Tell Us The Truth!

 About 2 years ago we were just getting the first reports that something was amiss in Wuhan.  Later intelligence "revealed" covid could already have been in Italy Dec 2019! (Tests on sewer matter),

 We are still dealing with it now. Thousands of daily cases in the UK alone, hundreds or thousands of deaths daily Worldwide.  More lockdowns (in Europe - Austria, Netherlands) as a Fourth Spike is announced.  We are still vaccinating, and boosters for those 6 months after their 2nd jabs.

Legislation in the UK to "force" front line NHS and Care Workers to vaccinate or face being fired.

Most supermarkets are still recommending wearing masks indoors.  I know I wear my mask if I shop, and I hand sanitise everywhere I go.  It makes sense to me.  Prevention is better than cure, right?

I wonder where we'll be next year?

Then there's climate change.  We've just concluded the COP26 talks in Glasgow.  From what I read in the news it's a positive step forward... but I watched The Day After Tomorrow on TV yesterday - filmed in 2004, and 17 years on we've not heeded that warning one little bit!

I'm a bit rusty on my Nostradamus, but I'm fairly sure he "predicted" the end of the world would come from the Middle East (or at least that's what his "interpreters" chose to suggest).  What if our demise wasn't from war (or terrorism) which is what we immediately assume, but from our dependence on oil? 

A friend of mine is very religious and recently posted some threads about this being Biblical, Revelations type scenarios.  One of his posts on FB had an "independent fact-check" reply/overlay on it refuting his info, and that lead me to wonder about who we can really trust - because his original post about covid data integrity seemed to come from a valid source - the URL looked legit, but the refute seemed to come from the same source!

We really don't know who to trust - our politicians spin one way, our religious leaders another.  Covid, Brexit, Climate Change - how do we know what we're being told is the truth?  We don't!

If we "fact check", how do we know what we're reading is the truth or a counter-lie?

We live in uncertain times - as a Nation, the UK is going through a lot - and what we really need right now is someone to trust - someone that will tell us the honest truth - no matter how harsh, so that we can face it head on and deal with it.

The Truth is Out There

truth

/tru:ϴ/

noun

1.    the quality or state of being true.

"he had to accept the truth of her accusation"

synonyms:		veracity, truthfulness, verity, sincerity, candour, honesty, genuineness; More

o    that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

noun: the truth

"tell me the truth"

synonyms:		the fact of the matter, what actually/really happened, the case, so; More

o    a fact or belief that is accepted as true.

plural noun: truths

"the emergence of scientific truths"

synonyms:

fact, verity, certainty, certitude; More

I was browsing through Facebook the other day and stumbled across a discussion on politics.  Actually, what really happened was, I was browsing Facebook the other day looking for some fun cat memes and had someone else’s political rant subjected upon me.  

The content of the “discussion” was the same as usual – one person saying left-wing is right, the other saying right-wing is right.  Some Liberal saying middle-of-the road is right, everyone shouting down the other opinions, some name calling, some bigotry, some closed minds but very open mouths.

For a start, I have never understood the need some people have to argue with strangers about politics.  What’s the point?  They’re suddenly going to see the light? “Oh wow, I’ve never looked at it like that!  I’ve been wrong all these years!”  Really?  

Whenever I see stuff like that I always recall that wonderful quote; “Never argue with an idiot. People watching won’t be able to tell the difference.”

But the thing I wanted to mention isn’t the futility of arguing with anyone, about anything, on forums and social media – it’s this… buried deep within this rant was someone who said

“You just cannot trust mainstream media to deliver the truth these days.  Thank God for Facebook and Twitter!”

And I almost choked on my cup of coffee over the ridiculousness of that statement.  

It brought to mind another of my favourite quotes – this time attributed to Rick Warren:  “A lie doesn’t become the truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good just because it’s accepted by the majority.”

And that made me think “what is truth”?  What is it really?  Is popular opinion the truth? Well, we all know that’s not correct. Truth is, I suppose, whatever the facts tell us is the truth – but what happens if the person reporting those facts is lying?  Or presents those facts in a biased way so as to skew the perception of them?  How can we ever trust what we are being told is true?

It used to be that we would go to our personal, trusted source for the truth – something like the BBC perhaps?  Or our favourite newspaper?  But in this age of misinformation, I suspect even those media giants are sometimes swayed by the personal bias of the reporter, or maybe even (dare I say it) the political leanings of the moguls that own them?  How can we trust they’re giving us the whole, unbiased, carefully researched truth?

