My Short Poem 2 - i BELIEVE, but with the Precautions | post 3
Believing something is troublesome. But you thrive on trust, hope, faith or information. This is what it means to be human. In the poem below, I try to describe my ideas regarding this concept. Also, you should check the validity of my statements with objectivity. Because we live in this era of truth obscurity.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this poem and the full text that follows it.
i Believe, but with the Precautions
Exploring the ideas and the implications of this piece
The first two lines are directly mentioning that a strong self-belief is present, while the latter two, are aimed at the reader. There are other human beings out there, who have not given up on the 'good', the true and the beautiful.
They have faith in the humanity, to which you belong as well as I (or i).
And this pure strength of the self-righteous mutual trust quickly evolved into a more conscious process. We need to verify, and cross-verify, every event, information, or connection. This is going to be an era of Doubts, which would defend us from the ever-increasing flood, of misinformation.
Doubts are good; anxiety-inducing, but good.
After all, it could be your neighbour, your partner, your parent or your child; it takes only a few moments, to convince the unsuspecting innocent people, to believe something which is nothing but a bluff, blunder, misdirection or rationalisation of the lies. At some point in time, even you or I might have assisted the propagation and the spread, of the misleading gibberish.
Just because some piece of nonsense, entices our deeper emotions; we end up reacting, and unknowingly championing, the traits of the evil-doers.
However, how long can we stay safe, if we are using the power of Doubt and selective Distrust, on a daily basis? What we had adopted, to better guard our sanity might become an even greater threat, to our brain health.
Every solution has its set of unwanted pervasive incentives.
Imagine reaching a point, where you start doubting the most important bonds you have with your loved ones. Why? Only because you can never be sure, what they have been reading, consuming and subconsciously internalising, during all this time.
Thus, to verify your identity, even the poet needs some evidence.
Guess what, it contradicts the opening lines. That's how lip service works. Words are fabricated with extreme care, to come off as a caring, kind, honest and professional person. All you need to do, in order to uncover the real intentions, is a little waiting.
' Terms and Conditions ', the fine print below the readability ergonomics standard, is the key.
In such a noisy festival of betrayal and self-serving false portrayal, of the good-true-beautiful; one necessary but the bitter thing has happened. The over-confidence in the information sources is shattered; and the poet is now more confused, and remarkably perplexed, about the beliefs occupying the mind.
Is it the fault of the Information Providers? Is the information consumer, not one of the critical parties?
Single-mindedly living in a world, where our deeply determined opinions blind us to the obvious flaws, or the suspicious claws, of the challenges of our era. It is a type of luxury on its own. All you need, is the loud music, and a heavy dose of the fake accomplishments, in a world that is not even real.
The Poet, @akp51v, has topped misidentifying his opinions as if they were the facts.
No, the world does not revolve around you... around me, or around the self-declared truth experts. Alternatives facts are nothing but the attempts of hiding the genuine truths, behind the constant hammering of the highly biased toxicity.
Yes, I can be wrong, you can be wrong, our teacher can be wrong, and our leaders can be wrong.
Accepting this reality is the kindest thing we can do to ourselves. Once we are no longer obsessed with 'being the only right person in the room', we can learn to keep quiet for a change, let the other party speak.
Freed from the presumptive irrelevance and the double-speak, we can actually listen to each other, and try to understand each other, without having to sacrifice our sweet voice-box (larynx), even if our worldviews are many lightyears apart.
At the end of the day, consuming something is in our own hands.
Switching the channel, blocking the toxins, curing the inner illness, and staying always alert about the advocates of the mistruths, are possible choices if we are serious enough. Therefore, this poet has refused to give in, to the immediate undesirable circumstances.
Similar to the vast majority of the challenges, upon which our ancestors had secured the history-making victories, that made those textbooks huge and heavy; even this era of the recurring promotion, of the artificial 'truths', would be defeated by our relentless pursuits, of the Cross-Verified Information.
Thus, let's keep reading, writing, travelling, thinking, drawing, discovering.
