The Public Generally Prefers Not to Know



During these turbulent times lots of things that are true are seldom mentioned. The history of racial brutality is a topic many states have ruled shall not be discussed. It falls under Critical Race Theory. As climate change hammers us with no rain, too much rain and extreme temperatures, human contributions to this are absent in many cause and effect discussions. As famous author, Michael Pollen, points out generally the public prefers to believe things they were first taught even if they learn later they were not correct. He was talking about drugs. We use all kinds of them to lift our moods including caffeine. But we make similar ones illegal because we were told they were harmful. We'd rather not learn the ones were were told are harmful are no more harmful than those we like ourselves.

Another one is population size. Early on a large part of U.S. society were climate change deniers. Now it seems they have to believe the climate has changed. Their back up position is humans have no role in it. Slowly that position is eroding. The role of population is both that too many people crank out too much carbon and that now when climate change is bearing down on us there are too many people for the available moisture. That climate has changed, that humans helped change it and that extra people make it harder to deal with are matters of little concern to most of the public.

Only about half of the public is vaccinated for the virus. I have nieces whom I have heard are not vaccinated. What are such people thinking? I suppose there are various reasons but in general it seems like they would rather not know or accept the facts about the illness. It may fit into their pre disease pattern to believe the illness in not serious and the vaccine is more dangerous. These views, of course, are incorrect. 

Looking at religious sites everyday I'm reminded of the millions who believe God wrote or guided the Bible. The inconvenient truth is God had absolutely nothing to do with the Bible. It was written by humans and what it contains came from the minds of those who wrote it. Today in our local paper is a long article written by a local professor explaining why people are falling away from his church. He never mentions the truth, that they are falling away because his religion is full of make believe history and fantasy. 

If people preferred to know the truth it would reverse our direction and improve our futures.     

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