Before you go on, an article in the May 8 & May 22, 2021 issue of Science News ran with a cover "Awash in Deception: How science can help us avoid being duped by misinformation." In the lead article titled: "The Battle Against Fake News," Alexandra Witze presents five suggestions on how to debunk bad information. They come from the News Literacy Project (see the above link).
How to Debunk:
1. Arm yourself with media literacy skills, at sites such as the News Literacy Project (newslit.org), to better understand how to spot hoax videos and stories.
2. Don't stigmatize people for holding inaccurate beliefs. Show empathy and respect, or you're more likely to alienate your audience than successfully share accurate information.
3. Translate complicated but true ideas into simple messages that are easy to grasp. Videos, graphics and other visual aids can help.
4. When possible, once you provide a factual alternative to the misinformation, explain the underlying fallacies (such as cherry- picking information, a common tactic of climate change deniers.
5. Mobilize when you see misinformation being shared on social media as soon as possible. If you see something, say something.
"Misinformation is any information that is incorrect, whether due to error or fake news.
"Disinformation is deliberately intended to deceive."
"Propaganda is disinformation with a political agenda."
Sander van der Linden
Social Psychologist
University of Cambridge
Source: Science News/May 8, 2021 & May 22, 2021
Update: September 22, 2023: This is more important now than ever. Be vigilant and speak in your own way. Love Wins.
Update: McQuade, Barbara, "Attack From Within," 2024. New York Times best seller.
Somewhere in a recent post, I talked briefly about how a little book called “Reasons Not to Worry: How to be Stoic in Chaotic Times” by Australian Brigid Delaney was helping me to respond better to the self inflicted societal disinformation/white supremacy/right wing religious/billionaire driven campaign of chaos that we are being forced to endure and respond to in 2025.
It seems like we’re being fire-hosed with every conceivable form of hate that anyone in their wildest nightmares could possible come up with. Yet, here we are. How is one to absorb the force of the deluge of the unthinkable while trying to sniff out each hateful item and address them in a rational, lawful and sane way.
Of course, there isn’t any one person or organization that can turn off this spewing of horrendous hurtful hate. It requires a whole village, more like a whole country to get that hydrant of hate turned off and the hose reattached to the hydrant of love.
I’m about 2/3 of the way through Delaney’s book. What makes this book really useful is that it applies Stoic principles that are well over 2,000 years old to the crazy making COVID-19 Pandemic which Delaney lived through down under.
I will be reading and re-reading this book. My relationship with Stoicism is all of about three months old yet it has begun transforming me and honing my skills to absorb the blows of the outrageous and hateful and get passed it…for the most part.
Stoicism goes back to Greek and Roman times. People who called themselves Stoics developed an approach for looking life directly in the face and dealing with what it was. Not what you wanted it to be, but for what it was.
Stoics developed a basic test to put the daily events of life through. It became known as “the Control Test.” What it boils down to is something like this. There are three things that you can control. The rest is outside of your control and you should avoid spending precious time thinking or worrying about them because there is nothing that you can do about them.
According to Delaney’s interpretation of Stoicism, the three things that comprise the Control Test filter are:
1. Our Character. Character is comprised of the four virtues: courage, self-control, wisdom and justice.
2. Our Reactions (in some cases our actions, but not the outcomes of our actions)
3. How we treat others.
As I continue through this book and attempt to run life events through this control test, I find it to be sort of having a mantra-like calming an clarifying effect on me. As Delaney relates real life applications of the control test, this Stoic technique becomes more and more real and useful.
My world view has changed considerably in the past five years. Those of you that have followed my writings over that time can testify to the changes that I have gone through. This Stoicism has been a game changer for me. It is helping me to cut through the crap and spend more and more of my time on the things that I control. My character, my reactions and my response to others.
I suggest that you explore Stoicism. In my short experience with it, guys like Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius (who, if I remember right, applied his Stoic practice during the time of the Emperor Nero. If you think we’ve got it rough now, you might want to research what life was like under Nero).
Anyway, I’ll get out of your way. See if this helps!
