Thursday, March 18, 2010

Snopes vs Wikipedia

I got an email this morning that had to deal with Wikipedia and Snopes. Both are written by ordinary people. The only difference I can see is that one...Snopes is by a couple of people with their opinions and that Wikipedia is written by anyone and everyone and their opinions. 

Yes..Wiki is editable by anyone and anyone can put their two cents in. I think a handful of people might police the writings but mostly it is words.....written words and any words are subject to interpretation and biased opinions.

Which brings to mind "statistics" which again is only words and subject to interpretation and very biases to as what they want to find.

My point? Words can be made to say whatever one wants and twisted to whatever view  you want. I personally don't think that anything written is ever the full truth. I have long since known that even history books which are supposed to tell us true history is in fact NOT true at all but only  biased opinions written for a select group of people slanted to what they want  to hear. Our own government has been caught lying to us many times.

I myself have had several dealing with the media..aka - newspapers. In those instances I was interviewed and most of the details that got printed were WRONG! The events were minor and it was not important that the details were right but gosh darn it..why bother interviewing when you cant get a few simple facts straight. I mean one was so mundane as to why I started carving and was in an article on my club and it's show. GEEZZZZZ.

But that leads me to wonder how much MAJOR stuff that it written is true or plain wrong.

And back to Snopes and Wikipedia. I use Wiki for general information which I find useful. Snopes...well...I have found it to be helpful in trying to get people to realize that not all we read and pass on...is truthful and while they might not have researched everything...at least they try to get people to think about that basic fact. Myths and Legends get embellished and we may never get to the bottom of their origin or why they even got started.

People love fairy tales and gossip. In the end..I really don't care weather a guy was found in a bathtub with note saying his kidneys were stolen was true or not. I don't care if a computer virus is true or not. I just know that I should read and expose myself to MANY opinions and not take any of them seriously. 

What works for one person does not work for another anyway. There is a fine line between computer problems and plain operating system problems.  And it is like cars or the human body....difficult to diagnose.

I know...I am rambling all over with this topic but I have lots of my own opinions on it too.

But my point is that words are words are words and you cannot believe them all. That is what advertisers get money for..to make you believe them all.

Life is tough and not fair...deal with it.  Keep an open mind and keep reading.....that way you can form better opinions for yourself.

1 comment:

Sandi said...

That is so true,, what is written is one person's opinion. And usually not all wrong but definately not the whole story. I think that is why we have to read various writings by serveral people on the subject we are interested in to get the whole story and picture. But the fact of the matter is, we WANT to believe what we believe.

We cannot believe what we see anymore either with the invention of photo shop and other such programs. I really am sorry to see such innocence leave our society.