Don't be carried away

Don't be carried away by news you see on the internet or television. If you are a news buff, there is a higher probability now than ever before, that you are disseminating wrong information. It is very easy to get carried away, but we are slowly becoming repositories of half-baked stories and even false information. You would like to be called a knowledgeable person, not a liar. And many of the stories in the internet are just lies.

Do I mean you need to stop sharing things from the internet  or believing in them?. The answer is 'no'. You should however, leave scope for a change in views when you find the information to have dubious sources. In other words, read, and try to believe, but do not completely believe in information that is being disseminated. 

Why is there so much misinformation? The first reason is vested interests. We form opinions about people based on what is being fed to us. We do not trust social media a lot, because we think it provides unfiltered information, and can be used to spread rumors. Similarly, we need to take mainstream media or centralized one-sided discourse with a pinch of salt because it is susceptible to manipulations by powerful lobbies.

My idea is not to spread distrust. We need to have a considerable degree of trust on institutions and established sources of information. What I mean to say is that, whenever we read something, we should use our judgment, and not emotions, rationale and not beliefs. It sounds easy on paper, but it is impossible to achieve completely, No one is a perfectly logical person, but every one can definitely try to be more scientific in their outlook. 

The alarming problem is that people tend to believe in their individual hypotheses, and create a new story out of it. It defeats the purpose of objectivity. Facts, when twisted, do not remain facts, they become lies, half truths or unverifiable propositions. While it is good to have a hypothetical construction of facts in mind, people should not shy away from rejecting them if more facts come to light. Intellectual honesty comes when you can doubt your own beliefs, can stand up to misinformation spread for decades by institutions with vested interests, and try to find a way out for the betterment of the world and its people.