We live in a world whereby the acquisition of information is never more than a few mouse clicks away. If we hear about something that has happened or is happening that we are unaware of, then all you have to do is head to Google and uncover countless search results.
The problem with this availability, is that whilst you can argue that you have the potential to be more informed than at any other time in history. You are also mired in a sticky web of post truth.
Fooling All The People
Yesterday President Trump declared that he was not going to visit the UK to open the new American Embassy because the Obama administration had sanctioned its sale.
This is patently and demonstrably false, whilst the finalisation of the sale itself was indeed carried out under President Obama. The decision to sell it laid at the feet of the Bush administration. The building was deemed vulnerable to terrorist attack, and so a new purpose built building was commissioned.
So either Trump new this and decided to try and deceive people about it; or he himself is just as vulnerable to the world of post truth that we all live in.
The Tangled Web We Weave
As I pointed out in the twin to this article; An Experiment In Critical Thinking, the human mind has two different systems for analysing information.
The dominant system seems to be the heuristic one, which uses rule-of-thumb in order to make quick, informed decisions.
On Steemit, just like on many other social media and news sites, we see a picture, a headline, and a two line sample from the beginning of the article.
This is the perfect setup for rule-of-thumb thinking; a picture is a heuristic shortcut to help you know what the article is about.
Then the headline itself attempts to give you the whole story in just a few words. Lastly the sample paragraph helps you to complete the picture, and thus if you do even bother to read the article, you have already come to a conclusion about its contents.
Using Filters To Reclaim Truth
Whilst musing on this subject from time to time, I have wondered if there's an easy solution. Because the obvious solution is to fact check every piece of information that comes your way.
However this is not only extremely taxing on the mind, it is prohibitively time consuming. In an age where we are bombarded by terabytes of information every day, it simply isn't practical to expect someone to be truly critical over every piece of news that they come across.
So what's the answer?
I personally took the decision to cut news out of my life around four years ago now. My main reasons were that 99% of the news I was reading and watching was depressing, and that in turn, was making me depressed.
Secondly, whilst it may be important on an objective level, 99% of news is not important to me, therefore I should free up my mind to concentrate on the things that are.
A by-product of doing this, is because you are getting less news, it is much easier to apply critical thinking to the stories that you do decide to investigate.
Simple Solution For A Complex World
So that's it, kill those newsfeed notifications to your phone and desktop. Take the Facebook and any similar apps you have off your phone, stop watching the News At Ten, or buying newspapers.
You will be happier, and you will be better equipped to make sense of this crazy world.
Off course my advice doesn't stretch to Mr Trump, keeping up to date with the news is probably a good idea if you're POTUS.
To him I would simply say; check your facts before you Tweet them.
To the rest of you, ignore 99% of the things that come your way so that you can properly assess the 1% of things you don't ignore.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? ARE WE LIVING IN A POST TRUTH WORLD AND DOES MY SOLUTION GO SOME WAY TO SOLVING THAT? DO YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA; OR ARE WE ALL JUST DOOMED? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
Spend time on the things you can influence, do not spend time on things you can not do anything about.
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I agree with you @fitzgibbon, but one thing should always be kept in mind: "can do little about" =/= "can not do anything about".
We often think that, in mass events when our power/contribution is very small, we can't do anything about those events. And if 99% of people thinks that way, then we really can't. Otherwise - together - we can.
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All we can do is change ourselves. Disconnecting from information-overload is an excellent first step!
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@cryptogee. Wish there was a way we could downvote most of these News outlets TV ratings because they don't mind going to the ends of the earth to feed us bad news, fake news, manufactured news all to further their interests and those of their stake holders.
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You can and in my country we tried to:
All of these endeavors were from very to hugely successful; read my other long comment to this article for more info & i promise i will make an article on this in the next few days. There's a lot of data I have that I believe would be unseen before on steemit.
We are not short of ways to combat it, it's the manpower that's needed :)
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The story I quoted above came straight from the President's Twitter account, so he is also responsible for fake news. I believe it's less about fake news, rather people's summation and regurgitation of it.