Stay active, and knowledgeable; otherwise, someone else would always be there, to use you as a pawn in a game, of repackaged opinions.
By the way, I am less of a Trips-lover and more of a Read-and-Draw person, unlike my cousins and some of my friends. I am disclosing it since it feels necessary.
How to Cross-Verify the Information in front of you
Nobody is a fan of, those who only complain a lot, without ever trying to come up with a solution, a hypothesis, or at least some basic ideation.
You know the lot; they ring the alarms each hour everywhere.
"Alright, so how do we solve that problem like the one, you have just pointed out, with so much enthusiasm?"
"Why ask me? I know nothing. Go ask XYZ. They are responsible for this unfavourable outcome."
"But you have correctly identified the problem; shouldn't you be the one, who leads the solution-seeking?"
"Solution-seeking? That phrase, problem-solving, was only for my resume; don't take it so seriously. Anyways, I have an education of PQR, so I cannot be expected to analyse and optimise, something related to ABC."
"Yes, only the legally qualified people should actually take the Executive-level decisions in a field; but you can still share some suggestions. Ideas can from anyone; who knows, how your advice might end up assisting the top brass?"
"Oh, I just remembered something, that click-bait thumbnail is yet unfinished. Sorry, I have to make more complaints about the things, about which I am too self-conscious to come up with a barebone solution concept because my degree has nothing to do with it anyways."
Play button now paused; there are multiple indirect remarks, in the above thought simulation, of a conversation, that should have been unrelated to this century.
Despite the agile management or the interdisciplinary projects... even when access to the specialists level know-how, is made available to the public, in more than a hundred languages; the basic human nature wins over everything else.
Hence, let's see if some basic amateur solutions, can be indicated within the body, of this post.
In the civil engineering college, we were made to study the analysis part, for more than thirty-six months. The synthesis (design) and the continuous maintenance models, were taught later. We were always eager to focus on the practical knowledge, and only on the design part.
But, you need to know and understand your enemy, your challenge, your problem and your battlefield.
Only after you understand the different parts of each of them, the way they work in the real-life; you become competent to handle them, without any third-party's assistance. The success (performance) of your synthesis, depends on the thoroughness (complete knowledge) obtained via your analysis.
Therefore, we need to know some properties of the manufactured facts, which can give us some hints, about how to grade the validity and the truthfulness of the information, that's being served for our consumption, for the subtly rebranded non-genuine intentions.
The Characteristics of the Dishonest Content
Time-stamps are so important. If you say or write something, or a photograph is taken; the date, place and time would be the main basis, of verifying the age of that particular content. All of the newspapers and the research papers, as well as the results of any judicial review, in any and every corner of the globe, value each date, and the exact details about the events.
Yes, Spherical planet has no corners, but that tiny detail, on the corners of the letters and the pages parsed by the printing-plotting machines, is true as much significant, as the records of your financial transactions.
However, when someone has no intention of providing the complete backstory, that most fundamental detail, just disappears into the thin air.
No matter the word count, and no matter how long might be the paragraphs; the absent dates, and places, tell you all the real reasons, behind that type of information being circulated.
This is the only Red Flag, which should suffice for revealing the true nature of the message.
That is not the only thing to worry about; experienced specialists of mistruths, go as far as putting the false dates, incorrect locations, and unwarranted exaggerations, in that nonsensical verbal salad. Once those forged depictions, succeed in emotionally provoking the reader, the mission has been successful.
Emotions make us human; but the Logic can be stuck in the traffic, and the Sharing buttons, might be pressed more than once, for the inhumane irrationalities, of the desperate mind.
Only your faith, patience and the habit of share later, verify first could save you, and the other human beings, designed by God, produced by Mother Nature, in your Contacts List. It is especially necessary to confirm the accuracy of any content if you have even one follower, one subscriber or one connection.
We have a duty towards those, who might be consuming our content; including our Comments, Status (social media) and Posts.
Whatever be your perspectives, about ethics or the moral hazards, the last thing anyone wants, is the younger humans adopting the incorrect mindsets, which have wreaked havoc, throughout the history of the human species. In the name of your God, your Flag, your friends, family and your personal worldviews; keep your individuality sacrosanct, by never dropping your guard.
