One last thing I wanted to mention before I go back to the type of thing I normally do on here is to talk about something I wish would be used a lot more online, on mainstream news, and in life in general. I know from experience in life it is just not realistic to expect this out of people. It is a little too idealistic, but I am going to mention it anyways as someone might find it helpful.
One thing that could make the world a little better place is for people to use the principle of charity when communicating with each other. It is an interpretative principle that when someone says something you always assume the most reasonable and strongest view of what they say. You do not put the worst possible interpretation on what someone says.
Not only in my own life, but listening to others talk about school, work, online, family, etc. I have seen examples of people being very uncharitable with what people say. As a silly example just so you can understand what I mean, lets suppose a kid comes home to his parents and they ask him how the football game went. The boy says, "We killed them!" The parents respond in shock, "You what! Your football team committed murder!?!?" The boy responds, "Ugh, no? We defeated our opponents 49-0!" Obviously, the boy was using a common sporting metaphor, and not talking about literal homicide.
That is a silly example, but I have been through a bunch of times in life where people respond to something like that to what I have said. Sometimes it is simple misunderstanding, other times I am not so sure. This is one of the main reasons I do not watch TV or the mainstream news anymore.
There is an article called Media Trust Hits New Low. In it the author reports what the data from Edelman's annual trust barometer show the public trust in the media has gone down to 46%. For the first time less than half the people trust the media. This is consistent with the way things appear according to my thinking. I suspect the number is going to get even lower than that.
Part of the reason for my own lack of trust is the complete inability to represent other points of views fairly. They are scared to death of this because they see presenting an opposing view fairly gives the other side points in their favor. The last time I watched some news in the evening on TV it was so filled with bias and catch phrases that I just felt like I was watching a bunch of cheerleaders at a sporting contest. I often use the terms "professional hecklers" and "false prophets" a lot when describing them to friends.
A few years ago during October I did a Halloween series that was an anomaly compared to my normal way of doing things on here. I created it as a fictional story that I think most people understood I was doing it that way, but using real locations as the setting. I did have a few people that literally believed the story. I wanted to keep it as a mystery, and I did reveal most of the truth later about it in November. Here is the thing about that story. Every sentence I said was true during that Halloween series, but a lot of the statements I made were out of order, missing a bit of context, or the timing was a little off.
It was my way of making fun of the urban legends of the area, but also me making fun of documentaries and the news on TV or print that is the same way. What bothers me the most is information being withheld from people that present the news. Everything that comes out of their mouths could be factually true, but if you are missing information or context that changes everything. The common notion of fact-checking has a problem here if we are just asking if statements are just true or false.
I have made this a lot longer that I wanted to, and I could keep going on, but let me suggest two things:
1)When considering different views and news points. Find out what both sides are saying in the most reasonable way. When talking to others try to represent their view by repeating it to them and asking for clarification. "Is this what you mean?" or "What do you mean by that?" should be questions used patiently and calmly for clarification.
2)When you hear "breaking news" or any type of current news give yourself a day or more to digest it before coming to a conclusion about it. The old saying, "there are two sides to every story," is often true and it might take a few days to hear the other side of the story. I have found that some of these click bait new stories get a lot of attention for a day because of the emotional responses they bring, but then it comes out that the story does not have good sources or is a big misunderstanding.
Okay, the last three blog entries were just me getting myself going again for the new year. I am going to get back to normal. I want to start presenting a new series I will be doing on here. Check back in a few days.
