Facts don’t have bias, but opinions sure do.
A huge amount of what we do in prepping involves putting together skills, equipment, supplies and training that we will use if the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF).
To do this, a lot of preppers spend a whole lot of time reading, listening to and learning about current ongoing events to try to anticipate potential threats while there is still time to do something to get ready for them.
As I’ve said on numerous occasions, I think that far, far too much time and effort is spent in this way; but here’s what else I know: My opinion is in the minority, and a lot of you folks think I am wrong.
OK, I can live with that, you do it your way and I will do it mine.
Having said that, I want to encourage everybody… heck, let me just CHALLENGE everybody, to do one thing a whole lot better than is generally done in the overall prepping world.
Check the facts.
Facts don’t have bias
It really is that simple.
I was reading an article about this on RegisteredNursing.org, and I really like how they said something so I’m just going to borrow a snippet from their piece and expand on it when I am done:
- A fact: A fact is a truth. A fact is a statement of truth that can be verified and is able to be proven as true.
- An opinion: An opinion is a statement that reflects an author’s or the speaker’s point of view, beliefs, perspective, personal feelings and values; opinions cannot be verified and proven to be true or false like a fact can be verified and proven to be true; however, a person’s opinion can be supported or refuted when a critical thinker and a critically thinking reader of a text scrutinizes and critically evaluates the author’s opinions, point of view, beliefs, perspective, personal feelings and values and these opinions are based on documented valid and reliable facts.
- Empirical data and information: Evidence of a fact that entails and includes the use of one’s five senses.
- The five senses: Vision, hearing, smelling, which is referred to as the olfactory sense, tasting, which is referred to as the gustatory sense, and the sense of touch, which is the tactile sense.
BOOM! That pretty much nails it.
Opinions? They have not just one bias, but several
I’m going to borrow just a bit more of this well written article and let them explain bias. All credit for this section goes to them, to be clear:
- A bias: A bias, simply defined, is the tendency of a human being to have a positive tendency, inclination or proclivity for something or a negative tendency against something. Other words that describe a bias are a predilection, an inclination, a preference, and a prejudgment for or against something.
- Group think bias: This bias occurs when members of a group want high levels of cohesiveness, consecutiveness, agreement and harmony within the group and they do not want a lack of harmony and conflict. The tendency for group think occurs as a part of human nature.
- Conformation bias: This bias, simply stated, is a person’s predilection and tendency to support, favor and accept thoughts and things that are consistent and congruent with their preexisting thoughts, beliefs and opinions.
- Overconfidence bias: This bias is manifested when a person is biased towards their own perspective and view because they believe that they and they alone is the expert.
- The halo effect bias: This bias is characterized with a person’s inclination to blindly accept the thoughts, views and perspectives of another person, including an author of a text, because of some characteristic or trait of that person even though that person’s traits and characteristics have little or nothing to do with the perceived expertise that a person thinks that they have.
- The horn effect bias: The opposite of the halo effect of bias is the horn effect of bias. This bias is characterized with a person’s inclination to blindly reject the thoughts, views and perspectives of another person, including an author of a text, because of some characteristic or trait of that person even though that person’s traits and characteristics have little or nothing to do with the lack of expertise that a person thinks that they have.
Whew, Salty, that’s a lot of stuff! So what’s your point in all of this?
I think most 3BY readers have at least some contact with social media in some form, whether it’s through twitter, Facebook, prepper forums or visiting prepper websites.
We’ve all seen the memes out there talking about all kinds of dangers that the world is in, all kinds of imminent disasters including social / political unrest, impending war… heck, you name it, we’ve all seen it.
My point is this.
Most of them are pure, unadulterated ‘bull stuff’ (BS).
Complete garbage.
What do we see though? Them being shared time after time, retweeted again and again, without a single fact being checked by anybody in the entire process.
Here’s a podcast I put together on the subject of media bias:
Many people only care if the information supports their opinion. If it supports their opinion, they assume it is correct.
Note: Most people are not consciously aware that this is why they’re accepting a source as being correct.
This is one of the oldest philosophical arguments in history: Does the end justify the means?
To me, this is a core question that everybody must ask, and (again, to me) it is a binary question (one that has only two answers). Yes. Or, No.
Only you can answer whether the ends justify the means in your world. I suspect that many of my readers will say “no” to that… I would guess that most here at 3BY believe that the ends never justify the means.
