COLLINS: The reality is — we’re pretty ignorant
WE ALL HAVE OPINIONS. You have yours. I have mine. Most of these opinions are based on very little real information. We have a very small picture of the workings of the world. Our solutions are based on a snippet of information we may have seen in passing through our social media accounts or seen in skipping past the news stories that matter to get to our favourite procedural — which may be relaxing but not informative. Shows which provide us with the knowledge we need are just not interesting enough when compared to most of the shows we can choose from.
This has led us to a vision of the world that is based on a small sample, often full of inaccuracies and “pie-in-the-sky” conspiracy theories than a fact-based analysis that a truer picture of world development than the headline journalism that currently rules our lives.
Here’s an example. We’re facing tariffs from the U.S. These tariffs have far-reaching effects that bear heavily on our future. We counter with simple-minded measures. We suggest counter-tariffs. New trading partners, new and stronger relations with other countries — who haven’t needed us to this point so why would they want to change? Every little change has huge ramifications and huge effects in a global environment, but we are all ignorant of those effects and how they impact us.
There is a real danger that too many have too little understanding of how the world works to make solutions that will help turn the ship around. We see how little we understand when we realize that most of the hype last weekend concerned not the Super Bowl itself, but who had the highest profile on the sidelines — the president of the United States or Taylor Swift?
