Forse questo post è un po' off topic, ma è una riflessione sulla rilevanza dell'informazione che ci viene fornita. Il picco del petrolio è una "non-notizia," viene menzionato soltanto quando si parla del prezzo del petrolio che passa qualche cifra intera, 80, 90, 100 dollari al barile. Ma il prezzo del petrolio è solo uno dei tanti elementi della crisi che stiamo passando.
Sembra che quelli di noi che ritengono che il picco del petrolio sia una cosa importante sono in grado di filtrare in qualche modo le cose rilevanti dall'immensa cacofonia di notizie alle quali siamo esposti. Riescono, sembra, a salvare la propria sanità mentale quando esposti a un sistema che sembra fatto apposta per distruggerla.
In questo articolo, Charley Reese delinea alcune strategie di sopravvivenza contro l'eccesso di informazione. Cercate semplicemente di pensare, lasciatevi degli spazi di riflessione. Provate a passare una settimana senza leggere i giornali e senza guardare la TV, sarà difficile, ma dopo sarete sorpresi di quanto "normale" sia il mondo. L'informazione non è necessariamente verità, anzi!
Sembra che quelli di noi che ritengono che il picco del petrolio sia una cosa importante sono in grado di filtrare in qualche modo le cose rilevanti dall'immensa cacofonia di notizie alle quali siamo esposti. Riescono, sembra, a salvare la propria sanità mentale quando esposti a un sistema che sembra fatto apposta per distruggerla.
In questo articolo, Charley Reese delinea alcune strategie di sopravvivenza contro l'eccesso di informazione. Cercate semplicemente di pensare, lasciatevi degli spazi di riflessione. Provate a passare una settimana senza leggere i giornali e senza guardare la TV, sarà difficile, ma dopo sarete sorpresi di quanto "normale" sia il mondo. L'informazione non è necessariamente verità, anzi!
Just Think
by Charley Reese
King Features Syndicate (October 16 2006)
The foremost duty of a citizen, especially in dangerous times, is to think. Without independent thinkers who are also economically independent of the government, democracy doesn't work.
Remembering and imagining are not thinking. Emotional reactions or ideological reactions are not thinking. Belief in the "word magic" of labels is not thinking. Faith is not thinking.
Thinking is the use of reason to determine the truth as best we can. To do that, we have to shuck emotions, desires and wishes and look at the world in its nakedness as it is, not as we wish it were or as someone else has told us it is.
Reality is not affected by our desires or by our comprehension. We glean data from our senses of that world outside our bodies and use our brains to draw inferences from the data. We have to conform to it; reality will not conform to us.
Clear thinking today is especially difficult, because the present generations of human beings are exposed to information in an unprecedented flood. Some years ago, it was estimated that the average American was exposed to about 15,000 messages per day. I'm sure that number has increased.
Advertising is pervasive with labels, point-of-sale displays and ads in newspapers and on television, radio and the Internet, as well as signs and billboards. Information - much of it false or self-serving or incomplete or trivial - pours out of print publications, television, radio and the Internet.
Information is not truth. It is bits of data that might be true or false or completely useless to know. I've often recommended that people take an information break. Go a week without watching television, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or magazines or surfing the Net. It might be difficult at first, but if you persist, you will be surprised by how normal the world appears once you've cut out the political chatter and the daily roundup of the world's pain and misery.
Complete article
King Features Syndicate (October 16 2006)
The foremost duty of a citizen, especially in dangerous times, is to think. Without independent thinkers who are also economically independent of the government, democracy doesn't work.
Remembering and imagining are not thinking. Emotional reactions or ideological reactions are not thinking. Belief in the "word magic" of labels is not thinking. Faith is not thinking.
Thinking is the use of reason to determine the truth as best we can. To do that, we have to shuck emotions, desires and wishes and look at the world in its nakedness as it is, not as we wish it were or as someone else has told us it is.
Reality is not affected by our desires or by our comprehension. We glean data from our senses of that world outside our bodies and use our brains to draw inferences from the data. We have to conform to it; reality will not conform to us.
Clear thinking today is especially difficult, because the present generations of human beings are exposed to information in an unprecedented flood. Some years ago, it was estimated that the average American was exposed to about 15,000 messages per day. I'm sure that number has increased.
Advertising is pervasive with labels, point-of-sale displays and ads in newspapers and on television, radio and the Internet, as well as signs and billboards. Information - much of it false or self-serving or incomplete or trivial - pours out of print publications, television, radio and the Internet.
Information is not truth. It is bits of data that might be true or false or completely useless to know. I've often recommended that people take an information break. Go a week without watching television, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or magazines or surfing the Net. It might be difficult at first, but if you persist, you will be surprised by how normal the world appears once you've cut out the political chatter and the daily roundup of the world's pain and misery.
Complete article
1 commento:
Ognuno ha una sua "soglia" di concentrazione per poter pensare come merita: c'è chi si irrita per un cane che abbaia, chi non sente un treno che passa.
Il vociare continuo dei media manda chiunque non sia provvisto di sofisticati "depuratori" in overflow...
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