Throughout the history of our species, we’ve either failed or flourished as a result of our ability to gather information. That gathering process has evolved along with us, but the one commonality that remains is that there’s typically some kind of attrition associated with the gathering of knowledge.
Someone had to fail before we noted the causation between failure and a lack of accurate information. Someone had to eat the diarrheas berries or fuck with the jellyfish before everyone else did the note to self thing, and added ocean blobs and shit berries to their snakes and porcupines list.
The good news is that there are plenty of candidates willing to experiment who allow the rest of us a learning opportunity. Unfortunately, we’re not all great learners, and so that opportunity goes unrecognized much more often than it should.
There’s always someone out there who wasn’t paying attention, or who was paying attention but still willing to try the berries one more time. Because they had faith that they wouldn’t suffer the same fate.
Because they’re special, and they’re hungry.
Sometimes these people actually add to our knowledge base. I mean, how many almost identical looking mushrooms did people have to eat before they figured out which ones get you high and which ones kill you?
Odds are it was a special berry guy that decided to try the fatality fungus one more time, and ended up laughing for three hours instead of suffering hemolysis and brain damage.
But sometimes it takes time to acquire information.
The death-cap mushroom for example. This particular mushroom contains the toxin alpha-amanitin that provides no symptoms for about six hours. Then after you’re feeling safe, you get the runny shits and a day later your liver shuts down and you die.
So sometimes patience is a virtue when trying to information gather. But hungry people are rarely patient and so invariably we have the attrition I mentioned earlier.
These days though, the information is readily available. The problem isn’t a lack of information, but rather opinions masquerading as information. This quandary too often requires patience that we don’t possess. As a result we decide that processing opposing opinions is too arduous, and it’s way easier to believe someone who knows fuck all about mushrooms. It makes no sense, but you believe him because he voted for the same warrior to be chief as you did.
So, it’s in your best interests to carefully examine who’s providing the information. They just might be encouraging you to swallow poison because of something they believe but can’t substantiate.
Of course, the problem is that it’s necessary to think before you trust, and that’s a challenge for the bulk of the population. It’s much easier to just trust. Also, not everyone’s a mycologist and a large chunk of the population doesn’t possess the capacity to think about stuff that isn’t immediately evident.
To complicate the issue further, we have this stupid ass habit of attacking the experts if they tell us something uncomfortable. Usually this attack is led by a non-expert with a strong opinion and a following of some sort.
Like say, a religious group.
As a result we’ve always taken two steps forward and one step back in our quest to disseminate information to the masses. We’ve always done this and we’re doing it right now. But now we have so much information that people don’t know who or what to believe, and the opinion icons are having a fame and fortune fucking field day.
In times of yore, the ability to predict a shitty outcome without a body count was called wisdom. However, the ability to predict a result accurately and repetitively was called witchcraft.
By the Christians, who had a strong opinion that they couldn’t validate in any meaningful way except with the concept of faith. So, trust us or we’ll kill you.
The rest of the world had some kind of appreciation for sages and wizards and shaman, but the last time the Christians wholeheartedly embraced wisdom was when three dudes on donkeys followed a star.
Since then, in one form or another the Christians have waged a battle against information distribution. I think they concluded that an informed flock wasn’t in their best interests. So, as a result we have a history of heretics, infidels, blasphemers and apostates. Religion as a rule is only interested in spreading their word. Other words were, and continue to be frowned upon. Because too many words and people get confused.
The Christian playbook isn’t new. Every theocracy, every empire and every dictator uses the same manual. You tell people what to think. Too much thinking and everyone get’s passionately fucked up and anarchy ensues. Then someone new comes along, and forces everyone to settle the fuck down by limiting information and telling people what to believe.
We’re on the precipice of a recurrence I think. Somehow we have to find a way to get the correct information out to people without enormous attrition. We have to find a way to dismiss belief systems in favor of accurate information gathering.
I’m not all that optimistic we can pull it off though. Too much freedom of thought generates too much freedom of action, and eventually we have mushroom clouds instead of mushroom poisonings.
We need a panel of the educated to examine evidence and then release the facts. But it’s unlikely we could even decide on the composition of the panel, so the idea is probably moot.
So, I guess we’ll likely go the same old route as always and believe the truth when it’s unilaterally self evident. There’s not much debate over evidence of a deep sea earthquake when you’re standing on the beach and you can see the tsunami.
But, we’re stupid enough to still stand on that beach and argue about why the water suddenly receded. Someone is going to argue that alarm is ridiculous. The water is going away from us, it’s time to collect stranded fish.
Because we suck at causation.
If you know what I’m sayin.