated, where the goal is to uplift, not manipulate.
And it’s not just musicians. Writers, visual artists, filmmakers—anyone who’s putting their authentic self out there through their craft—could contribute. Writers, with their way of using words to challenge, inspire, or comfort, bring a unique form of expression. Visual artists—whether through painting, photography, or digital media—communicate truths that go beyond what words can convey. Together, these different creative outlets can form a collective pushback—a tapestry of authenticity that offers people a real alternative to the constant stream of distorted information.
It’s the diversity of creative voices that would make these salons so powerful. Everyone has their own way of cutting through the fog, and when those different forms of expression come together, they amplify each other in a way that feels impossible in isolation. By gathering in spaces that foster this kind of open, honest expression, we could push back against the forces trying to twist reality into something else entirely. It’s about finding the truth through creativity, not despite it.
The way to combat the negative aspects of manipulation technology is for caring, sensitive, creative humans to gather and triangulate the truth. There actually is such a group called the Great Barrington Creative Outliers, which meets weekly at Guido’s in the café on Wednesdays at 11 AM. https://creatorsflywheel.com/. Although members of this group are not primarily tech-oriented, we do know how to use technology to support this cultural Mecca.
In addition to the dangers of manipulation, there is also the potential for enormous leverage. We are a unusually educated rural outlier community. In Berkshire County, around 90 percent of residents have at least a high school diploma, which is similar to the U.S. rural average of 85-90 percent. However, when it comes to higher education, the Berkshires stand out. Approximately 35-40 percent of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to just about 20 percent in rural areas across the country. The difference is even more pronounced for advanced degrees: while 15-20% of Berkshire County residents have a master’s, professional, or doctoral degree, only about 9-12% of people in rural U.S. areas can say the same. This highlights the Berkshires as a region with a significantly more educated population compared to rural areas nationwide.
You can find the numbers for Berkshire County’s educational attainment through the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). They put together detailed stats on things like education for different regions across the country. If you’re looking for more info on rural areas specifically, the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) is a good place to check—they regularly release reports on rural trends, including education. And for a broader look at how rural areas stack up against urban and suburban ones, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is another solid resource. All these sources give a pretty clear picture of how the Berkshires compare with rural America overall.
Because of our unusual population, gatherings of creative outliers are far more likely to occur, and this can be deliberately cultivated.
There is a choice between being manipulated or triangulated, but you have to be a bit tech-savvy to sidestep the ill effects of the internet.
