Which so many rumours, lies and what not being perpetuate recently, I think it’s timely again to consider what is the truth, what is a lie and most importantly why humans lie. Admittedly I am no expert but I still firmly believe that the common man should be pondering about such issues as well as voice their opinions in some small way. Decisions by the masses may not be wrong all the time.
Evident from the entire incident over Fukushima, it is pretty obvious that a lot of bad reports are going out. Being in a country which is enjoying free press, I cringe at times reading what is publish in the Star or the Daily Mail (there are others just I haven’t read them before so shall reserve my comments). And when I read some MrKennethTong’s tweets, it makes me wonder why has the lying trait not yet been eliminated from our population.
Newspapers are written to sell. And sell they must or they are doomed. Of course many depend on their advertising dollar, some like mediacorp shamelessly asked their advertisers to buy up advertising slots around news time for maximum exposure. To top it up, other than sex, the best thing to sell is negativity, to sell fear or anger, not joy nor positivity. I guess that is simply because we humans take it all in very fast, we somehow crave for such things. It does make some sense evolutionarily. We used to live in communities where we need to be in tune to bad things to be ready to fight or flight. But now we have left that age. With so much more stability in life, we shouldn’t be too worried about some of the basal requirements of life at least for most of us. Why then do we do so?
I guess that is simply because the ignorant is not being selected against with little to no selective pressure against humans. In addition the trait of lying can be seen somewhat as a evolutionary stable strategy, we still need to lie from day to day. Sadly although I think otherwise, utopia is never going to happen until there is uniformity throughout human mindsets as well as strong selection pressure against any mutants that may arise. Since that is highly impossible, then liars are here to stay no matter how much we feel against them.
Our evolutionary arms race has left us with too many relics which has become so fixed in our population that correction seems improbable. We need to consider perhaps how we with our foresight and intellect can slowly reduce and eliminate such nasty behaviours. We can still have these innate behaviour but highly suppressed such that it will only surface when absolutely needed.
Am I to say I am a saint who has never lied? I doubt anyone can. I certainly have lied a lot in life, omitting the truth and trying to cover up quite a few times BUT when it comes down to something important, I do try to tell the truth despite the consequences it may bring at times. Perhaps, there is why people can’t always work with me. I guess that is something I can live with.
That brings me to the next part, is it worth it to help others when you clearly know that they haven’t been entirely truthful. I guess not but I truly have no answer to that. So if anyone has a solution, pray do tell.
-wonght
Ignorant is bliss. I’m afraid not…
