Memories of the 28th Century

The question in the title is very easy to answer, or it should be. Facts are essential. We can’t say much about anything without accurate facts to start with. I hope you noticed that I specified that the facts must be accurate; after all if they are wrong, then there aren’t really facts. This matter came up in regard to something that was too simple. Some mentioned “Skinner Mountain” in reference to Western Massachusetts. I pointed out that there is no place of that name in Western Massachusetts. The first time when this came up it was pointed out that Mount Holyoke is in Skinner State Park, and the person confessed to having mixed up the two. The second time this came up, the person who mentioned the non-existent “Skinner Mountain” tried to defend the error as correct but accepted it as an error after a few promptings.

This is one of many examples of people putting forth errors as accurate information, and this is a less significant example. It's probably a sign that I'm getting crotchety, but I have started to get annoyed with errors, especially errors that lead to bad public policy and errors that are presented as facts in the news. Combine those errors in facts with some errors in logic and there are some major problems.

The fundamental question is why people are willing to accept such errors. I wonder if the problem might have its origin in the "Self-Esteem Movement" that should be dead now but may still be limping along. I remember that in the 1980's primary grade students were rewarded equally for right and wrong answers, even though they knew what was right or wrong. I had a young relative who thought lowly of the policy of giving everyone awards whether they were any good or not. Is that attitude that the correct answer is of no importance still around?

Yes, it appears that the self-esteem movement is still around, and it has been with us for close to thirty years. So there are many people running around with high school and college level certifications that don't realize that there often is only one right answer, and that almost is fine even in matters outside horseshoes, hand grenades, and hydrogen bombs. Now I'm wondering how many such people went into climate science and made up things that made them feel good, regardless of actual fact.

I haven't paid close attention to the computer industry recently, but there have been some programs that didn't do what they were supposed to do at all. Could it be that the programmers wrote them the way that filled them with self-esteem?

Is there any difference between self-esteem and a big ego. Humans never had to try to develop big egos, To reuse an example, many of the programmers I have met had huge egos that even the utter failure of their code couldn’t dent. Maybe the replacement for self-esteem should be realistic self-image.




http://townhall.com/columnists/ashle...myth/page/full
http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/02/...-is-dangerous/
http://radioviceonline.com/bill-whit...ws-three-days/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ost-generation

I write like
William Shakespeare according to
https://iwl.me/b/f0797b6c
I am copying these in to see whether this site provides any useful information.