Comments on: Don’t Believe Everything You Read

By: Gigi

Gigi — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:31:43 +0000

I disagree with your classmate. The same way you can't believe everything you read in a book or newspaper (national inquirer, anyone?) you can't believe everything you find on the net. When I see something on TV or online that could affect me (let's say I had United stock, for example) I will double check with sources I know to be reliable before I jump off a building. That's just common sense. The same people that jumped the gun on the United thing are the same people that think that Bill Gates will send you money for each person you forward this email to.

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:27:52 +0000

I remember the same sort of thing! When I was in junior high there was something just like that about… an alien invasion, I believe? I remember something about a code from space. At the time I thought it was really cool. But yeah, there was a disclaimer like every five minutes.

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:25:23 +0000

The guy who wrote the column is just one of many people working on the project. I think he may be part of IF as well. You know those academic types; they’ve got their hands in everything. :)

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:00:40 +0000

Hmmm, the link does point to the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies’s site…

By: Matt Arnold

Matt Arnold — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:56:52 +0000

Superstruct is created by the Institute for the Future, not the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

By: Kevin S. Brady

Kevin S. Brady — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:56:48 +0000

It’s not just ordinary punters who fall for such stories on the Internet. There have been cases of “legitimate” news journalists citing articles from The Onion as fact. Thus, the foolishness compounds itself.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:53:11 +0000

It’s always been my policy to use Wikipedia as a place to compile data, which I can then confirm as fact (or not) using a real source.

By: Harry

Harry — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:02:10 +0000

When I was in college back in the early 1980s, one of the networks aired a docudrama about a terrorist takeover of a nuke equipped U.S. Navy ship in the harbor at Charleston, S.C. They were going to blow up and cause a nuclear holocaust. Every 15 minutes or so and with each commercial break they aired a disclaimer that the events were not real and that the docudrama was fictional. If you had half a brain, you would also recognize that none of the other channels were airing this major news event. The network was unheard of, none of the news anchors looked familiar etc. It still caused panic. As the Head Resident on duty at least one panicked student called me in fear that Boca Raton (where we were) would be impacted by the explosion or fall out. It took me 15 minutes to reassure the panicked student and even then he didn’t seem to believe me. (Wonder what he’d been smoking that night.) So, yeah, I think people are to gullible for their own good.