Leave it to a New Yorker to be disturbed by this

Run away!

Greenwich Time columnist upset by fake sheep in a field

There is something very disturbing going on in backcountry Greenwich. Someone appears to have put fake sheep out in a field.

At first this may seem trivial, given recent world events, but stick with me here. These sheep have caused me to nearly crash my car three times and counting, as I pass by trying to figure out what is going on. What’s more, these “sheep” raise larger questions about the nature of truth that have me spinning — not just because of the sheep themselves, but because of the craziness that is our world today.

Are these sheep telling us something bigger?

….

I no longer stop when I see the sheep. Nor do I get out of the car, wave my hands frantically while shouting, hoping they will move. I have evolved, but only slightly.

Because here’s the thing: it does matter. If those sheep are fake, which given the fact they have not moved in an entire week is highly likely, my view of reality has been altered, as has my carefully chosen drive … as has my sense of what is real.

…

But here’s the thing: fake or real, those undulating hills and wide-open vistas on my cherished drive have now taken a turn for the sinister. There is confusion where there should be calm; there are unclear sheep.

And although my whimsical encounter with sheep lacks any real implications in our world, I am reminded of a chilling quote from “The Social Dilemma” that does. As Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Society, put it:

“Until we agree on what is true or that there is such a thing as truth, we’re toast. … This is the problem beneath other problems because if we can’t agree on what's true then we can't navigate out of any of our problems.”

Sheep in a field, fake or real, so surprises this transplant that she stops her car and flails her arms at them? And finds them “sinister”? And draws a life lesson from them? Yes, the lady admits that she’s being “whimsical”, but not, it seems, unalarmed by the sight of a farm animal in the backcountry. In the unlikely event she ever sums up her courage to travel into the heart of darkness, imagine her horror to discover there are chickens in Riverside.

Oh, dear.

UPDATE: The columnist is not the only one worried about social media altering reality; Sean Ono Lennon is too, though not in the same sense that she is.