(I posted this a while ago at a time in which it was relevant. I don't have a lot of friends on Facebook so not a lot of people saw it. Not a lot of friends by choice, I don't use Facebook that often. I thought I would post it here to see what you think.)
I have a widget.
This widget is amazing. It can do incredible things. It can teach me how to knit. It can explain common-core math to the point where it makes sense. It can tell me where my keys are when I’ve lost them. It will even solve some of the most difficult math equations.
I love my widget and think everyone should have one.
I started giving lots of friends a widget just like mine, and it’s just as amazing to them as it has been for me. I hear nothing but good things about the widget, the many incredible things it has done for everyone I’ve given one to. Not one person has had anything bad to say about this widget. I’m so passionate about this widget, I had to share it with the world.
I made a video about my widget.
In the video, I was passionate when expressing how it’s done amazing things for me and amazing things for all the friends I’ve given one to.
So—it boggles my mind why everyone else is not using this widget.
Apparently, my friends’ and my experiences with this widget differ from what a lot of other people experience with it. There are stories of this widget, the exact same kind that I have, of not doing anything amazing—and in some cases, it’s making things worse. One person was using it as a GPS, and it guided him into a volcano—and he died. One person used it as an alarm, but it never went off, making him late for a job interview—and he didn't get the job.
So the widget has helped some people, and it’s hurt other people. I get that other people aren’t experiencing the same things as my friends and me, but I’m super passionate about what it’s done for me and everyone I’ve shared it with. I know that it does amazing things. I know it because I’ve witnessed it, and I have seen that it’s real.
Yesterday, FaceTome, my favorite social media website (again, no correlation with anything real) took my widget video down because, according to the website, it was just a bunch of fake news. But to me and my friends, it’s not fake. I’ve seen it work; lots of other people have seen the widget work. How can that make it fake news? That makes it real news. Sure, it might be different than what other people have experienced, but does that make my experience or my friends’ experience fake? Do different experiences make it fake? Is my experience worthless and bad to share if it doesn't match with the people that have had bad experiences?
They’re now saying that my beliefs unrelated to my widget are very strange indeed and, therefore, make my actual experience with the widget less credible. People say things like, “OMG! This guy believes in human sacrifice to atone for the sins of all mankind and, by believing in that human sacrifice, he’s guaranteed his way into paradise after he dies!" or “OMG! This guy believes that a prophet rode a flying horse to paradise in the sky on a winged horse!" or, “OMG! This guy believes that a higher power killed everyone on the planet with a worldwide flood, except for a small group of humans that floated around in a boat for a long time (and just happened to have two of every living thing on the boat and then eventually repopulated the world!” or, “OMG! He believes in a prophet who had sex with children and who thought it’s okay to beat wives!” and, “OMG! This person believes the devil and demons are real and that they have a real impact on the day-to-day lives of real people!”
But that’s not everything. They’re also saying it’s fake news because I didn’t publish a peer-reviewed paper before I told everyone about this amazing widget. All the friends I shared it with trusted me, and they took it and are now experiencing great things with it—and they didn’t require a peer-reviewed paper. Why can’t I share it with everyone else on FaceTome the way I shared it with my friends? Why am I being censored from sharing the good news? Can I provide that data after I make my pitch, or can a person share the good news only when he has 100-percent undeniable proof that something is good? Couldn’t you have just asked me for more detail about my knowledge of the widget before treating me as though I was just a charlatan out to wreck the lives of millions?
And what about the six other people who were with me, widget experts who believe the exact same thing as me. Sure, they weren’t behaving quite as passionately as I was—nor were they as black as me. Why aren’t you picking on them too? Why are you focusing only on me; you know, the one with the crazy beliefs, and the funny accent, and from another country? (Wait? Did I already mention that I’m black and from another country?)
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a couple of possible reasons for labelling my video as fake news. The people at FaceTome think I’m lying for attention; or they think I sincerely believe it but that I’ve been deceived; or that they know what I’m saying is true and it will cause them harm—they can’t let everyone know the good news, so it has to be suppressed. (Like Christianity. I’m looking at you, Christians! Ever feel like you’re not allowed to share the good news?)
But wouldn’t it be better to leave my information up and allow the public to debate me? Wouldn’t it be better to at least request additional information from me and, if I can’t produce it, you don’t even have to take my video down? Everyone else will be able to see that I’m a fraud, right?
I mean, we have bullshit like flat-earth, homeopathy, and other crackpot videos uploaded all the time, and FaceTome doesn’t take those down for being wrong or misleading. What’s different about my video? Oh, my widget might end up killing people. I see. But what about videos that promote prayer healing? Holy moly! We have a whole industry of “faith-healers” making filthy tons of money fooling people into believing they’re truly going to heal them of cancer—all through the power of a god and a cash donation? What about healing stones and crystals? People might even forgo real, medically proven treatment because some kook on FaceTome told them that placing a quartz on their head will remove a brain tumor. “You just gotta believe,” they say.
