Why you should check facts
When I was still young as in single digits my parents gave me a gift that was probably worth a great deal of money. I never knew. We received a full set of encyclopedias thanks to a traveling salesman. I soon learned that even with this well of knowledge it came with a best before date. That is when we started received the yearly update books each one a condensation of what had been learned in the year before. Spoiler alert it never even came close. We do so much better now. We have search engines. As someone told me if you cannot find an answer you just have not asked the correct question. And that is the other bump in the road correct answers are not a given. In fact we are now awash in a world of knowledge that needs to be corrected as soon as possible. In the world of wiki anyone can say anything at anytime. No fact checking required. Much like some of those speeches by a certain presidential candidate. Over the years I have learned to take easy knowledge as probably not worth much. If you do not need to dig deeper you’re getting the dirt on the surface only. So how is that working out for me? Well I have stopped saying really stupid things to my friends. They understand fact checking. And my siblings no longer asked me questions since they have all learned to read. A mixed blessing. So what is next? I keep hearing the catch phrase AI for artificial intelligence and I fear that like artificial flavouring it will prove to be not so much of value. I mean ask yourself do you trust everything you hear. I extend my sympathies in that case even my dog did not go down that lonely road.
