Critical thinking: Be curious, not judgmental.

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To preface this, I wrote up a piece previously on how modern Social Media has screwed us up collectively. If you have not seen that one, you can find it here. For the purposes of this discussion, that article talks about the what. Here, we will discuss the how. As in, by exactly what mechanism has having access to more information than ever before somehow screwed us up far worse than when we had less access to it? Shouldn't we instead be more well-informed and better off? Do we have a "Duty to Know?"

To begin, I will link an article which makes an argument somewhat contrary to the one I am about to make (Caution: some political bias detected): Scientific American: OP ED - Peak Denial

TL;DR (their words, not mine): "We are living through a terrible time in humanity. Here’s why we tend to stick our heads in the sand and why we need to pull them out, fast!" Okay... well, it is certainly true that ignoring a problem often will not make it go away, I'll give them that. But while the author of that op ed correctly identifies a cause and effect phenomenon and then gives their opinion on how they feel about it, they ignore something VERY important: self-interest exists, and people lie routinely to preserve it. They assume that the doom and gloom information we have access to via the firehose of the Internet (never mind that there are things that aren't doom and gloom there too) has some benign value or intent. That at least one source of information can be trusted to tell you the truth, and that you know enough to know what that is.

Simply put, that is just not possible.

Religion. Politics. Ideology. Activism. While there may be truth in their teachings and ideas, NONE of these speak the entire truth. It never has, and never will. No Bible, Manifesto, Ideal, or Goal survives the self-interests of the human beings that wrote them. No matter what you've been told, it's been filtered through the mind of another person to get to your eyes and ears... even if it is allegedly the Word of God, itself. Somewhere, somehow, and possibly in some originally benign or innocent way, something was mistranslated, left out, misheard, or completely fabricated. How the hell do you know what that is and when that might have happened?

Right, so nothing matters then. We're all doomed. I'm a Nihilist, right? Not so fast.

It's easy to jump to conclusions; to overshoot and instead of understanding, going too far. Too often we feel the need to tackle social problems (rightfully so). But in doing so it is never seemingly enough to just get even. We must get justice! Never mind that the problem going forward could possibly now be averted; those responsible for the problem in the first place must feel the pain themselves! They MUST PAY. Never mind that that just causes resentment back in the other direction, thus causing a swinging pendulum effect... and ensuring the back and forth continues unabated for who knows how long. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. And that, to me, is worse than us picking our battles to keep our heads on straight, or even sticking our head in the sand at times.

No, I'm a realist.

Okay, but what do I mean by that? Allow me to demonstrate by posing another question: If we have a "duty to know", what good is being in possession of knowledge to you if it is something like "The world ends at 3PM and there is nothing you can do about it"? Let's just say you're reading this at noon time the day of--what actual good does knowing that do for you? Congratulations, now you're quite possibly miserable, and it wouldn't have made a difference either way. Okay, fine, that was an extreme example. How about something more realistic--Some asshole did something atrocious to a bunch of people on the other side of the world and you found out about it on social media. Nobody in their right mind thinks it's OK and chances are, you'll never see or experience anything like it yourself, nor know anyone who will. But having knowledge of this event--which you would have never known about if you weren't on Twitter or watching the News--has made you angry, frustrated, fearful, anxious, or in some way, shape, or form, miserable. What good has that done you? What can you do about it? What meaningfulness does it have to your day at work or home or whatever it is you were doing before you found out about it? More importantly, what does it do to how you intake and process future information?

"But dude, what about the boil advisory in my neighborhood, or the active shooter down the street, or the severe weather heading my way?" Hey--I didn't say plug your ears up and make goofy noises and say "I don't hear you!"

I'm saying: Does knowing something confer some form of benefit? To what extent is information junk information, and how do we keep it from cluttering our minds?

"Ignorance is bliss", they say. OK, Sure. "Knowledge is power!" they say. Alright, fine. But power invokes responsibility. I don't know about you, but I've noticed that throughout the course of history, there seems to be a trend of Humanity not being able to be trusted with power, and also really not liking that responsibility thing either. Here's the thing--Ignorance, the state of simply not knowing, to have to say "I don't know" when asked about something, is forgivable. Stupidity--that is, choosing to ignore reality as it applies directly to someone DESPITE having the intelligence to know better to maintain comfort, status, or preserve pride--to act like they know better when they know they don't--is much different. Society pushes us hard in pursuit of that power knowing this. Unfortunately, our minds are not wired in our favor.

Case in point--I'll link here a video by Johnny Harris, who does a better job of explaining this than I ever could. And don't even get me started on how social media algorithms and soon AI will factor into his point.

My point after all of that: We're all led to believe we have a "Duty to Know"; to be well-informed and to seek knowledge. But with all this access to information--and everybody asserting THEY speak the truth, what even IS real knowledge? What is actually useful to us in our daily lives? I assert it is out there, but we absolutely MUST be willing to be curious and question everything. This is NOT a new problem. Hell, the Bible of Abrahamic religions such as Christianity or Judaism talks about how Eve supposedly ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, leading to the fall of Mankind. What am I arguing here with that? To take that story word-for-word seriously? That somehow acquiring knowledge is some form of sin? That I want you to believe religious teachings? No, no, and NO. But I am pointing out that there is a point to that old story, whether you believe it literally or not. And that is, that it has been well known for millennia that there are things you need to know, and a LOT of things you don't... lest you make yourself overwhelmed, anxious, and expecting doom.

Now consider the fact that likely a lot of what you believe is actually bullshit. That goes for me too, by the way.

Don't be full of yourself. Be curious, not judgmental, and for the love of all that is good, think critically about everything. Because like the universe and the world around us will remind us constantly, to live in happiness and safety is a revolutionary act. But we have the power to do it, as long as we don't let it overwhelm ourselves with more than we can handle.

^{NOTE: Edited to remove unnecessary warnings at the beginning and clarify some of my wording based on feedback.}

--PRD/SentientAberration

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