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Justin Ling's avatar

I actually really like that question. (God, do I have to go and pull some old Descartes off the shelf?)

To my mind, we should only be trying to disrupt/vanquish/admonish/whatever-verb-you-want misinformation that clearly and squarely sits on the 'demonstrably untrue' end of this informational scale. Everything short of that is a matter of debate, and doesn't benefit from finger-wagging.

(Also, I believe in your riddle, I'm supposed to ask "which of you tells the truth?")

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Neil P.'s avatar

No, don't go paging through Descartes. My point is that he never got past "Cogito ergo sum". That is, we don't "know" anything (other than that we exist).

There is no intended answer to the riddle. I just wanted people to identify their first inclination on which person to believe. Myself, I am for a microsecond inclined to go with the uniformed person before my logical brain kicks in and says there is no way to know the right answer. (Doesn't our emotional brain react quicker than our logical one?)

Is that because humans are social animals and naturally seek out and defer to leaders, or is it because we have been programmed since birth to obey?

Anyway, we appear to be susceptible to suggestion, and "misinformation" is designated by those with what we perceive to be the most impressive podium.

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