I feel increasingly strongly, dear reader, that a growing number of people in the world are losing, or have lost, the ability to think independently. It seems that more and more, people look to mass opinion to validate or fortify their own thoughts on a subject. And if their personal thoughts do not fall under the bell curve, they modify and adapt theirs to meet the generally accepted ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I have written previously, there\nwas a time when the news media was responsible, objective, and independent \u2013\nnot attempting to sway or influence people. They merely reported the facts and\nallowed their readers or viewers to formulate their thoughts and opinions on\ntheir own. As people observed what was happening in a particular situation and\ntook notice, they would begin to read articles on it and watch news reports on\nit. There was no internet to use to Google it or YouTube it; objective, factual\nreporting and free thought was all that was utilized to decide one\u2019s opinion.\nOn particularly difficult or emotional issues (think back to the \u201860\u2019s with\ncivil rights, the Vietnam war, and the Cuban missile crisis) people would have\nopen and honest discussions with others who\u2019s opinion they trusted to help\nprovide a keel to their own thoughts. But they did not walk up to strangers on\nthe street and ask how they should feel about the situation, which is\nessentially what going out on Twitter or Facebook for opinion is doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
New words spring up daily in our\nsocietal lexicon; one of the latest that drives me crazy is \u201cinfluencer\u201d; a\nperson on social media who is adept in posting quotes, pictures, videos, and\nallegedly real-life stories that attract the moods and emotions of media\nsurfers. Once they have \u201cfollowers\u201d, they begin to utilize their influence upon\nthem, typically leading to endorsing products, done for a silent and hidden fee\nfrom the manufacturer. Not being a follower, I am not certain where it all\nbegan, but I suspect it was with the likes of Paris Hilton or the Kadashians;\nhigh visibility pseudo-celebrities that bored people with wide bandwidth. found\nattractive and interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point is, we have spawned a\nculture that turns to Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube to initially validate\ntheir opinion, and now (sadly) to formulate their opinion. When they awake in\nthe morning and hear something about… pick one: flat earth, vaccines, the\ncoronavirus, or politics, they immediately log into their social media platform\nof choice and read what their favorite influencers are saying about it all. And\nrather than harvesting facts and data, thinking about it, and researching it,\nthey let a stranger on the internet tell them how to feel about it. I am sorry\nif this offends some, but by now you know me and you know I just write what I\nfeel. And no \u2013 I am not attempting to influence anyone here on what to think\nand how to feel about it. What I am trying to do is encourage independent\nthought and opinions formulated on empirical, established facts. And I think\nthe very fact that you are here, reading this dear reader, firmly plants you in\nthe independent thinker arena! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every generation takes something that\nthe previous generation holds close, and trashes it; it is a rite of\ngenerational passage. It is an attempt to mark one\u2019s current generation as bold\nand perhaps a little rebellious; not doing things they\u2019ve always been done. I\nthink, probably because it is the inherent nature of how we think and partly\nbecause I am boomer, that the \u201860\u2019s are a good example of this. Think of the\ncivil rights rallies, the war protests, free love, drugs, the hippies, and all\nthe chaos that came with them. Not that these were all good choices, but they\nwere independent choices, found through (mostly) independent thinking. Yes,\nthere were followers back then; sheep who were willingly herded behind an fast\ntalking egomaniac wanting to play God such as Jim Jones or Charles Manson. But\nwithout the widespread availability to these people, the damage was limited \u2013\nthe count of blind followers was low. Can you imagine the consequences if Manson\nor Jones was around today on social media? