Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Derrin Brown asks How do you combat and filter miss information? aka fake news?

This is one of the most important skills that someone can learn and it isn’t easy to do. It takes constant practice and diligence.

The first step is to be skeptical of everything. Don’t just blindly accept anything you read or hear.

One good start is to start applying Betteridge’s law of headlines to articles you read. Betteridge’s law of headlines states that any headline that is a question can be answered with “no.” That is because if it were true, they wouldn’t need to phrase it as a question.

Don’t assume that someone you agree with generally is always right and that someone you disagree with is always wrong. They might be wrong for reasons that are true, but they draw the wrong conclusions.

By the same token, someone might be right for the wrong reasons.

Sometimes, it can be hard to know if something is right. Even if you think something is right, I would never accept it 100%. I’d always accept the possibility that it might be wrong.

One of the things I try to do is to have a working hypothesis rather than an opinion. Once people develop an opinion, they have a natural tendency to stick to it nad defenend it, even in the face of evidence which might be contrary. However, if you hold something as a hypothesis, then you are much more likely to be willing to modify your position and would be less willing to defend it to the death.

Finally, sublty and nuance is important. There is always a desire to make things black and white, but the truth is usually not so simple.