We All Do Our Part
Exponential Ignorance is one of the biggest problems facing mankind in our modern age.
In the old days (before radio, TV and the Internet), people shared ideas with relatively limited groups of people. The number of individuals one could influence were only a tiny fraction of how many can be touched in this day and age. The result was when someone spread their ignorance, the impact was limited compared to today.
We all spread our ignorance. We can't help it. When you or I speak authoritatively about something we only believe rather than know, we are spreading our ignorance.
Don't be offended. Ignorance is defined as the lack of knowledge. Knowing is different than believing. The first is provable by repeatedly testing for a causal relationship using a validated test. The latter is not. You can't know something that is not provable.
All of the life on the Earth suffers for our ignorance. In the past, the impact was palatable. Our world could handle it. Now, if the right person spreads their ignorance, our world gets the breath knocked out of it. It's due to the burgeoning quantity of humans and the power of our communications networks. The sphere of influence for any given individual is now so huge that the impact of their right speaking and their wrong speaking is vastly amplified. And so are the consequences.
So be careful what you buy.
Everything you accept as fact simply because you trust the person who told you becomes a new belief to you. Unless you can prove the factual nature of the thing in question, it remains in the cognitive domain of ignorance for you. You do not know it. And that's OK. We can't know everything. We are required by our human limitations to act on what we believe, whether we want to or not. And we live with the consequences of those actions just like we do the consequences of actions based on what we know.
When others hear what we say, interpretation is involved. That complicates things even more. I speak, you hear and you apply meaning to my words. You then speak your version of what I said. Others hear and they interpret (apply meaning). Error is introduced a little or a lot depending on the hearer.
By the time something reaches the 24th layer of repetition, potentially thousands of people have handled it. If you've ever played The Telephone Game, you know what I mean. If it ever was fact, it has become unrecognizable by the time the 10th person repeats it.
Incorrect Is Easy. Easy Is Popular. Correct Takes Hard Work. Sigh.
Please be careful. Do your best to avoid making life and death decisions based on what you do not know. Accept that much of what you hear may not be true. It may be a poor interpretation of something someone never knew in the first place.
Knowledge continues to be a Thing That Works. Ignorance? Maybe not so much.
