I've had this title sitting in my blog files waiting to be expanded for a long while. Actually I've started so many times, I've lost count. I think it's partly because much of what fits is musing about the state of our government, our people, our world. We are inundated with biased data from both ends of the political, moral, and ethical spectrum. What can we believe? Notice I used the word 'data' instead of 'information'. One of the problems we face with the onslaught on our senses from media: whether social, print, or emails, is that we are experiencing what others have done with a piece of data rather than being exposed to the raw content from which we can make our own determination.
We are now in the throes of a pandemic, COVID-19, a coronavirus that appears to have first attached itself to humans in Wuhan, China and is now everywhere on our planet but Antarctica. There is never a good time for something like this to rear its microscopic head, but this is an election year — a presidential election year! And this election is about removing perhaps the most constitutionally destructive administration this young country has ever known. The level of mendacity spewing from our current president is unfathomable! The fact that he appears to have a loyal following is even more so.
That brings me back to the idea of data vs information. Our local newspaper had a front page piece a week or so ago, wherein the author stated that COVID-19 was at least ten times more lethal than the ordinary flu. That was the primary content of the first sentence! There are several problems with that, not the least of which is it promotes panic. One problem is that it's a bogus statement taken from an uncertain sample. Problem two is, there is no ordinary flu. If there was, we wouldn't need to devise a new inoculation every year. Problem three is that it sensationalizes the situation (the author calms things a bit later in the piece, but how many people actually go past that opening sentence before panicking?) That is an example of the problem. We let someone else interpret the data for us. Is it because we're too lazy to do the research? (insert a shrug here.). I wish I knew the answer.
I leave you with this:
The Peter Principle and COVID-19. Paraphrasing the Principle — people rise in their careers until they reach their level of incompetence. An encyclopedia containing that definition would be accompanied by DJT as an example.
Namaste.
We are now in the throes of a pandemic, COVID-19, a coronavirus that appears to have first attached itself to humans in Wuhan, China and is now everywhere on our planet but Antarctica. There is never a good time for something like this to rear its microscopic head, but this is an election year — a presidential election year! And this election is about removing perhaps the most constitutionally destructive administration this young country has ever known. The level of mendacity spewing from our current president is unfathomable! The fact that he appears to have a loyal following is even more so.
That brings me back to the idea of data vs information. Our local newspaper had a front page piece a week or so ago, wherein the author stated that COVID-19 was at least ten times more lethal than the ordinary flu. That was the primary content of the first sentence! There are several problems with that, not the least of which is it promotes panic. One problem is that it's a bogus statement taken from an uncertain sample. Problem two is, there is no ordinary flu. If there was, we wouldn't need to devise a new inoculation every year. Problem three is that it sensationalizes the situation (the author calms things a bit later in the piece, but how many people actually go past that opening sentence before panicking?) That is an example of the problem. We let someone else interpret the data for us. Is it because we're too lazy to do the research? (insert a shrug here.). I wish I knew the answer.
I leave you with this:
The Peter Principle and COVID-19. Paraphrasing the Principle — people rise in their careers until they reach their level of incompetence. An encyclopedia containing that definition would be accompanied by DJT as an example.
Namaste.
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Comments are always from "anonymous". Often I can identify the author by the content of the comment, but that much cogitation makes my 80 year-old brain tired. Please help out an old man and identify yourself within the text of the comment. Thanks for the comments whether or not you ID yourself. Tom