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Is the media doing its job?
The function of the media is the same as the FedEx tracking number: peace of mind. One of the founders of FedEx mentioned (in an interview) that he had originally believed that he and his associates were providing a delivery service. It was several years after the start of FedEx that he suddenly realized that what he and his associates were really providing was peace of mind, to both the sender and to the receiver.
The question therefore becomes: what is the major cause of our lack of peace of mind? One cause is that we are unable to know most of what we would like to know at the time which we would like to know it. For instance, what is the price of a share of a particular stock on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), right now?
Unless we are on the floor of the NYSE, we cannot know. Although this is a true statement in principle, some people might object to it because we have electronic copies of the floor of the NYSE. Although that is true, it is also true that we can know the original; but we have to believe the copies because we cannot compare the copies to the original.
The media therefore has an opportunity to provide peace of mind to us by claiming that they will verify the copy by comparing it to the original on our behalf. We are willing to pay them to perform this verification for us because we cannot perform it for ourselves.
A similar situation exists with religious information. In some ways, religious information is more crucial than financial information. We are therefore willing to pay the religious media, even more than the financial media, to verify the copy which we use.
But what happens when the media (whether financial or religious) makes a mistake? In the case of the financial media, some people will make a decision that they would not have made if the media had correctly reported the situation. Ditto in the case of the religious media.
But what if the mistake was accidental? That is, the media (whether financial or religious) did not deliberately mis-report the situation? Some people would still make a decision that they would not have made if the media had correctly reported the situation.
This situation causes the question: are we responsible for our decisions, even if we were mis-informed? This question is debated in the legal community. A portion of the legal community is of one idea, and another portion of the opposing idea.
Given that we are not certain about the answer to this question, then what should we do? One strategy would be to assume the worse case, and then act accordingly.
The worst case would be that we would be responsible for our decisions, even if we were mis-informed, and even if we were deliberately mis-informed. If this were to be the case, then what should we do about the possibility that we could be mis-informed?
One strategy is called "due diligence". The idea of due diligence is that we should investigate the information according to the seriousness of the possible consequence. For instance, if the possible consequence of the information is sleight, then we might not investigate at all, in order to have more time to investigate the information which has either the largest consequence or the consequence of the longest duration (or both).
One implication, of the idea of due diligence, is that we should re-investigate the information if the information changes. The Arabs have been credited with the proverb which reads, "There is nothing constant but change." To the extent that this proverb is true, then we should expect that even our most thorough investigations of information might have to be re-done.
Although we might quickly agree with this in principle, we might not be equally quick to do it in some cases. For instance, if we have a PhD, then we might not be so quick to go back to college as if we were freshmen. We might instead yield to the temptation to suppose that most of our education was still valid, even if it were not.
In the past, it was almost always true that most of our education was still valid. However, at the present rate at which we discover new information, and therefore revise existing information, this is less true. Moreover, the rate at which we discover new information is accelerating; so it is even less true each day that most of our education is still valid.
Up until recently, the major exception to this trend has been religion. However, religion is now undergoing an accelerating rate of change. For instance, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has resulted in major shifts of understanding in several religions, most notably those in Christian group.
An even more recent and even more major shift of understanding, in Judaism, Christianity and Mormonism, has come to the attention of merely a few people thus far. However, we can reasonably anticipate that the increase in awareness will accelerate exponentially. For those who would like to become aware now, an example of the change is available at http://thisgoodriddle.com