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is not to say that masses cannot\nbe herded without the internet, witness what happened in Germany with the rise\nof the Nazis in the \u201840\u2019s or the iron hand of the Communist regime in the USSR\nthrough the \u201850\u2019s and \u201860\u2019s. It was no social media influencing people in those\nhorrors, but there was government owned and controlled news media. That,\ncoupled with the abuse of power through the Gestapo or the KGB, allowed the\nabusers to forcefully control their citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My point is, a free and prospering\nsociety needs free and independent thinkers. We cannot, will not, flourish if\neveryone is going to choose to not think, not ponder, not examine, not\nquestion, or not evaluate the truth and instead, chooses to go see what the\nusers on Reddit or Twitter are saying to think and believe. I think everyone\nshould question everything, but not with the mindset so prevalent on YouTube\nwhere everything generally accepted as fact is there considered a lie and a gigantic\ncover-up by \u201cthe establishment\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It widely began with the moon landing\nof 1969. The one I watched live on TV. Through the years. people began to\ncirculate the rumor that it was staged; that NASA yielded to the pressure of\nKennedy\u2019s challenge to place a man on the moon within the decade. Never mind\nthat Kennedy was dead at that point and his \u201cchallenge\u201d was not particularly championed\nby either of the next two presidents. Add to that the impossibility of staging\nsomething that massive AND keeping it quiet. And not keeping it quiet for a\nweek or a month, but quiet for fifty years. And not quiet by ten or even one\nhundred people for fifty years, but literally thousands of people. I spent my\nentire career in an organization that employed up to five thousand people.\nThere is nothing that could be kept a secret there for more than five minutes.\nPeople talk, it\u2019s what they do. The moon landing was not faked; were that true\nhundreds of people would have spoken up by now \u2013 either drunk, stoned, or on\ntheir deathbed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some paranoid person decided that\nit was indeed faked, and he began to gather his evidence to prove so. And that\nis fine, it is part of questioning everything and examining it closely. But the\nkey ingredient to critical thinking is to adhere to the facts. If something is\nquestionable or not understandable in the current context, you can\u2019t then\nchoose to dismiss it or embrace as factual to suit your needs. But with the\nmoon landing, gaps were bridged with surmising and conjecturing and then the\nresult was embraced as the only possible conclusion. But with that first leap,\nthat chain of critical thinking was broken and the validity of thought went\nfrom fact to fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are certainly times that the\nanalysis of fact is beyond our personal level of education of understanding and\nwe need to turn to experts for help. Examples would include the field of\nscience and mathematics; there are not a large number of people who can perform\ndifferential or integral calculus or who can successfully calculate the\ndistortion of sound waves in certain solids or liquids. The field of medicine\nis another good example, requiring many long years of schooling followed by an\nequally many long years of internship. People turn to the web far too often for\nmedical diagnosis or opinion. Happily, the medical community recognized this\nand began to sponsor some websites that offered feedback that was at least\nbased on some sound medical knowledge, not that it could ever supplant a live\nphysical examination by a real doctor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the cost of medical care and the\nfast-paced lifestyle of many people, I understand why people turn to the\ninternet for medical information. If nothing else, it can help someone decide\nif they really need to go see a doctor. But what I don\u2019t understand is taking\nthe advice of non-medical people to self-treat oneself. Folks go out on the\ninternet, receive misinformation with absolutely no basis in science or the\nstudy of medicine, and elect to treat themselves with all sorts of odd and\nnonsensical remedies. Most of the time the so-called remedies are completely\ninert and innocuous, but sometimes they can actually exacerbate the problem and\npeople become severely ill as a result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider vaccination; a hot-button\ntopic these days. Measles had essentially been eradicated from our society\nthrough the responsible use of vaccines. But somewhere, someone became\nconvinced that the measles vaccine has greater side effects than benefits; that\nis, in fact, harmful. There is no scientific or empirical data to support this\nalleged fact. Yet there exist numerous channels on YouTube with influencers\ngraphically demonstrating why the vaccine is harmful and that you are\nendangering your child if you vaccinate them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, people allowing a complete\nstranger with absolutely no medical training or scientific background tell them\nhow to best care for the medical well-being of their child. Prior to the\ndevelopment of a vaccine in 1963, there were major epidemics of measles every\ncouple of years, which resulted in around 2.6-million deaths each year \u2013 the\nmajority being children under the age of five. By the time the vaccine became\nthe standard