On the Nature of Mass Media Misinformation

Curiously enough, it's often not what people don't know that gets them into the most trouble. Rather, it's what we think we already know, or "want to believe" (in error) that usually trips us up. So, although "knowledge is power," misinformation can be downright deadly. Besides, misinformation, or "colloquial wisdom," is usually based on common misconceptions, which in turn are often based on hearsay. Or, sometimes, misinformation is even the product of outright lies, disseminated by various, clearly biased entities (the media, corrupt government agencies, CULTural and/or social groups with a self-serving agenda, etc) to an often gullible, easily hoodwinked and therefore overly excitable (often to the point of outright hysteria) general public, that either doesn't want to have to bother to take the time to check the facts, or, even worse yet, they're apathetic, and just don't give a damn to begin with.

On the Nature of Human Limitations

You see, the very first thing you've got to figure out in this life is who the good guys and the bad guys really, truly are. You've got to do your very own homework. You've got to study all the relevant facts that you can possibly accumulate, and then, and only then, can you make reasoned and informed choices for very own individual self. I mean, everybody knows that, right? Or do they?

Well, we all know that there are always a veritable bevy of people who may not be terribly bright, so seem to have nothing better to do than spew slanderous, dishonest, self-serving venom, propaganda, and pure, unadulterated lies from every conceivable side of any issue.

Worse yet, most people simply cannot sort through all that mental, verbal and societal subterfuge. So most folks just end up becoming part of the cacophony of conflicting information, half-truths and outright disinformation.

But that's not the only reason why so many people tend to traffic in pure, unadulterated malarkey. No, quite often, they do it for "business," to make as much money almighty as humanly possible.

Even more troubling, some individuals greedily soak up, and then willfully disseminate, outright falsehoods because they're just plain bored. Or they may simply pass misinformation along for the sake of entertainment - which is at the true heart of most wacky conspiracy theories to begin with anyway, you know.

Simply put, it's awfully, awfully entertaining to fancy oneself "smart," with all sorts of harebrained notions about how the Earth is supposedly flat, or that NASA and the entire government of the United States somehow managed to fake the moon landing. Yeah right. Gullible much?

The fact of the matter is that a whole lot of people simply obfuscate the truth for all sorts of self-serving (and often clearly delusional) reasons. They do it for mass media ratings. They do it for fame, which usually goes hand in hand with fortune - or so we are all led to believe anyway.

But perhaps most shameful of all, people engage in lies and deception for shamelessly political reasons, all designed to get power and control over the masses. Because ideology (religious zeal, etc) is often what gets most people worked up and/or motivated to specific ends. That's also where race baiting comes in, unfortunately.

In other words, many many otherwise well-meaning folks simply get inadvertently swallowed up in wholesale mass-media generated deception because they're outright misinformed. But also, unfortunately, because many people are simply naive, or at the very least, tend to be easily swept up in the vicious mob mentality that has often caused the very worst crimes in the long, often sad annals of human history.

Worst of all, the masses are susceptible to misinformation and outright lies, because as limited human beings, we're all more than capable of being shortsighted (or just temporarily blinded) enough to not even see the big picture in the first place. And all of the above, unfortunately, is just part of Life. It's the way most people simply are: limited.