Facebook Skepticism

I’ve been tempted a few times to prune my Facebook friend tree, but haven’t done so because in between all the bullshit that’s posted on my feed by the uncritical, there’s  the odd gem.

Besides, I have only a little over 100 Facebook friends, a fair number of whom are related to me in some way or the other, and I don’t want to risk a family feud.

I’m not so much annoyed by a lot of the posts that smack of credulity, as puzzled and bemused that otherwise seemingly bright people don’t care to check facts etc. before sharing guff stuff on their timeline. Anyway, I found this brilliant piece yesterday which kinda sums up what I’m talking about:

Now I’m pretty sure that some a lot of my posts, especially those of a political or irreverent nature must annoy a lot of them, but I don’t attempt to pass them off as facts. I expect bright people to know the difference between opinion or commentary and verifiable truths.

Proof that UFO’s do exist

The internet was abuzz last week over a video captured of the sky above Moscow, evidently showing a UFO.

Clearly, Unbelievably Freakish Occurrences (UFO’s) do exist, and Unbelievably Fantastic Opportunities (UFO’s) to capture them on film abound. Unfortunately, Amazingly Stupid Sense (ASS) is later made of it by uncritical, perhaps superstitiously inclined people.

Remember the hands of god email that is probably still circulating, which I wrote about in Another Religious Lie That Came Through My EMail? Well, before a screen-shot of this video does the email rounds (cleverly touched up) as either the eye of god, the rectum of Zeus, a Venusian mothership disguised as a cloud, or something equally ridiculous, I’d like to suggest that it’s nothing more than a meteorological phenomena; albeit a visually fantastic one.

Like so many things in life, which elicits awe and demands answers, the tendency to proffer a supernatural solution, creates even more complicated questions. It’s always best to treat everything we don’t understand that well, with skepticism and doubt.