Cg
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Well congrats @cryptogee for another fine article.
I tried your approach and although is was good and I was less stressed and became much more open to the little things of life, it appears it is not what the community needs. I am part of the middle class in Romania, a country filled with corruption, greed and lack of education, ruled in the last 27 years by the same people (more or less). Cutting all ties with the news for a while is good but it created a "bubble" around me and others like me. This bubble made it possible for the most corrupt to get closer and closer to the less educated and less prepared people in this country and won the last elections with a staggering percent :
45% for socialists ( heavily corrupt - in the system for 27 years )
20% for liberals ( also corrupt - also in the system for many years)
8% for reformists ( not corrupt - not in the system - i would dare to say the good guys)
This happened solely because the middle class people shut off the media and politics, being depressed by the lack of change and lack of engaging policies and didn't go to vote, didn't have info on the outcome or didn't care to vote at all.
The most depressing of all is the fact that while the young educated people voted with the progress, their parents or grandparents didn't. Huge arguments were raised and families were put under a great stress after the elections.
After the corrupt came to power they tried and still try to block the justice, to change the laws, to sack whomever opposed them and so on.
The leaders of the winning party are convicted felons, the leaders of the houses are already convicted and waiting for more convictions as we speak and they fight the very democracy and the EU.
This was a huge protest in which 600,000 of us showed them we had enough; they ignored us:
and
Long story short: Do not cut yourself from the media, it may sound masochistic but mingling with the mass of the people brings you close to the fake news problem, to the lack of education, to their real problems which were never listened to, you get to interact with them, counter them, report them, show arguments and at least fight the plague actively.
I think this crisis is similar to the one getting Trump voted.
I am sorry for a long post I have a lot of ideas and many things were tried locally and I can discuss more if there are people interested in ways to counter the post truth world we live in.
I wish all of you an enlightened day!
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I agree with everything you said except for the solution (although it is an effective one).
There are a couple of reasons why I must disagree with it:
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Exactly! I elaborated a little regarding your 3rd item in my other comment to this article if you were curious about the bad result of this shutting out. I wrote it to inform you of the bad consequences of that.
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Nice elaboration.
I would like to add one more very similar example: Brexit happened because of the votes of the older people. I can't remember the exact statistics, but the age differences were extremely obvious, with the vast majority of the people older than 60 voting "for" and the vast majority of the people younger than 30 voting "against". It's because the younger population has much better access to information and is thus much more open-minded and able to think critically. Cheers!
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I know the cases. They are all linked together. It's something that we need to do in the future to prevent this. And stop using Facebook for getting news which is a bubble creator in itself.
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truth is inevitable but tough...great post!upvoted
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Mainstream media/news get me either upset or sad this days and sometimes the lies are so glaring it makes me wonder if they think the common man is totally devoid of the ability to reason, thanks for this post and tip on getting the truth. cheers
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I did the same thing with you.. I cut watching news years ago.. And because of the same reason with you.. It was making me depressed. Unfortunately there are many bad things happening in the world there are a lot of bad people. So while we are watching their action like stealing, raping, killing, it is just making us upside down. So since I noticed that it was harming me, I stopped watching. And I am happy like this. i am learning good and useful infirmation as you mention by clicking:)
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We always have been under false news... were the reasons ever given for any war true?
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I stopped watching the news a decade ago for the same reasons as you. If something important to me is happening, like the vote on BREXIT, for example, I then go off and educate myself as much as possible before making a decision.
However, even that process is not infallible as, in retrospect, we can see that much of what both sides said was lies. Also, people were strongly making predictions about stuff they couldn't possible predict.
Your Trump example highlights another problem, even when you do try and find alternative information. I know you wrote briefly but it highlights how personal perspective plays apart.
Being from the UK I know that there is a huge anti-Trump feeling here and people have actually marched to show they do not want him here. So, from my perspective, I would think that he's not coming because he finally sees that he's not welcome here. And that's my personal bias.
