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Go read
karentraviss. Go read her right now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/karentraviss/242079.html
She's talking about information, and being able to evaluate the accuracy and validity of information, and even more than that being willing to do the work to evaluate said accuracy and validity.
And it is work, make no mistake. But it's also work that people should be doing, because otherwise they're letting other people do their thinking for them. I might not agree with all of
karentraviss's points, but she is making very good points.
Facts are not democratic, and they are surprisingly fragile and malleable in the wrong hands.
Anyone with any background in history or historiography at all should recognise the accuracy of that. Leaving aside contentious words like truth, the thing is that you can never really be absolutely certain that you are getting a) the right facts or b) all of the facts of any matter, not unless you go directly to a primary source - and primary sources can lie and misrepresent as well, because we're human, and to err and to fail is what humans do.
Other sources, secondary sources, can also lie. They can be mistaken, and even if you use multiple sources that agree on a certain fact or facts you can never be absolutely certain that they are accurate - because they might be derivative of each other, and rely on the first core, mistaken source for their information.
karentraviss is talking about this in relation to wikis and syndicated feeds and the internet. She's also talking about it in terms of possible human intervention - the deliberate distortion of facts.
The thing about the net is that there are very few (possibly no) directly verifiable primary sources, but information spreads very quickly. That information may be accurate or it may be false.
karentraviss's major point is that there is no way to be certain without doing the work of fact-checking on your own. Independently.
Because otherwise you're in danger of letting other people do your thinking for you, and making assumptions based on information which may or may not be real.
karentraviss's information checklist:
(quoted with permission)
1. Who is the source of this information?
2. Who is paying for it?
3. Why are they saying it?
4. Is this all the information available, or has stuff been omitted?
5. Why do they want me to have it?
6. What is the opposing view or alternative views to this one?
7. What are other people saying about this information?
8. What is this information making me think, feel or believe?
9. How can I check this information further?
10. Who else is using this information and passing it off as their own? (That's advanced, but we info-drillers often find malinformation propagated and it can sometimes be traced back to a single over-quoted source.)
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
She's talking about information, and being able to evaluate the accuracy and validity of information, and even more than that being willing to do the work to evaluate said accuracy and validity.
And it is work, make no mistake. But it's also work that people should be doing, because otherwise they're letting other people do their thinking for them. I might not agree with all of
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Facts are not democratic, and they are surprisingly fragile and malleable in the wrong hands.
Anyone with any background in history or historiography at all should recognise the accuracy of that. Leaving aside contentious words like truth, the thing is that you can never really be absolutely certain that you are getting a) the right facts or b) all of the facts of any matter, not unless you go directly to a primary source - and primary sources can lie and misrepresent as well, because we're human, and to err and to fail is what humans do.
Other sources, secondary sources, can also lie. They can be mistaken, and even if you use multiple sources that agree on a certain fact or facts you can never be absolutely certain that they are accurate - because they might be derivative of each other, and rely on the first core, mistaken source for their information.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
The thing about the net is that there are very few (possibly no) directly verifiable primary sources, but information spreads very quickly. That information may be accurate or it may be false.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Because otherwise you're in danger of letting other people do your thinking for you, and making assumptions based on information which may or may not be real.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
(quoted with permission)
1. Who is the source of this information?
2. Who is paying for it?
3. Why are they saying it?
4. Is this all the information available, or has stuff been omitted?
5. Why do they want me to have it?
6. What is the opposing view or alternative views to this one?
7. What are other people saying about this information?
8. What is this information making me think, feel or believe?
9. How can I check this information further?
10. Who else is using this information and passing it off as their own? (That's advanced, but we info-drillers often find malinformation propagated and it can sometimes be traced back to a single over-quoted source.)