There are some issues where it’s understood that people will lie. If you’re having a surprise birthday party, you might have to lie, and nobody thinks you’re a bad person for it.
Unfortunately, the scope of things we expect people to lie about is getting broader and broader. We’ve essentially given up on expecting politicians to tell the truth, and it looks like the news is next. There are also certain issues about which you can never believe anything.
Does hydroxy-whatever work? How could you know, one way or the other? People who say it works are accused of being Trump supporters, and people who hate Trump insist it doesn’t work.
Do the police disproportionately target blacks? How can you know? If you say that they don’t (as Heather MacDonald says) you get blacklisted.
Are children better off at home with mom or in daycare? Who’s willing to tell the truth and make the feminists mad?
Did Trump approve of a supporter calling Obama a monkey? Who’s to say? Some say yes, some say no.
This is, IMO, precisely why conspiracy theories grow. We all know perfectly well that there are lots of topics where people won’t tell the truth. It’s a small step from “they won’t tell the truth about [race / sex / Obama / Trump / the protests]” to “they won’t tell the truth about [Pizzagate / the “real” agenda with COVID / ….].”
As light is a method to minimize darkness, truth is a method to minimize lies that lead to conspiracies. Therefore, it might be worthwhile to place effort in seeking reliable indicators to help discern what’s truthful. When we see behavior and situations like the following, it may be a reliable indicator that something is amiss, and the truth might be found elsewhere.
• A moral leader that vacillates on his principles that he claims are based on truth. With a political opponent he said, “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public? Private conduct does have public consequences.” Yet, with a political ally, he didn’t apply that standard.
• A medical treatment (e.g., hydroxy) that is purported to be a Covid-19 cure, but has no consistent, verifiable record of efficacy when used in clinical trials. In fact, the FDA, deauthorized its emergency use due to the lack of efficacy and potential harm to some patients.
• Some political leaders urge the reopening of schools and declare it to be generally safe. Yet, their kids are not returning to school in person (e.g., Barron Trump, WH Advisor Kelly Anne Conway children, Sen. Rick Scott’s grandchildren and others). Neither are leaders of this ilk directly participating in activities they advocate for others.
• When a president consistently claims he only associates with the best talent but has an excessively high staff turnover rate, some of his associates resigned due to ethical issues and a significant number of his associates have been criminally charged and/or found guilty of crimes.
• When a government agency provides warning about the path of a dangerous storm and has documented, verifiable records that corroborate their warning, but it’s consistently and incorrectly refuted by the president, using a sharpie. #sharpiegate
Fact-finding and attempting to discern what’s true (as much a feasible) may be our only means for wading through the current conundrum of conspiracies.
You missed the point. You act as if you have access to clearly true information on these topics — e.g., hydroxy. I dispute that entirely. Unless you spend many, many hours researching it, I don’t believe you can find the truth, because it has become political, and therefore everybody lies about it.
For example, let’s take a topic you and I know a decent amount about — justification by faith alone. Catholics misrepresent the Protestant position, and vice versa. How many hours would you say that someone would need to study the issue before their opinion was worth more than a bucket of warm spit? I’d say at least 10 hours, and probably more like 20.
I don’t have the time or the inclination to spend hours and hours researching the latest political storm to see who’s telling the truth. That’s supposed to be the role of the media, but they’ve abandoned that.
No, you incorrectly assumed I missed the point. Some things don’t need deep research. For instance, in this information age, it only takes a few moments to verify the Earth is indeed round. Not unless one believes that all the information complied to date is fake. As well, when reasonable testimony and behavior are available one can have somewhat of a reliable indicator of what’s true. For example, when a sister, niece, multiple former administration leaders (who are not aligned with his political opposition) all have consistent testimonies that the president has a severely flawed moral character AND his consistent behavior cooberates those testimonies, there’s a significant probably that it’s accurate.
That said, as for hydroxy, if it was really a “cure”, where’s he evidence for it…especially with the endorsement it’s gotten from the US president and some conservatives? Wouldn’t there be more people recovering with its use? Do you really think world leaders would allow their economies to suffer if there was “true” cure? I don’t think so…especially since the Trump administration has allegedly stock piled massive amounts of it.
Hydroxychloroquine isn’t a “cure.” It’s supposed to help if it’s administered early.
You ask what world leaders think. I don’t know. Do you? Based on what? On American news reporting?
I’m not sure I can trust this article, but it says other countries are using it, and it’s helping.
If HCQ worked in other countries, as this article claims, do you think the liberal American media would cover it? I don’t. If there was slam-dunk evidence that HCQ works in other countries, I think the media would cover it up until after the election.
I would like to find an honest source of news from Europe, because American news is garbage.
To be clear, I am not saying HCQ works. What I’m saying is that I have no way of knowing whether it does or doesn’t without doing hours and hours of research, because our news media is full of dishonest partisans who regularly lie and distort stories.
We live in scary times. HCQ I think probably doesn’t work…but I accept it on authority. I don’t really know.
It’s scary how good deep fakes are now. Can’t even trust a photo or video
That’s the thing. It’s perfectly reasonable to accept things on authority. You can’t go through life examining everything for yourself. But the “authorities” aren’t taking that responsibility seriously.