Yesterday was the first time that a fire really occurred instead of the normal fire drill that we’ve grown accustomed to. Kind of scary to be honest because most people (me included) hardly paid any care what so ever until the PA system blared that this was not a fire drill.
This post is not however about the ensuing chaos that followed but more of the power of misinformation that affects all of us. I’m sure we’ve all played that game before, where you start by saying a particular message and it gets passed on from one person to another. By the time it reaches the last person in the queue, the message tends to be the total opposite of its original message.
Same thing happened to us yesterday too. The fire broke out at the basement car park but information from the human newswire ranged from different floors of the basement to different blocks in the myriad of office blocks where our office is. It’s certainly a dangerous thing to play with as panic people always do things that make Dumb and Dumber look like Nobel Prize winners.
Kind of the same thing that’s going around us lately don’t you think? Those who have information prey on those who don’t while those who don’t have the whole picture prey on those who have none or are diligent believers of the earlier. There are also those who fabricate information out of air to get their way. This creates a vicious cycle with collateral damage strewn all over our potholed roads and pavements.
So what do us, the silent majority (the actual rakyat) do when bombarded with such misinformation on a daily basis? I suggest practicing selective hearing and gold fish vision. Basically just don’t believe each and everything that your senses perceive without verifying it againts your own belief system, if you have one of course.
Why should we do this? Why not? When we were kids our parents used to tell us white-lies to stop us from screaming our lungs out at the shopping mall or scare us with tales of how going out late in the evening is not good. These are our parents, the very people who have nothing but our best interest at heart so what makes you think someone else who scantly knows you share the same interest in you?
You want to see how potentially damaging misinformation can be? People were snapping pictures of office workers standing outside the building while waiting for the all-clear to get back to work. Imagine taking that photo, putting a header that goes along the line of
“Illegal assembly/gathering held to protest the hike in price of breathable air”.
That ladies and gentlemen is the power of misinformation.
Cheers!!! :D
This post is not however about the ensuing chaos that followed but more of the power of misinformation that affects all of us. I’m sure we’ve all played that game before, where you start by saying a particular message and it gets passed on from one person to another. By the time it reaches the last person in the queue, the message tends to be the total opposite of its original message.
Same thing happened to us yesterday too. The fire broke out at the basement car park but information from the human newswire ranged from different floors of the basement to different blocks in the myriad of office blocks where our office is. It’s certainly a dangerous thing to play with as panic people always do things that make Dumb and Dumber look like Nobel Prize winners.
Kind of the same thing that’s going around us lately don’t you think? Those who have information prey on those who don’t while those who don’t have the whole picture prey on those who have none or are diligent believers of the earlier. There are also those who fabricate information out of air to get their way. This creates a vicious cycle with collateral damage strewn all over our potholed roads and pavements.
So what do us, the silent majority (the actual rakyat) do when bombarded with such misinformation on a daily basis? I suggest practicing selective hearing and gold fish vision. Basically just don’t believe each and everything that your senses perceive without verifying it againts your own belief system, if you have one of course.
Why should we do this? Why not? When we were kids our parents used to tell us white-lies to stop us from screaming our lungs out at the shopping mall or scare us with tales of how going out late in the evening is not good. These are our parents, the very people who have nothing but our best interest at heart so what makes you think someone else who scantly knows you share the same interest in you?
You want to see how potentially damaging misinformation can be? People were snapping pictures of office workers standing outside the building while waiting for the all-clear to get back to work. Imagine taking that photo, putting a header that goes along the line of
“Illegal assembly/gathering held to protest the hike in price of breathable air”.
That ladies and gentlemen is the power of misinformation.
Cheers!!! :D
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