data over dogma
If you come to me with a problem, I can tell you how to solve it and show you why, while another “expert” can show you something completely opposite and present you with “evidence.” So, who is right, and what should you believe? Today, it’s increasingly harder to answer those questions because the other guy is saying the same thing.
It seems we have arrived in a world where there are no real facts, only dogma presented as truth. There are studies to support literally any viewpoint, most prove very little, but are used as a statistic to elevate one side of the argument above another. A large part of the problem is that people are more concerned with being right, than effective. In other words, what they’re selling is more important than the results.
There is only what is true and what isn’t, right? How could it be any other way? I don’t know. Somewhere along the line we lost the ability to tell the difference. Choosing what feels “right” versus what is correct. We now follow advice based on the emotional appeal, instead of rational speculation. Because we make decisions based on our emotional attachment, if it challenges us, it must not be true. We believe what we want because we can always find what we need to support it, and that is comforting. We have abandoned truth, and with it we’ve abandoned authority an authority on any given subject.
If nothing is true, then no one can effectively debate the narrative critically because there is no real basis to do so. All becomes a spectacle. The biggest wallet can afford the most blinding lights. Just as the loudest voice can deafen the most diverse thought. It’s dangerous. We are all aware of how much corporate influence has one what we are told to think about our health, and even politics.
No longer do facts about your daily life matter. All that matters is what you believe. It has been dubbed the “post-truth” era. The narrative we choose to follow separates people, just as much as it unites people under a different banner. Truth means both sides can’t be right. Blurring the lines of what truth is, so that the emotional attachment becomes paramount means that anyone can be “right” simply by the depth of their convictions to a cause, not their merits.
I agree, it’s fucking confusing. The facts should remain the facts. Only from there can we build a foundation which can elevate all people. We all want to belong, to have a special connection, to live our best life, and sometimes it takes coming to a painful realization that we were wrong about something we have believed so strongly in. It is a necessary process of transformation that is profoundly lost. If no one knows where to find truth anymore, where does that leave us? I have no answer other than for everyone to take complete responsibility for your life and your health.
Unfortunately, this whole scenario has the ability to lay the foundation for terrible ideologies to arise. Not because they’re better than any previous beliefs, but since facts don’t matter it’s all about baffling people with bullshit. Whoever screams the loudest must be right because they are getting all the attention. If we don’t have access to the facts, nor can we tell the difference when we’re being misled, we can’t expect to ever find the right answer. If there is no barometer in which to measure the “hose of knowledge” that is the internet, there is no facts to live by. If there is no facts to live by, there can be no foundation to build upon, If there is no foundation to build upon, then everyone will just gravitate toward whichever dogma fits their narrative the best, whether it’s true