By Hiran de Silva
In this first part of a three-part series, I want to explore something that feels both timeless and alarmingly new: the evolution of truth. More specifically, the strange, almost paradoxical state we now find ourselves in—where verifiable truth and manufactured belief seem to coexist, compete, and even reverse roles. My central argument is that while social media may be the amplifier, the deeper phenomenon is as old as civilization itself: the persistent tug-of-war between evidence-based understanding and belief-driven narratives.
What Is Truth? A Historical View
Throughout history, human understanding has evolved from myth and belief toward empirical discovery. Science and exploration—based on reasoning, demonstration, and peer review—pushed forward a model of truth grounded in observable evidence.
From Archimedes’ eureka moment in the bath to Boyle’s Law and Darwin’s natural selection, each discovery added to our cumulative understanding of the physical world. These truths did not emerge from popularity or persuasion. They were demonstrated, tested, and repeatable. They were real whether or not anyone believed them.
This era of Enlightenment thinking, beginning roughly 500 years ago, dismantled long-held beliefs not through brute force, but through reason. It placed science in a continuum of progress—truth as something we discover, test, and build upon.
The Two Strands of Truth
But there’s another strand—older, emotional, and often more powerful. It’s the truth people want to believe. It exists in faith, mythology, dogma, and increasingly, in branding and marketing. It’s the truth that doesn’t ask to be verified—only to be accepted.
History shows us these two worldviews have often coexisted uneasily. Galileo’s evidence contradicted the Vatican’s worldview, and for that, he was punished. The Church wasn’t concerned with whether Galileo was right—they were concerned with what people believed.
Does that dynamic sound familiar in today’s world of “like and subscribe”?
Truth in the Age of Social Media
Fast-forward to now. Social media has not created this conflict between belief and evidence—but it has supercharged it. It has democratized the ability to present information as “truth,” regardless of how true it actually is.
We now live in a world where charisma, repetition, and sponsorship can turn belief into reality—at least in the eyes of millions. In the same way the Vatican sought loyalty over enlightenment, influencers and corporations today push narratives that suit their goals, not necessarily the facts.
The result? A fragile ecosystem where manufactured truth can outcompete verified truth—not because it’s more correct, but because it’s more clickable.
Flat Earth and the Economy of Belief
Let’s imagine a hypothetical: what if Flat Earth theory became the mainstream truth?
What if Flat Earthers had the money, reach, and influence to dominate global discourse? If they became lovable YouTubers, sponsored by major brands, dominating algorithmic visibility?
Soon, that belief would become self-sustaining—not because it’s accurate, but because too much money and reputation would depend on it. To challenge it would be to destabilize an entire economic system of influence. You wouldn’t just be “wrong.” You’d be dangerous.
A Historical Parallel: The Slave Trade
This isn’t the first time truth collided with economic interests. Take the transatlantic slave trade—an industry that dominated the British economy for 200 years. When the immorality of slavery was finally confronted, defenders like Lord Nelson argued against abolition—not on ethical grounds, but economic ones.
The British government ultimately ended slavery, but did so by compensating the slave traders, not the enslaved. That debt was only fully paid off—in taxpayer money—in the last decade.
Even when truth prevails, it doesn’t come easy. Systems built on belief—however unjustified—rarely yield without resistance, even if the resistance is cloaked in rationality and economic realism.
Back to Excel: A Contemporary Case Study
So why talk about this in a blog largely about Excel?
Because in the Excel world—particularly in enterprise data modeling and digital transformation—we are witnessing a version of the same tension. The spreadsheet community today is torn between two epistemologies:
- Evidence-based architecture, grounded in real-world business processes, SQL integration, and client-server data models—known, tested, and scalable for decades.
- Marketing-driven trends, popularized by social media influencers promoting shiny features, flashy visuals, and surface-level tutorials, often built on misunderstanding or misrepresenting what Excel can really do at scale.
In short: the trolls have taken over the truth.
The truths of enterprise Excel—truths that were mainstream in the 1990s—have been drowned out by a culture of noise, driven more by engagement metrics than engineering rigor. We’ve regressed. Old truths have become esoteric, buried under layers of influencer-friendly misinformation.
The Troll as Truth-Maker
This isn’t just about ignorance—it’s about performance. We’ve seen this pattern in popular culture, too: Ali G, Philomena Cunk, and Dennis Pennis all parodied expertise by infiltrating serious spaces. Their comedy came from undermining truth while pretending to seek it.
Now imagine if those personas weren’t just joking, but believed. And imagine if they had massive sponsorship. That’s the world we now live in, except the joke isn’t funny anymore—because people can no longer tell it’s a joke.
The Cliffhanger: Where Are We Going?
In this part, I’ve tried to set the historical context: truth has always been contested. But today, we face a new scale of distortion. When belief becomes monetizable, when social algorithms favor popularity over proof, and when enterprise knowledge is filtered through influencer marketing rather than engineering dialogue—we end up in a distorted mirror world.
In Part 2, I’ll focus on where we are now. What is the state of Excel truth today? Who’s shaping it? What are the dangers of staying silent?
In Part 3, I’ll look ahead: How do we recover real progress? What are the opportunities—and who will be the winners and losers?
Because this isn’t just about spreadsheets. It’s about civilization’s relationship with truth, and what happens when the evidence-based path is drowned out—not by counter-arguments, but by noise.
Stay tuned.
Series: The History of Truth
- Part 1: The Evolution of Truth – From Discovery to Distortion
- Part 2: The Present Crisis – How Social Media Warps the Excel World
- Part 3: The Path Forward – Reclaiming Truth in a Manufactured Reality
Written as part of the “Miracle of Excel” project – exploring the intersection of knowledge, power, and the underestimated capabilities of a misunderstood tool.
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