treatment for our children, resulting in almost eradicating the\ndisease. But suddenly people began to question the vaccine and shunning it. And\nmeasles returned with a vengeance. There were over 140,000 deaths from measles\nin 2018, mostly all children under the age of five. And all because their\nparent chose to not vaccinate them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is the potential impact of the\nmisuse and abuse of social media and a direct result of abandoning independent\ncritical thinking. A result in letting others decide what you think about\nsomething; people who you don\u2019t know and who have no legitimate business\nproviding information claiming to be factual. Many in our society are reaching\nfor that instant pudding (a term I coined in work for looking for the quick and\neasy instant solution rather than doing the hard work to get the desired\nresults). They are busy and find it quicker and easier to open an app on their\nphone to fulfill their need immediately. But in doing so, they are giving up\ntheir ability to think for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another component to this is social\nshame; no one wants to be \u201cthat guy\u201d who takes an unpopular stance in social\nmedia. The retribution is quick and decisive; taunting and ridicule floods in\nat the speed of light. Judge and jury, the social influencers embarrass and\nhumiliate those with an outlying opinion and everyone quickly jumps on board\nwith the derision. I\u2019ve seen it time and time again on the various platforms;\npeople are surprisingly mean-spirited on platforms meant to be uplifting and\ncommunal. So if there are hundreds of posts of how voting for proposition one\nis going to ruin our way of life and is evil, many people will not even bother\nto research what the proposition is, never mind its potential repercussions on\ntheir personal life, and will choose to vote against it. All thanks to social\nmedia pressure. Thankfully, this describes our minority; most people in our\nsociety still critically assess concepts and ideas before choosing to embrace\nor reject them. But I greatly fear for us with this growing minority of sheep,\nlemmings who if left unattended could someday lead people we care about off a\ncliff. Or worse, lead us all off a cliff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve written this before \u2013 a good\nfriend once asked me my opinion on how he should proceed with an issue at work.\nWhen I gave him the answer (which he already knew deep inside) he sighed and\nsaid, \u201cdoing the right thing is hard\u201d. And it is; it is hard. It\u2019s like the ads\nyou saw as a kid in comic books to buy x-ray glasses for fifty cents; you knew\nit wasn\u2019t true \u2013 just too absurd \u2013 but sometimes we\u2019d buckle and buy a pair to\ntry them out. And of course, it reaffirmed our original thought that the whole\nidea was ridiculous. Same thing these days with ads for five-minute abs or\ninstant weight loss with some trendy diet; all attempts to do something that\nrequires hard work, the easy way. If you want abs you have to exercise a lot\nand fine-tune your diet; if you want to lose weight you have to eat fewer\ncalories and\/or burn more calories. We all know that and yet we can sometimes\nget caught in the trying the quick and easy way \u2013 the instant pudding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While it\u2019s one thing to waste\nfifty-cents on plastic x-ray glasses, or even $39.99 for the instant\nabdominizer, it\u2019s quite another thing to play roulette with your health, or you\nchild\u2019s heath, based upon finding the quick and easy way. The latest, and I\njust finished confirming it, is that people are receiving advice via the\ninternet that the cure for hemorrhoids is to stick a potato up your\u2026.well, up\nthe target area. Yes \u2013 you read that right. And people are doing it and ending\nup in emergency rooms. And no doctors are having to do public service spots\ntrying to convince people not to insert a potato in their butt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
God gave us all an incredibly powerful\nbrain with which to perform detailed and intricate considerations and\ncalculations; we don\u2019t need an app to think or to make up our minds for\nus! Caveat Emptor dear reader, let the\nbuyer beware. Do the hard work, do the independent thinking, and do the\nresearch using accredited sources. Let social media serve its purpose for\nsharing pictures of family and good news, and leave the important research and\ninformation to empirical and factual data. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I feel increasingly strongly, dear reader, that a growing number of people in the world are losing, or have lost, the ability to think independently. It seems that more and more, people look to mass opinion to validate or fortify their own thoughts on a subject. And if their personal thoughts do not fall under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\n