10-2-26
What happened to people’s ability to think for themselves clearly, fairly, rationally, and accurately?
I’d really like to know.
The thing that makes it so ironic is that we live in an age where people have access to vast amounts of information, more than ever before in human history. Think about it. With just our smartphones, devices which literally fit in our pockets, we can access boundless amounts of information from all over the world. News sites, online encyclopedias, a vast array of other websites, and multiple television news channels are all literally at our fingertips. Never in human history has so much information been so readily available to an everyday individual. It’s quite amazing when you think about it.
As a result, it’s easier than ever to obtain information from a variety of different sources and get different points of view in order to be as accurate as possible. The problem is that millions and millions of people don’t do this. Instead, they focus on sites and people that only tell them what they want to hear. They only connect and communicate with places and others who agree with them and shun those that don’t. Many only get their news from extremely biased, one sided sources that frequently twist information around, exaggerate, and sometimes flat out lie. And when reputable news sites tell them accurate information they don’t want to hear, they often call it things like “fake.” They seem to prefer deluding themselves over facing the truth.
There are plenty of examples of this these days. Let’s be frank: Donald Trump legitimately lost the 2020 election. That’s a fact. There’s overwhelming evidence proving this. Every single state certified the election. There were Republican, Democrat, and Independent officials in the ballot counting rooms in all the states overseeing the vote tallying process. There were even international observers from multiple countries monitoring the election. When Trump and his officials tried to spread their false claims of fraud in the courts, they lost over 60 times. And many of the judges who ruled against them were conservatives themselves. Yet tens of millions of Americans continue to believe the false claims of fraud as they only listen to Trump, other select Republican figures, and conservative websites about the election. They’re ignoring the vast amount of evidence showing that there was no widespread fraud and that Trump legitimately lost.
There are plenty of other examples of people across the political spectrum and from all walks of life getting bad, distorted, false information because they only use one sided, biased sources that just tell them what they want to hear. And with social media, things can spread like wildfire, even when they’re completely wrong.
People need to open their minds and get information from varied, independent, reputable sources. They should make it a point to learn different points of view, try to verify information, be as objective as possible, and not only listen to those that tell them just what they want to hear. This would help more people get a better, more accurate understanding of the truth than has been happening thus far, which in turn would be a positive step in making the world a better place for everyone.