But critical thinking can never be independent of the thinker so, although even if I could find out all there is to know about something, I'm not necessarily going to come see to the truth. Even if there is such a thing. Things are rarely that clear cut.
Checking the facts assumes that there are some solid facts and in most cases I don't think there are. Not when there's a human element.
And, doesn't quantum science show us that even in the material world there are not hard facts. What is seen is affected by the observer.
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you are extremely right. we are forced to read every bad news that is preoccupied on the internet inadvertently, and we are exposed to poor quality content or unrealistic evils. I think it makes sense to be selective.
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It creates a bubble just around you. Not being there to dissect the news reports with the less educated will create trouble in the future as they cannot discern between a trustworthy website and propaganda. I take it upon myself to step out of the bubble and help the others with facts, reports and data which counteract the huge amount of fake news. It literally kills me inside sometimes, my Facebook is a political-social fiasco, as I often have the same and same discussion counteracting the same problem.
There was a quote I enjoyed:
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” ― Thomas Jefferson
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you are extremely right man.
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Yeap! Flag these news instead of my cards post! Geez... I make a joke and the world falls on me,these guys make up news that can even start wars and get profit.
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Huh? Why is your card post flagged? I saw who it was, are you involved in the Haejin war or something?
Cg
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I'm not! I don't know why he flagged me... maybe because Bernie resteem it. Tough luck.
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I've done it a while ago - stopped watching news and feeding my mind with the feed as they call it.
It really makes the space for something creative, something unique to manifest into reality. You can call it anyway you want it but focusing less on the problems someone is trying to feed you is a great way to unleash the power we all have within.
We have our hands to do the work, to write, to grind, to roll and so on.
We have a mind to filter all the thoughts around and inside us.
We have a choice on what to focus.
Embrace your powers within!
Thanks for an article! Steemit news feed is the only one for now. It's just so great to read without constant ads and brainwashing.
Peace, Love, Gratitude!
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As always your posts are deep and thought provoking. The question you posit, leads me down another line of thought. I work in public education and although I am not a teacher, there has always been the assumption that the teacher was the holder of the knowledge. Open book test? No way! Can we use a cheat sheet? Nope! Teachers have held knowledge hostage for many years. Now with the Internet the knowledge is everywhere. You don't know how to fix something or do something? Youtube it, someone has a video. Is it fair then that teachers still hold the knowledge hostage? The reason I mention this is because I and a growing number of others believe that there should be a shift in the role of teachers, not to be the holder of knowledge, but to be the facilitator of knowledge. The students can go anywhere to get the answers, but are they getting the right answers. I feel it is becoming imperative in my industry that instead of telling students what the answer is, they show them how to find it. How to discern what is right and what is garbage. What is fake and what is legitimate. We shouldn't be teaching students knowledge because the knowledge is out there already. We should be teaching them how not to store knowledge but how to find it, disseminate it and evaluate its truth. Instilling these skills in students may just help take us back across the brink of a post truth world.
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Very true what you've said..but unfortunately we can't really control all these ..
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Nice #crytogee
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Ahhh such a tricky and important topic, glad to see you tackling this one. I tend to share your perspective @cryptogree and also it's great to read everyone's comments also which altogether offer a promising perspective.
There are facts - did he go, didn't he go, and there are truths - reasons, info gleaned and these truths are very subject to our individual perspectives and filters. All of us alive these days would do well to take both facts and perceived truths into consideration AND make a real effort to see and understand our own bias', filters and limitations!!!
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My point is that giving up all the sources of information from now on is a way of hiding in our world isolated from the world's problems. If we do not know it does not mean it does not exist! My opinion is that we need to be informed so we can separate the truth from the lie (to the extent that it is possible). Of course it would be better if we ignored what is bad and false but if we do not know it, how will we keep out.
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What is truth would help all of us, ears to hear...RIGHT EAR TRUTH.jpg)
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