I find it almost impossible to believe anything I see, hear or read these days.  When images can be manipulated, articles faked up to look like coming from genuine sources, and the proliferate use of fake news to discredit people or incite argument. 

How can I trust social media, when some posts are desperate to promote likes, shares and ReTweets – knowing that some of these will end up re-branded and sold on to advertisers for profit, or maybe worse (if you believe everything you read) used to fund terrorism?

One final note – maybe the truth is whatever you want it to be? Maybe you only see what you want to see? Believe what you want to believe?  It used to be that if you didn’t hold with mainstream belief, you’d be labelled a sceptic; and if you believed the goal of the messenger was to promote some self-interest , you’d be a cynic – and these were negative labels” “Oh you’re such a cynic!” or “Stop being so sceptical! Just accept it’s the truth!”

I personally feel we should be more cynical, more sceptical, and willing to disbelieve.  I don’t think we should take anything at face value (or as gospel to use an alternative idiom).  

Before I accept something as the truth, I always think – What’s the source of this information? Can it be verified elsewhere?  What is the writer trying to achieve by writing/publishing this? 
Not everything that is posted on social media is as innocent as it looks, so if you’re unwilling to be sceptical or cynical, at least don’t be gullible!

One more quote before I go. I Googled it so I know it must be true!
"You can't believe everything you read on the internet." ~Abraham Lincoln, 1868

Am I a Geek, a Nerd, or just having a Mid Life Crisis?

This is me laughing at myself...
I'm not really laughing.  I'm wondering whether I'm riding the wave of social media-blogging-pinteresting stumbling, tumbling youtubing infomedia - as a 51 year old overweight male, enjoying a freedom of information, trawling the 'net in an awesome horizon broadening knowledge download.  Or am I just going through a midlife crisis?

I was born in the 60's - and if I wanted to send my cousin in the USA a picture of me on holiday I whipped out the Kodak, reeled off 24 or 36 pictures - the quality of which would only be revealed by my local Boots chemist after I'd jetted back from wherever (never to return).  The photograph would be accompanied by a handwritten letter on the thinnest of thin paper, slid carefully into a thinner blue envelope and posted Par Avion, to arrive a few weeks later (if at all).

But now, I can snap the moment on my smartphone, and if I don't like it I can snap it again, and I can edit the picture, and I can email or SMS is to anyone in the World close to instantaneously - or I can upload to my social media site and tag to my hearts content.  I can check in, and hey, in a years time I will be reminded of where I was, who I was with and what my political leanings were.  I might even have a picture of what I had for dinner!

Once upon a time, if I needed to find out how to strip down a lawnmower I would either ask my granddad, find a friendly lawnmower repair shop tucked down some alley way off the High Street, or I'd go to my local library and look in the reference section.  No longer do I have that inconvenience!  Just as well, because granddads are a dying breed now - soon to be replaced by "why don't you Google it?"  The little shop has closed down because people will now throw away the defective mower and buy a new one, and I am amazed we still have libraries!

I have embraced this new technology with open arms.  I love my laptop/tablet/smartphone.  I play Scrabble on my smartphone.  On my own.
If I thought I was antisocial before the advent of this technology, Lord only knows what I am now!

When I was a kid, if you wanted a moving image in a notebook you drew little stick figures in the bottom corner on every page, making each one a little different, and flicked through them to form a flick-book.  Now, my daughter asks if she can do her homework in PowerPoint so she can animate it!

My worry is am I a geek, a nerd or just a sad middle aged man trying to be cool?

The upside of this however is things like this blog.  I'm just writing my thoughts down, some random chatter that's meant to be funny.  If I wanted to do this years ago I'd have to have a job with a newspaper or a magazine - publishing my byline fortnightly.  I would need to have studied, qualified, acquired references, developed a portfolio, networked at parties (ugh! sorry, there's my antisocial side showing again) and made connections - but now I just ramble on here and if I'm lucky, people will read it.

The downside though is, the internet is full of this stuff.  That journalist went through all that malarkey for a reason - to weed out the dross, so that articles were only written by accomplished writers, who checked their facts, who researched their subject, who were accountable for their plagiarism, slander and such.  The veracity of some of what you see on the internet cannot be guaranteed, and posts on social media get shared and liked and bandied about without anyone checking if what they're publishing is true or not.

I like this new world that I'm a part of, where so much of what you want or need is at your fingertips. It's what I dreamed about in the 70's - being a part of the world, and not just a part of my street.  If I wanted broader horizons I certainly got them!