Those same readers, however, may turn around and post a bunch of information on social media that was created by some person with a cause to sell and that the information being pushed is either intentionally misleading or even outright false.
The idea that “it’s right at heart” is just another way of saying “it’s OK to lie to people as long as it agrees with my opinion” or… as I am sure you are aware… “the ends justifies the means”.
Spreading lies is either right (end does justify the means) or spreading lies is wrong (the end does NOT justify the means). Binary solution set.
Pick one.
Salty, I don’t have time for all of this!
To me, passing along biased information that is not supported by clear, concise evidence without also stating that “this is just my wild guess” is lying. When somebody intentionally shares a meme or story that they know is “iffy” or not quite accurate without a disclaimer, it’s morally the same to me as telling a lie.
Bending the truth is lying. “Fudging” the truth is lying.
I can’t do that, personally… if somebody tells me something and says it’s a fact, a truth, then I need to verify it for myself by finding independent evidence.
If you look at our PrepperMed series, we are very clear where we get our information from, and we try hard document our statements based on peer reviewed research… or, if it is just a guess, we clearly state that it is, indeed, just our opinions with nothing but our own experiences to back it up.
In full disclosure, we don’t search every single statement and footnote it, there’s some that we base off of our overall knowledge base, but we encourage anybody and everybody to question anything we say, verify it for yourselves (or ask us to share sources to back up our statements)
Don’t trust us, check to see if we have documented it, and check our sources.
We recognize that our readers should put much more weight behind the stuff that has research behind it than our opinions.
So how do I check to see things are actually true?
There are many ways to fact check on the internet.
When I see things I think are pretty “out there” or outrageous, I generally start with Snopes.com.
The funny thing about Snopes.com is that a lot of people who are spreading false information have been working their tails off to discredit Snopes as being part of one wing of American politics political agenda.
Interestingly enough, when you fact check this claim, it doesn’t hold water either.
Let’s use this as a quick example of fact checking by just using easily available internet sources.
I say I want to fact check something on Snopes.com, and somebody says to me “that’s dumb, Snopes is biased against my political philosophy’s point of view!”
“Oh,” I say, “I had better check to see if what you are saying holds water!”
Does it hold water (said in my best My Cousin Vinny accent)
So I call up another internet fact checking service that specializes in debunking political misinformation, realclearpolitics.com.
Turns out they have already done a study of Snopes and four other factchecking sites. What do they say about Snopes?
“We have found that since we started our project, Snopes has fact-checked opinions only 2 percent of the time. In other words, 98 percent of the time it sticks to matters of verifiable fact. Such an achievement is even more remarkable given that during this period, Snopes has produced the second-most articles of the six fact-checking outfits. The Weekly Standard comes in next most reliably at 95 percent, but it published only 44 fact checks to Snopes’ 400. Only PolitiFact released more fact checks than Snopes since we started Fact Check Review — 434 — and it comes in fourth place at 85 percent.”
SO… Real Clear Politics likes Snopes! But wait. Realclearpolitics.com may be biased… let’s check them out with yet another fact checker, Allsides.com. So we do and they say this: “RealClearPolitics is a political news and polling data aggregator based in Chicago, Illinois. The site’s founders say their goal is to give readers “ideological diversity”. Politico Executive Editor Jim VandeHei has called the site “an essential stop for anyone interested in politics.”
The site was founded in 2000 by former options trader John McIntyre and former advertising agency account executive Tom Bevan. Forbes Media LLC bought a 51% equity interest in the site in 2007.”
What does Allsides.com have to say about Snopes directly? Here’s what they have: “Snopes media bias rating is Not Rated.” Bummer. Ah well.
Building your research & fact checking toolbox
I’ve got you, I hear what you are saying to me… “Salty, you are a bit over the top on this stuff, that’s just too much work for something that doesn’t matter…”
Nah, I’ve got your back brothers and sisters… let me quickly help you build your fact checking toolbox, then you can take it from there.
First, search out the various different fact checking websites who claim that they are independent and non-partisan. Then go through the process that I describe above for Snopes until you find fact checking sites that you are confident in.
KEY POINT: Do not find sites you “agree” with, but rather sites that check FACTS not OPINIONS.
Opinions are what they are, they are all about bias. Facts are just the facts.
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