One moment of carelessness, or emotional vulnerability, is enough for us, to react without pausing.
Okay, let's say we stay careful about the Time-stamps, Dates, Places, and even about whether the Contact Details are real or fake; does it mean, that there is nothing else to worry about?
Misleading via Mathematics, flawed Statistics and the misinterpreted Research Papers
Imagine that a type of content, whether in the textual form or in the audio-visual iteration of it, is making a lot of claims, which begin something like these all-too-familiar phrases.
"Scientists say so..."
"The research has shown that (we forgot its DOI or other reference links)…"
"We all know..."
"Everyone is aware of..."
"... They say …"
And this blog writer has used them as well. It's a currency of common paragraph beginnings; on this blog, and maybe not so, in the Quora answers.
There is just one tiny, but important word somewhere spelt as o-p-i-n-i-o-n... You have not much reason to worry about, content that uses those beginnings, that's clearly labelled or at least hinted, as an opinion.
Not okay, not at all acceptable, if the content form is trying to present itself as factually indisputable.
To prove the authority, and specifically, for convincing the well-educated people of their logical flawlessness, the creators and the promotors make use of mathematics, objectionable use of Statistics and the cunning redesigned graphs.
It is left to you, the reader, to research the real-life manipulation records, related to "misleading statistics, graphs, and the biased research papers." I hope you understand the possible reasons, for limiting the scope of this blog post, to the concepts only.
Every research paper is based on a set of assumptions.
Just because one group of some scientists, has arrived at a certain conclusion, under that specific set of assumptions; the conclusions do not become the absolute truth. There are reasons, why peer-reviewed journals exist.
Assumptions made in one research paper can be proven unsuitable or error-prone by another group of researchers.
Although not everyone is going to repeat, the entire Literature Review for any one topic of research; the basic norm, is of mentioning and properly citing the Research Paper, which was used as a reference, with the standards specified by the Research Journal Publishers' platform.
And the assumptions drive the entire experiment, the recording of the results, and the final graphs or the statistical correlations, which still need to prove right, under the same situations, even if someone else is recreating and repeating the experiment, staying loyal to the original paper.
During the Literature Review of the final year project report, the project guides gave me and my group-mates, a list of respectable and good quality Research Journals.
Indeed, not all Research Paper publishing platforms follow the same strictness or excellent quality standards. For further elaboration, consider this – there is an abundance of the research paper 'aggregators', who get the papers published, with very basic quality assurance, for cash payments.
In short, anyone with any paper carrying a lot of words can get published on those platforms. It should just sound scientific enough; irrespective of any logical contradictions, or measurement shortcuts.
For basic Professional Ethics, this writer cannot tell you any special nouns of any particular journals; but a little enquiry done with an undergraduate or graduate person will help you with those names.
If a Research Paper is not published by a Top-notch Publisher, you know the drill; ignore it.
The moral of the story; not every Research Paper, not every Statistical Data, and not every Graph, is scientific, genuine or practically reliable. Check its background, or simply look up other research on the topic, before choosing to trust or dump its results and the conclusions.
Simply put, when doing any type of research or verification of content; use multiple sources, with reasonable good quality management.
Intentionally 'Selective' Reference Choices, and the non-existing Web Links
In the wake of the increasing fact-checking websites, and the attention given by the professionally ethical journalists has resulted in a higher frequency, of highly emphasised (it is technically, beyond all the sane levels of emphasis or promoting) one-sided facts.
The number of Reference Links should never be a basis, for validating the authority, of the content, or its creator.
Not every reference link is going to open well, in your browser.
"Maybe they moved to a different host; the website structure might have changed".
Sorry, but personally, it is difficult for me to believe, that the major News Portals, and the respected Web Resources, would not place a redirect URL to point the user, to the newer location of the required article. Anyone can add anything, in the anchor tag's HTML attribute.
Yes, any word can be linked with any type of word.