Ask me for my evidence! Show me where I’m wrong with your own science! Treat my claim exactly as you would every other claim about something miraculous or amazing—or even just slightly different than what everyone hears all the time from every other place. Heck! Couldn’t I just say that Allah or Jesus or Shiva told me in a dream that my widget really works and FaceTome would leave my video up?
Then again, what if the people at FaceTome actually believe I’m right and don’t want my widget getting out there? I wouldn’t know where to go in that reality—that would be screwed up. Eh… probably just a conspiracy theory. I mean, news outlets trying to influence the way people think during an election year? That’s crazy talk. I think only Russians do that when they work with the Trump campaign. Or something.
"Get to the Point Already!" you say.
Okay. That was long-winded. If you made it this far, congratulations. You have what I would call a curious mind. You’re either building up a laundry list of things I’ve said that are wrong, or you are anxiously waiting for the moral of the story. Or you might think I’m just crazy and you’re now looking for a cry for help that I’ve hidden in plain sight. (You could also be wanting to give me a book deal because my distribution of words are amazing. You can reach out to my editor for that: [email protected].)
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.” Aristotle said that. Or maybe it was Michael Scott. Who knows? It’s not really possible to prove who said it.
Are you thinking, “This guy believes what that Nigerian-American doctor is saying, give it just as much, or even more, weight than what the CDC or WHO or NIH says”? Well, you’re wrong—and you might also be the kind of person who fails at reading comprehension. You’ll find nothing here or elsewhere of me saying anything remotely close to that. I know what I know, and I know what I don’t know. (I do have a problem with things I don’t know I don’t know.) But consider that you could be so blinded by your ideology that you refuse to try to understand what someone else is saying. It doesn’t mean you have to accept what someone is saying, but it would help to try to understand a position before you make ill-informed claims about it. Otherwise, you’re building what’s called a strawman. And that’s a fallacy that children like to use when they have a dispute on the playground.
I give the claims that the doctor made as much weight as I give every other thing that has no evidence to support it. It’s a story she told that you can choose to believe or not believe. You can choose to research the claims yourself or you can let other people do that work for you.
My problem is that social media is denying access to the video so that people can’t make that choice for themselves. I have a problem when someone else decides what’s appropriate for me to read or not read. What movies I can watch or can’t watch. What treatments I want to try or not try. What religion I can practice or not practice.
I’m an agnostic/atheist. If you ask me if I believe in a god or gods, my answer will be no. If you ask me if I KNOW that there are no gods, my answer will also be no. My belief is based on a lack of convincing material evidence.
Both of my brothers do believe in God. If you spent any time reading our lively discussions, you’d see just how vigorously we debate the idea of god. I think they believe in a crackpot religion, just like any other religion. (By the way, my references above come from Christianity and Islam. If you believe in either one of those and you make any negative comments about some crackpot supernatural belief that someone else accepts as true, you need to take a long look in the mirror.) But even though I think they’re wrong, I still love them and the fact they hold those beliefs doesn’t diminish that love at all. They’re both smart and funny, and we get along like brothers should get along. I believe they’re good people who want what’s best for everyone, and I think they believe the same about me, even though they can’t wait to hear me scream while I’m burning in hell. (What they don’t know is that I’m gonna bring a rope and lasso them both down with me as they’re laughing on top of the city wall. Fools! We’ll burn together, as a family, as Lord Satan commands.)
All that to say, crackpot ideas don’t automatically discredit you when you’re discussing something unrelated to your crackpot idea. And it shouldn’t have an impact on how you treat people either.
It’s okay to believe crackpot things. One person’s crackpot idea is another person’s religion. You know how many doctors believe in God? I know a few—personally even. You might know Dr. Fauci, he believes in God. They certainly don’t believe their religion is a crackpot idea. They believe it wholeheartedly—probably as much as that Nigerian-American doctor believes what she’s saying in that video. But I bet you go to these doctors trusting they’re going to be making the best decision for your health based on their years of experience and education and training. (Well, if my doctor directs me to tape an opal to my knee so that the vibration of the stone will cure my knee pan, I’m outta there.) They don’t want you to die; I think they actually take some kind of oath for it.
Are we okay with Facebook and Twitter and Squarespace and Google and Amazon and Apple being the arbiters of what’s true and good? Are they choosing what we must accept and what we must reject? Are they setting the morals for us now? Do you need Big Brother to do that for you?
All I’m asking here is for you to put a little more thought into how you react to things with which you disagree. That’s all. Oh… and don’t be dicks to each other.
Be good.
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