How Do You Know?

In my early retirement, Darth Grampus spends a lot of time listening, reading and trying to learn. Sometimes I engage in conversation with people about this or that hoping to have my own perspective expanded and, when possible, to expand the perspectives of others. 

But today is a bit of a... I dunno... some circus combination of "Ripley's Believe it or Not," lies, damn lies, propaganda and half-truths. We are inundated at all times, and everywhere we look, with different takes on similar events, highly suggestive and powerful arguments, framing and reframing, religious and social pressures surrounding particular ideas and narratives, and all of us, Darth Grampus included, is susceptible to being fooled.

Big Numbers and Impossibilities

I saw a video the other day of a young man talking about a megalithic structure built into a mountain where he claimed that 400,000 tons of rock and dirt was removed over the purported 18 year construction period of the structure. He made a point to mention this, calculating that 5 tons of rock and dirt had to be removed every hour of every day during the construction period. 

First, he botched the tonnage per hour requirement, at least according to the use of a calculator. 400,000 tons over 18 years works out to 60.88 tons per day for a 7-day work week, and 80 tons per day for a 6-day work week. Second, he stressed this as though it hints at some kind of impossibility to the task. It's deceptive and, sadly, probably not intentionally so. If you benchpress 200 pounds 10 times, you move 1 ton of weight. 25 total repetitions of 200 pounds, and you move 2.5 tons of weight. And in as little as 3 minutes. 

In a 6-day work week working12-hours each day, the crew had to remove 6.6 tons of rock and dirt per work hour. With, say, 20 laborers moving rock and debris, each man had to move 0.33 tons of rock and dirt per work hour. Just 11 pounds per minute. 

Now most won't bother with doing the math, but as worked out above, it makes his expressed disbelief seem a bit... odd, doesn't it? This isn't meant to downplay the merit of the feat in any way, especially given the length of time involved. It's meant to demonstrate how the presentation of information affects the way we analyze and process the information presented. 

Most people who see the young man's video are going to hear his numbers and his disbelief and... go with it. Yea, it does sound unbelievable! There's no way! Which MUST mean that <insert the chosen belief here> must be true. Then they'll scroll on to the next video, filing the accepted tidbit back in their brains for one purpose or another. 

This may seem a kind of crude example of what I'm trying to communicate here, but it should still hint at how we're affected by what we hear, and the way that information is communicated to us. It wasn't merely his inclusion of large numbers concerning weight, but his tone, inflection and word choice. All play a role in him convincing his viewers to adopt his view on the topic. 

The Delivery of Words

How many actors succeed in Hollywood with a monotone voice devoid of emotion? How many politicians? Preachers? Speakers? Inflection, tone, timbre, stress on words at play in the voice all contribute to how our brains interpret what we're hearing, and whether or not we accept it as true. 

When an academic or news broadcaster wants you to believe something, they... speak differently, don't they? Their voices sound certain. Their faces betray no doubt in expression. And the masses generally take what their told by these people as the "gospel truth."

Information Increase and Wisdom's Decline

We have more access to more information than at anytime in history (that we're certain of anyway), and yet ignorance abounds for some reason. Darth Grampus has a really difficult time with that. It's easy to humble myself under the staggering weight of my own ignorance. In the end, what the hell do I know?

Not much. And the more I've learned, the less it seems that I really know. This doesn't make me smarter than anyone, but I do feel like the maintenance of this awareness can be a powerful defense against being so easily manipulated.

One must not only be careful of the holocrons they examine, but also of how the information of those holocrons is presented. Half-truths can obscure pretty lies. Words that tell us things we like, or make us feel good, can convince us of things that aren't really true. We must be on constant guard for these subtle attempts to manipulate us. And they're happening everywhere, all the time. 

Food for thought today, for whatever its worth. 

What do you think? Are we smarter today than we've ever been? What of our wisdom? Our discernment? Our humility? Do we have the wherewithal and commitment to make changes where we find ourselves vulnerable to these manipulations? Let me know what you think in a comment. I'm especially interested in what strategies or tools you employ to keep yourself out from under the thumb of the thought-controllers.