Just because it looks blue, doesn't mean that the link is actually related to a web resource.
"Maybe the original writer had removed the content."
That is possible, but when a lot of writers are struggling, to get published; and when ' writing for others ' is extremely important, for any aspiring blogger, writer or someone, who wants to make their LinkedIn Profile stand out, of the crowd; it is next to impossible, that it was removed by the original contributor.
Let's say, it happened to one of the Reference Links.
This blog writer could make peace with it; but when more than one link, is returning a ' Page Not Found ' error, you can guess what would I think, about that link-related part of the main content.
As far as the one-sided facts, mentioned in this section's opening para, are concerned; it is more about extensively rebroadcasting the exact same content, with a few minor modifications, than the actual scene itself.
Being surrounded by only two or three details, recurring in all the content forms, coming from the mouths of multiple suit-wearing experts, with all different fonts, and the colours, being changed per slide... You can't help but to either quit consuming it or buy the bitter bytes, within your mind, upon your iris, along with your eardrums.
Showing a few similar incidents, with those gazillion loops of emphasis, is only for the sake of, distracting your mind, so you won't notice that nobody is actually discussing the full story.
In this simplest instance, let me request to imagine, that a blog post is only admiring something or someone, with a thousand words and adjectives, to glorify that product, or that person, in a larger than the life manner.
"If so many good things are being said, or written; obviously any other side of the story, is unnecessary."
There goes our curiosity or the investigative alert mindset. Sayonara ("Goodbye forever"; in Japanese. Wasn't sure about the accuracy; hardly one word I knew. But LiveJapan helped me here. You know from the earlier sections, share later, verify first ).
Ultimate Difficulty Level Boss – Half-Truth
Finally, we need to keep in mind one of the biggest challenge, against which even the greatest human brain, or a supercomputer, could be confused.
Half-Truths are the toughest form of misinformation.
Even if you have mastered psychology, neuroscience, human behaviour, literature in all languages, mythology of every culture, and forensics; it will not be easy to spot the 0.0001% of Half-Truth in the abundance of factually genuine and honest information.
A single word, phrase, adjective or italicized verb can affect our perception.
It generally works like this:
- A lot of trustworthy, scientifically verified and historically accurate information, is compiled in articles, social media posts, messages, images, videos or audio.
- When you engage with that content, you encounter an admirably well-cultured non-bias language.
- You finish the article or the content form, and you are okay with what you have just consumed.
- You have trusted the entire content, because most of the information, was accurate and used civilised language. So, in other words, the rest of the sentences would be harmless, because "Hey, the same person has written it; so it must be true."
- Now, you have started to agree with a lot of other information, which might be a more fact-like representation, on an opinion.
Another way it might affect us, is in which the same person, who shared the highly humane and friendly content, for the past five times, gradually (at an unnoticeable slow pace) starts tweaking the tone of the language.
In the app development philosophies, I have noticed that to avoid a huge backlash from the existing users of the app, all redesigned GUI (graphical user interfaces) is rolled out slowly, over the course of many months, if not years.
Something similar, but comparatively more sinister, happens with the second mechanism of Half-Truth propagation, as described above.
Therefore, try to read something more than once, and always disagree with some information in any content. You ought to train your brain, to be able to respectfully disagree on a regular basis. It is analogous (similar) to develop the most important life skill: the ability to say a Polite but Clear word, 'NO'.
End-note – The World of the Next Generations, powered by you
Always wanted to get these thoughts organised; so here is my contribution to this world. It is not a realistic expectation, to dream about a world free of misinformation.
No, it will never end; as long as this planet exists, but that is the beauty of it.
It means, that a handful of websites or posts, like this one, will not change anything on their own. Whatever the entire human population of Earth, decides and employs in daily life, would become our future.
Keeping this section short, let's see how many humans continue to consume, or forward, the misinformation, without ever detecting the real ill-wills, of certain unknown content creators. After all, once we retire from this limited existence, our children would have to survive, in a world filled with mistruths, misunderstandings, mutual distrust and social disharmony...
… just because we did not use the remote.
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