Stop Bitching.

The consuming and processing of facts and information when I was growing up was as prevalent as breathing. The most important books in our house were the five-inch-thick dictionary, the thesaurus and our set of encyclopedias. My parents could not afford luxuries like vacations and dinners out, but they always managed to find enough money to buy the annual supplements for our set of World Books. From the time we learned to read, we were encouraged to ‘look it up’ when we had questions about the facts of the world. I’m sure I rolled my eyes in protest upon hearing that phrase at the time. Little did I know that it would be one of the most valuable things my parents would ever teach me.

Perhaps that’s why I am so disturbed and disappointed that so many Americans no longer care about what’s actually true and what isn’t. Factual relativism, selectively choosing to believe demonstrably incorrect information that support one’s particular belief system, is a plague that currently affects approximately a third of our nation. This disease has been infecting the US for decades. It has been spread for years by certain ‘news’ networks and talk radio hosts that repeat and reinforce junk science, incorrect ‘statistics’, outright lies and conspiracy theories as ‘alternative facts.’

We have to combat the lies these ‘misinformation zealots’ are spewing with real facts and figures from reputable sources. And, since the social media companies have done such a poor job of weeding out misinformation themselves, we must do it for them.