My husband is an extraordinarily smart man. Some time ago, he had listened to CBC. "Victoria was making their sidewalks three lanes," he said matter-of-factly. "They are adding a passing lane."
In disbelief I went online, and found over 10 tweets to the effect. I haphazardly picked one and hit the retweet button; only to figure out shortly after that it was indeed the satire program "This is That". Media had unwittingly duped my clever husband and me.
Over the last few weeks, some controversial global media issues have come to council. I find it interesting that society has become so polarized. Issues are either evil or good, we quickly choose for or against, most often through our guts, or intuition. I believe that instant access to media supports this polarization.
Rumi, a 13th century theologian said "somewhere between right and wrong there is a field, I will meet you there." Statistically speaking, things are going well. There is less crime, and with globalization we are able to understand and affect more easily issues that are happening far away.
Much has taken me out of my comfortable mindset. Politics, science, health care, I could not have chosen a more perfect storm through which to have to justify and defend my beliefs. All three arenas require me to access a wealth of global information and data to make decisions. It requires commitment and time to go deeply into issues that affect community.
Through social and conventional media, we seem to be suffering a dose of confirmation bias. We hang around people who share our ideals. We confirm our beliefs with those around us. It seems we click on things that make us comfortable and share things that may not. The Internet has made information readily available, yet so convenient that we often do not take the time to read opposing or contrary opinions. Intuition organizes our cognition.
We live and work in silos. Act with others that share our opinions. We rarely have the opportunity to challenge ourselves to be with those of opposing views. Instant gratification has created a society that is superficial in its thoughts. Technology intended to bring us closer has made communication and healthy debate a lost art, even slightly uncomfortable.
#GMO. Thank you for raising this issue. My hope is that more people discuss issues at the dinner table or outside. Agriculture policy should be informed by farmers, not politicians. Policy decisions need to be made with the benefit of as much information as possible. As obvious as that seems, it does not always happen; it takes a lot of work and time.
In short, I am arguing for rationality and thorough study in making key policy decisions. This requires a certain amount of science literacy, and an ability to filter data. Politicians should be using science and data to make better decisions. If we had more public engagement, more would be resolved. Politics would be better informed. Dinner would be more interesting.
