Where (the hell) to get information
In a time where you can have every assumption you can dream up confirmed I thought about, how to declare the truthfulness of a source. And the answer isn’t satisfying! But the solution might be!
Let me give you the short answer first: You can’t!
As much of a blessing the internet is it is the same amount of a curse. Imagine it, you have literally the worlds knowledge at your fingertips. Information you would have to have studied at universities can be yours now with a simple google search.
But on the other hand you can find the answers you want to find to any question you have a presumption about the answer beforehand. And today’s climate about information-sharing doesn’t help the matter.
Who’s information can we trust? I think that might be the wrong answer. It’s more about what information should we gather in my opinion. So let’s exclude some sources
News
Honestly, I start with this, because it’s the most obvious. News (and media for that matter) can not be trusted! Sounds a little conspiratorial but let me elaborate. I’m not sure if News have changed or if they’ve always been like that and it just escalated in recent years BUT all news are biased. May it be left or right or whatever, let’s say 98% of all news-sources are compromised placing agenda AND propaganda over truth AND well, monetary gain as well. Click-, rage-bait and fear-porn drive traffic, traffic accumulates income. And with our more and more obviously obstruction of being caught in an ideological power, that only deals in power news even more become an instrument to collect and use it by any means necessary, even if that means dividing the people by claiming this is peace!
Science
Some might be surprised by that, some might not (I hope my dear 5 readers a month are in the latter category). Science to a large amount has been compromised as well, where the paradigm seems to have changed from an observation based result to an expected one. Science that doesn’t come out the way you want it to can be easily re-structured and made out to be what’s “best” for you and your opinions by data mining, statistical manipulation and so on.
Let’s take the “A steak need thousands of litres of water” (I paraphrase here). Sounds frightening and, considering water should be our most valued resource, if this isn’t an argument to go vegan, right? Oh wait, yes, this is one of the leading arguments to promote the vegan lifestyle.
Now unfortunately, while that statement might be technically accurate, what it doesn’t represent is, that 96% of that water is considered “Green”, coming from rain and from the grass the cow is eating most of its life. This, by extention, brings the actual usage of water for a steak down to somewhat 120 litres. Which still seems a lot, but 25.000 litres just brings the point home a little better, don’t you think?
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find science, that hasn’t been (also) ideologically compromised. There is “one truth” that claims “x is the solution, and there’s “another truth” that claims the opposite.
Let’s stick with the cows, shall we. For the advent of meatless living cows are basically the devil. Methane producing, water devastating creatures which have to be killed in order for us to be fed (which is indeed ironic, because the moral argument only holds up for the feeding purpose, while reducing the mass of cows is somehow morally justifiable).
While for the other side, as I mentioned, not much water, no additional CO2 is actually put out because it’s a circular system of taking in CO2, convert to CH4 (methane), it rises, get split up again, water comes down, grass takes on CO2 and so on and so furth. (take that explanation with a grain of salt, I write out of memory as good as I can, but it should paint an accurate picture at least).
What I’m trying to say is, science isn’t what it used to be, even though it never was perfect, the extent of manipulation has risen massively and observably.
The Internet itself
Well, wasn’t that a surprise, right? But yeah, it isn’t necessarily a source, that can be trusted. Yes, there are incredible amounts of accurate information, true information, but for every true thing there is at least one or two or infinitive amounts of information that either depict these accurate informations as untrue or “prove” other things. You CAN find truth on the internet, but you can also easily just find prove for YOUR truth, your intuitive understanding of things, about basically everything.
The truth is, the world is a sphere (to put it simply). But some peoples truth is, it is flat and holy shit, do these people have “prove”.
The problem here is merely psychological. If you seek truth, you might find it. If you only want to confirm your bias, you find it as well, and you find it as though it is the truth. Hence the wall of perceived knowledge has grown infinitively, which makes communication even harder if no side is willing to give in an inch because they are both right! (The paradigm of “own truth” is another problem, but let’s not dive into this right here)
An unsolvable puzzle?
The situation seems precarious. No end is in sight, no solution. Where to find information I need about topics that interest me? Honestly, I don’t know.
One way is to study the current ideologies to hopefully being able to detect compromised sources while going through any data or article. But let me tell you out of experience, that takes a while and doesn’t leave you with a 100% certainty of success.
Another way that I have recently more adapted is simply refocus the “truths” that I am looking for. From being involved in the world’s business I regrouped and focused on things beneficial for me.
- I’ve gotten more and more enthusiastic about cooking, so that’s a lot what I’m looking after to improve my own dining-experiences.
- I’m always in the process of improving myself, so there’s a topic that can be researched.
- Meditation, mindfulness
- I’ve grown an interest in gardening, sustainable gardening as well, in the hopes one day I’ll be able to grow my own stuff.
- Talking about my own stuff, I’m as well trying to make more and more of my foods on my own. Noodles — I do that. Sweets — well I have to practice some more. And so on.
For the observant reader, some might have picked up on a certain pattern where to my focus has changed, and that’s where I think the solution might be, not just for us personally to be more confident in the information we take in but also as a result for the providers of information to change their ways.
Look for useable, testable informations that imPROVES you, which you can test as you hear them and figure out for yourself if there’s merit to them. You’re interested in electrical circuits? Find a DIY of building on. Wanna learn the piano? Literally millions of videos on YouTube! Want to get fit? Get information about different styles and decide which one fits best.
Truth shouldn’t be a construct of believe! (and it’s more and more becoming one)
But there’s a middle ground here. There is just no “one truth”, even though some things as gravity are undeniable. Maybe first we truly have to find our own truths, what we like, what we want to do and can do and finally to get an idea about who we are before we can have a positive effect on the world and additionally being able to figure out or better said decide where we get our information from!
