I'd really really like to recommend this website to everyone! It's ted.com. This website is full of amazing ideas from leading thinkers in the world in their various professions. Watch it and I guarantee that your horizons will expand when you're exposed to the different advancements in all kinds of fields and disciplines.
Other things worth watching (linked to ted.com) are the short films in pangeaday.org. Just to let you know, pangea day was yesterday morning (singapore time) at approx 3am. It was a day to celebrate film as a medium of connecting the world. The short films (max 5 minutes for each one) really evoke different emotions as they say and there's a huge range of cultures showcased. So you're in for a feast of videos when you go to that website!
(Btw, pangea was the period during the paleozoic and mesozoic age when all the lands of the earth were connected in one piece (a supercontinent they call it), hence, the symbolic meaning behind that day)
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Trusting information
I hope my blog doesn't appear to be decaying or short of ideas/perceptions on life issues. A lot of things run through my mind, only problem is that I don't jot them down. Ironically, that's the precise reason why I wanted this blog. So let me rechannel my thoughts into this outlet.
I was wondering whether globalisation really serves the noble role of enhancing accessbility to knowledge. And when i refer to knowledge, i am saying knowledge that is the truth- pure and unadulterated. The fact is that we know that the information we receive may well be artifices, deceptions and full of lies. Often enough, we observe chain emails landing up in our inboxes and after reading the heartwarming/shocking/inspiring message we automatically click on our address book to forward it to everyone we know. I'm pretty sure we receive emails like "Betty's suffering from leukemia but is too poor to afford it, so if you forward this email, the UN will donate 3 cents to the Save Betty fund", "this 10 year old boy got swallowed by a boa constrictor in taman negara in east Malaysia... so BEWARE!" or you may even have gotten a "National Geographic picture of the year featuring a Great White Shark leaping out of the water to swallow a naval diver climbing up his helicopter ladder." Sounds familiar? My mother believed this and so this made me wonder how many more gullible people there are who would actually continue to circulate these kinds of emails. The internet is a medium that contains invaluable and vast amounts of information, however, the issue we face today is that we do not know how much of it is true. For instance, Wikipedia, a data base of information, is a frequent source of reference worldwide for general knowledge yet mass media departments in tertiary institutions warn their students never to rely on this web base. The reliability of these weblinks are indeed questionable so can you imagine the number of people who are fooled when they read false material over wiki? I was reading this A star star star (very amazing) GP essay and it argued that in order to be a credible piece of information, every other related article will need to agree with it. Yes, this is correct but what was lacking in his stand was taking into account human behaviour. People tend to believe what they read immediately unless they have prior knowledge to refute what is before their eyes. Not many people research on what they had just read by cross referencing to other materials. Not many people doubt everything read on the newspapers and emails.
I believe that the common man absorbs facts and see things as it is. So it is important that in living in this world where information is diluted and twisted in many ways that we have to discern for ourselves what the truth is. While the world progresses through globalisation and the integration of information networks, so does Man have to evolve to craft our thinking to choose to accept which is right and wrong. This is imperative for the world cannot grow without the maturing of all mankind.
I was wondering whether globalisation really serves the noble role of enhancing accessbility to knowledge. And when i refer to knowledge, i am saying knowledge that is the truth- pure and unadulterated. The fact is that we know that the information we receive may well be artifices, deceptions and full of lies. Often enough, we observe chain emails landing up in our inboxes and after reading the heartwarming/shocking/inspiring message we automatically click on our address book to forward it to everyone we know. I'm pretty sure we receive emails like "Betty's suffering from leukemia but is too poor to afford it, so if you forward this email, the UN will donate 3 cents to the Save Betty fund", "this 10 year old boy got swallowed by a boa constrictor in taman negara in east Malaysia... so BEWARE!" or you may even have gotten a "National Geographic picture of the year featuring a Great White Shark leaping out of the water to swallow a naval diver climbing up his helicopter ladder." Sounds familiar? My mother believed this and so this made me wonder how many more gullible people there are who would actually continue to circulate these kinds of emails. The internet is a medium that contains invaluable and vast amounts of information, however, the issue we face today is that we do not know how much of it is true. For instance, Wikipedia, a data base of information, is a frequent source of reference worldwide for general knowledge yet mass media departments in tertiary institutions warn their students never to rely on this web base. The reliability of these weblinks are indeed questionable so can you imagine the number of people who are fooled when they read false material over wiki? I was reading this A star star star (very amazing) GP essay and it argued that in order to be a credible piece of information, every other related article will need to agree with it. Yes, this is correct but what was lacking in his stand was taking into account human behaviour. People tend to believe what they read immediately unless they have prior knowledge to refute what is before their eyes. Not many people research on what they had just read by cross referencing to other materials. Not many people doubt everything read on the newspapers and emails.
I believe that the common man absorbs facts and see things as it is. So it is important that in living in this world where information is diluted and twisted in many ways that we have to discern for ourselves what the truth is. While the world progresses through globalisation and the integration of information networks, so does Man have to evolve to craft our thinking to choose to accept which is right and wrong. This is imperative for the world cannot grow without the maturing of all mankind.
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