Judgment on steroids

When the Accelerator really got humming, it would drive people crazy: That would be the hook for my horror movie. It would make a presidential candidate seem unbeatable and then, six months later, make that same candidate look like a loser. It would convince analysts that a far away war was a cakewalk, then make the identical war seem utterly lost, and then winnable again.

As the Accelerator pumped information around the globe, it would play multiple roles: The amped-up network would be the driver of global capitalism and, at the same time, the command-and-control system for global terrorists. It would convince Muslims that every Western mention of Islam was a profanation 8212; that calling a teddy bear 8216;Muhammad8217; was a deadly crime, say. And as an equal-animosity spin machine, it would terrify the West that all Muslims were plotting jihad. It would magnify rage without adding clarity.

Oops, I8217;m sorry. I think someone already invented my Opinion Accelerator. It8217;s called the Internet.

As the new year begins, we are living in this horror-movie world of supercharged information. News spins so fast on the Web that people seem to have a cocksure opinion about everything, for 15 minutes. Then they have an equally certain opinion about something else. The one sentiment you don8217;t often hear is uncertainty, as in: 8220;I8217;m not sure what to think8221; or 8220;I don8217;t know enough to give a good answer.8221;

Looking back over 2007, it8217;s fascinating to see how convinced people were of things that turned out to be wrong. This was an upside-down year: If you were confident of something in June, you were very likely certain of its opposite a few months later.

Iraq was the most obvious example of opinion reversal. Through the middle of the year, Americans seemed to have decided that the war was a disaster. In early summer, Washington politicians in both parties were so rattled they were all but running for the exits. President Bush8217;s surge of 30,000 US combat troops was widely viewed as the act of an isolated leader who had lost touch with reality. Then the numbers began to turn around in Iraq: Violence dropped sharply, and Iraq fell out of the national conversation. What had seemed a lost cause was viewed as so successful it was a bore.

Iran, too, was a land of shattered opinions. That was especially true for US intelligence analysts, who were convinced until midsummer that the Islamic republic was hellbent on building a nuclear weapon and then, by December, judged with 8216;high confidence8217; that the Iranians had actually halted their bomb-making programme in 2003. The Accelerator put these judgments on steroids: We were going to war with Iran one week, declaring surrender the next.

The presidential campaign was equally afflicted by certainties that turned out not to be so certain. Sen. Hillary Clinton appeared invincible mid-year, but now, in Iowa and New Hampshire, she8217;s in a near dead heat with Barack Obama. On the Republican side, John McCain looked like a winner, until he was replaced as front-runner by Rudy Giuliani, who was replaced by Mitt Romney, who was replaced by Mike Huckabee. Yikes! No wonder our heads are spinning.

It8217;s not the Opinion Accelerator, you say. Facts change, polls change 8212; and opinions change along with them. And that8217;s true enough. But what8217;s different now is the way each transitory moment is spun so that it seems immutable.

If 2007 tested our mental compasses, just wait. The one certainty about 2008 is that it will be a year of change. A black man or a woman may be elected president of the United States. A resurgent China will celebrate its new dominance with a showy Olympics. America8217;s war in Iraq, win or lose, will be winding down by year-end.

The Accelerator will be working overtime this year, too. What seems absolutely certain in May may turn out to be totally wrong by November. Just be glad you don8217;t have to make a living expressing opinions.