Who Do We Promote As A Credible Source?

Who do we promote as trustworthy? What groups do we promote for such status? Who, in this world, can we trust?

These are the questions now, aren’t they? Recent events, recent observations, recent verbal spouting on the internet by anyone with a keyboard and an opinion—and possibly a desire for attention or “clicks”—results in a slow glide toward no one trusting anyone in a place of major authority.

“Fake news” is the order of the year.

It’s absurd. It’s modern day. Everyone has an agenda they are trying to promote, and they will find a source—no matter the difficulty to do so—that promotes their outlook.

And we sometimes accept these questionable, dodgy outlooks because it’s human nature to do so.

You are more likely to believe the things that support your worldview, because your worldview is already what you think is true, and so anything that slots into it must be true too, right? And combine this with the adage of “don’t trust everything you read on the internet” slowly taken to a new extreme with “don’t trust anything you hear from any media, anywhere,” and soon no one knows anything at all except their own opinions and experiences. Personal evidence becoming the only evidence.

What is an expert anymore if no one will believe experts? What is the point of the scientific method if no one accepts its outcome? How is anyone supposed to understand anything if no one can be trusted? Even the cold hard truth of numbers, once loved, goes shunned—because a biased human calculated it.

Climate change, vaccines, health care, minimum wage, immigration. Science, politics, economics, medicine, in their entirety it seems sometimes, is questioned by at least one person.

And, unlike some posts I do on Buzzazz, I don’t have a summation of an answer. You’ve read this far, and I am sorry if it disappoints: but I don’t know what to do. My usual options of promoting empathetic and analytical responses—that is a little left-leaning and technologically optimistic in mindset—will not work much here. No truism can I offer: no mike drop of a conclusion.

Because some news is fake.

But some is real.

But some is biased.

But, then, everything is somewhat biased.

By the issue of having been delivered via a human’s brain and mouth, and witnessed through organic eyes—even if only seeing it on a screen—a bias exists.

And you can make your own conclusions from data you have or you research, but you can’t in-depth check everything in the whole wide world to confirm the study untainted. Furthermore, everyone’s personality, mental state, biochemistry, education, and general cultural upbringing is a little different, even among siblings, or even twins, so, if someone says the food pyramid is a lie, for instance, that might be true for someone, but not everyone.

Never everyone.

And that’s great, sure, better than being cogs—but it’s not helpful on a global stage. We must have a way to decide for huge swathes of the populace, somehow. No one, and I hate to say it, has total control over their life—even a bump in the sidewalk can make you late. The butterfly effect is a real observable thing in hindsight—and someone, be they president or teacher or scientist etc. must make decisions about how to handle situations at some point from some knowledge pool—which will affect other people regardless of how they feel on the matter.

We Have To Promote For Someone To Be Trustworthy

Even if we got an A.I. to do it, the program would contain bias. As someone programmed that A.I. to begin with, and they had a bias.

We can promote the truth being made available. But, when we cherry-pick the truth-bringers to our own worldview, then it is not helpful to humanity as whole.

We need an almost blind way to judge who is qualified to give workable answers. Perhaps college degrees? Experience? Age?

We need something uniform.

But of course, everyone will have different opinions on those criteria too.

As I said, there is no definitive solution. And a lack of a generally accepted reality of what is, and what is not, true and factual and observable, leads to anarchy. Democracy deals with the whims and priorities and ideas of the masses, but for that to work, a majority must promote an outcome within those masses.

And when that majority has no stable terminal of accurate data, even on such things as the state of our living, breathing world, then the straits are dire. It’s not a good place to be.

Somehow, or someway, numbers, facts, statistics, must regain their integrity and lack of meddling and manipulative presentation, and promote itself back into a state of trustworthiness.

There might not be any other way.

Society must have some level of organization to be a “society,” and organization relies upon group agreement. The alternative is a sort of anarchy that even a proponent of that political philosophy—read: actual anarchists—might not approve of existing.

If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work on The Hive, or at his website: www.coolerbs.com