Which Wolf Wins

Cause and effect can be quite confusing. Deduction is, hence, a perilous game.

A conclusion without deduction is even more catastrophic.

Take this simple example.

Principle: When it rains, the road gets wet.

But concluding that it had rained by deducing from a wet road can certainly be erroneous.

In this simple example, there is no catastrophe. It was just a wrong conclusion based on a wrong analysis.

The data was available. (the road was wet)

The analysis was wrong. (the source of the wet road as rain)

The conclusion was incorrect, as a result. (That it had rained)

You have not destroyed anything by this wrong conclusion based on imprecise deduction. You just made a fool of yourself.

A lesson can be learned.

When you have data (or in the above case an interpretation of data) that questions a principle, do not challenge the principle; challenge the data.

I am forever grateful, to my friend Shriram Venkat Panse, for the above statement in italic. This happened during one of our recent chats. The greatest truths are often simple. I loved the simplicity of his delivery.

We had practiced it relentlessly in years gone by when we had worked together. The application of the tenet was to technical issues. Metallurgy can often be more confusing than moral dilemmas in life that we face these days. We solved many problems by putting this into practice and made Mr. Viren Shah richer.

But the statement is almost axiomatic in its truth. This blog is a result of that conversation and my compulsive need to convert any simple one-line truth to 1000+ words of a post.

If people can have the power to demonstrate restraint, show a scientific mind to analyze the issue that faces them, resist the temptation to jump to a conclusion, not give in to the euphoria of jumping on the trending hashtag – in short, not fall prey to fake news, so much of misery that we see today is avoided.

Propaganda in the times of Hitler perfected almost to a scientific practice by the evil Goebbels is today’s Fake News.

Serving the same purpose. Faster, more efficient and a terrifying global reach, thanks to technology.

It is impossible to plumb the depths of the toxic minds of those who create and peddle fake news. It is beyond reason and logic. But we can certainly not fall for them. They are cleverly designed and circulated to cater to our “confirmation bias” and “echo chambers”. By falling for them, we demonstrate that we are just simple idiots who are so easily manipulated and manipulatable in the future.

The reason why we fall for them is that we allowed our minds to be clouded by the veil of bias. We have just seen what we had wanted to believe to be true. The rational mind meant to evaluate and assess each piece of information on its merit has taken leave.

Has been granted leave, to be precise.

Even after the fake news is exposed as fake news we cling to our original conclusion.

The ego does not give up easily nor does it concede failure. We get into convoluted whataboutery challenging the exposure of the fake news as fake news.

Serious and honest introspection will certainly reveal the root cause. We had taken the shortcut of bypassing the analyzing part and jumped to the conclusion part, fortified by our preconceptions, biases, and beliefs.

Do we believe if a video is circulated in which a solid object when thrown up, does not land back, but instead stay suspended?

No. because we know the law of gravity.

Instead of listing more such rhetoric questions, I shall simply conclude that we have shown, and been showing, an admirable intellect in evaluation, properly, of instances that have a scientific base. In all those cases we apply the logic of science, the application of cause and effect, causation & correlation, the strength of correlation, confidence levels, and million other analytical tools available for an objective evaluation. There are no grey areas. The correct methodology results in the same conclusion.

The instances when the data had not been analyzed properly result in monetary losses to the establishment, a time before an effective remedy is introduced and the possibility of the malady to remain in the system and reduce the effectiveness.

All losses mentioned above are reversible.

Unlike the cases where the fake news that targets the emotions, beliefs, alliances, biases, leanings, and practices. These are subjective evaluations. Fake news thrives on this. Once again, let us not waste time in exploring the purpose of those who peddle this. We are the evaluators. Only we can control us.

The instigators are left jobless when those who are instigated, applying rationale, refuse to be instigated.

There can be a new product that never existed before in the market; but how can there be a product that no one wants in the market?

A friend of mine played a nice trick on us in our group.

He shared two news items (both, probably fake) over a period of a few days.

The first item praised the government of India for handling the migrant crisis well by citing “first-hand” experiences of a traveler in rural Uttar Pradesh, a state ruled by a staunch right-wing BJP minister.

The second item, shared after a few days, recounted another “first-hand” experience of a family who happened to travel from a shambolic BJP ruled state of Karnataka to the “believe-it-or-not,” utopian Kerala ruled by a communist leader.

Without taking anything away from the sterling performance of the state of Kerala (my bias acting here), what followed was two equally strong factions. The funniest part is most members of the group are either not a resident of India currently, or among those who are currently in India, none from the three states mentioned.

We all heard a piece of news. Two in fact. None of us had a way to confirm the veracity of the news. Each faction chose to side with that news which resonated with their convictions and beliefs. Science had taken leave. Commonsense said goodbye long ago.

On being pointed out, many of us went into denial (and defense mode). “No, not possible” “I know the other news is fake” “stereotypes exist for a reason” etc.… etc.…

Be it Hindu-Muslim in India, racism in the US, Immigrants-natives in most European countries, Xenophobia in most nations, freedom-dissent in dictatorships, the narrative is the same.

Spin a story, populate with the right characters, sow discord, flare up a conflict, portray a victim, paint a beneficiary and the Molotov cocktail never fails.

We do not have to have an opinion on everything. It is ok to receive information, take time to consume it. We are not in some race to reach a verdict on every news item that comes our way.

At the risk of the cliché, Haste makes waste.

We should challenge available data and prove a principle. Never challenge the principle.