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Posted by on Jan 8, 2022 in Blog, Politics, Rants and Raves | 1 comment

Why is Everyone an Expert About Everything?

 

 

IS EVERYONE ON FACEBOOK AN EXPERT ABOUT EVERYTHING?

A recent experience on Facebook made me reflect on why it’s so difficult to separate fact from fiction. Stick with me, I think this is important. It illustrates the challenge of learning truths, and perhaps more vital, trying to remember what the truth actually is. After all, what does it matter if we are told the truth and then cannot remember it?

 

It could have been just about any topic, but someone asked a straightforward question about music. Prompted by the Beatles’ “Get Back” series airing on Disney, a poster wanted to know “the last Beatles song ever recorded by all four group members (inside the studio).” This is a fairly easy question, with no ambiguity. In fact, the answer can be Google searched within 15 seconds. Most hard-core fans already know the answer.

Nonetheless, I was surprised to see 67 posts in a long thread. That seemed excessive. Why would there be 67 posts? Naturally, I had to scroll down and read the comments.

What followed was a stunning display of ignorance. Everyone in the thread had their own *opinion* or a *guess* about the last Beatles’ song ever recorded together as one band. But this was not a trivia contest. Someone wanted an honest answer to a question. So, why did 67 people, the overwhelming majority having NO IDEA of the correct answer, feel compelled to reply to something they didn’t know?

Turns out that 65/67 comments were bullshit. Wrong answers. Some cited “Let it Be.” Others were certain “Her Majesty” was the correct response. A few comments mentioned, “Get Back.” Of course, more than half the responses were so idiotic they don’t deserve mentioning. This all made me wonder — if you don’t know the answer to a simple question, then why nodunig krueger effect just shut the fuck up? Better yet — listen, read, and learn. Opinions and guesses are NOT facts.

The correct answer is — “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” off the Abbey Road album which was mixed in August 1969. Note that three of the band members (minus Lennon) did re-record parts of “I, Me, Mine” in early 1970. But that didn’t include the complete group playing together as one. Just 2 comments out of 67 got that fact correct.

So, why is this story important? How does it illustrate the murky blur between truth and fiction? I’ll try to explain.

I have no idea as to the number of readers who encountered that thread. But it would have been impossible to decipher the correct answer from reading the comments, even though the correct answer WAS THERE. My guess is that if 100 people read the thread, no more than 1/10 would end up knowing the answer, and fewer still would remember it later. Hence, dozens of falsehoods cluttered up the discussion, making any attempt to learn something new difficult, if not impossible.

This might not matter when it comes to music, or sports, or movies, or anything trivial. But what about serious discussions pertaining to history, politics, health, safety, the law, and things in life that really do matter? If a casual music question triggered so many falsehoods, then I wonder: How many lies clutter up the pages of social media on history, politics, health, safety, the law, and the things that really do matter? It’s a redundant question. Call this part of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

That’s not the end of it. The fog over facts is about to worsen. Add bias, intentional disinformation, and comments that aren’t entirely honest. Now, we have some really serious obstacles. If 65/67 wrong comments about music weren’t enough, imagine comments from jaded people and those who are intent to mislead. Given all this, there’s almost no way to learn the truth from the lies. Oh, and what do you think is going to happen once “deep fakes” (audio and visual manipulation) become perfected? Will that be the end of reality?

This is one reason why social media in so many ways makes us all dumber, even if we don’t know it. The clutter gradually wears us down like a stream flowing over a stone, obliterates facts, distracts us, and obfuscates the ability to recall the truth.

I’m not sure of the answer to the problem. But I know there’s a problem. And it’s getting worse. And, this mass ignorance is dangerous.

 

1 Comment

  1. I think smart phones and computers, which are accessable to 100’s of millions, with information at the touch of a finger is a large part of the problem that ‘everyone is an expert on everything’. Much of the general information that is acessable this way is partly correct, or incomplete, or false. Web sites like Google, may well be biased for their own reasons on some topics. Of course the people who use these sorces of information are now enbolden because they think what they know this way is the total truthful facts. It’s the ‘me’ myself generation. They have been programed, most now, since childhood. Its what our socity has constructed. Its similar as to why in the American socity so many young people turn to voilence and killing when they are beset by dissapointment, failure and anger. The ones that act this way have been conditioned from childhood, by watching the murder, drugs, voilent on TV and movies. Children dont make a differecne between their real life around them and whats on TV. Children think or act as if the style of life by people in a show is the same as in their house or neibourhood. When they become grown they act out psycologically, in stressful situations, as they have been conditioned and seen in childhood. my opnion. My thought to stop the voilence is to teach children, by living love in their daily lives, at home, in school in their neibourhood. Stop the producers of movies and tv shows which potrey voilence, drugs, evil etc. my opnion.

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