One of my Facebook Friends (and a real friend, too) posted the above picture on her Facebook page, which is where I saw it last Sunday morning. My friend had not originated the posting that she had on her Facebook page; she was just passing it along. According to the explanation that came with the photo, this 50+ mile long crack, pictured above, just recently appeared near Yellowstone National Park, possibly indicating that the "supervolcano" underneath Yellowstone might be ready to erupt. However, the text that accompanied the picture said that scientists were not really all that alarmed.
I passed the photo and explanation along, just as my friend had, by "sharing" my friend's posting on my own Facebook page. Then, I departed home to attend the Santa Cruz Quaker Meeting, which is what I normally do on a Sunday morning.
When I went back on Facebook later on Sunday afternoon, having thought about it a little bit, I edited and added on to my posting by saying that I had been thinking about this photo, and had come to the conclusion that it might very well be what is often called "AI slop." I said that I'd wait until I read some confirmation from a more reliable source before actually believing that the photo was "real." Then.... I scrolled down a bit and found lots of comments on my posting, all either "doubting" the veracity of that picture, or affirmatively indicating that it was a total "fake," with those commentators having actually done some research (research I didn't do). One of those comments was from my friend, who let me know that she now knew that the picture was totally fake.
Taking the advice of a number of those who commented on my posting, I deleted it, but having done that, I thought that I should really reflect a bit about this episode in misinformation. This blog posting today is the result.
First, my apologies to anyone who saw that fake picture, with its fake explanation, on my Facebook page and thought that I should have done a better job researching the facts before passing along such misinformation. That criticism is well-taken! Again, my apologies - and my thanks, too, since those comments were much appreciated, and provide good advice for the future, which I will endeavor to follow!
Second, this episosde in misinformation is just an example of what is an ever more frequent phenomenon. More and more, we can't automatically believe what we see - or read - online. In fact, some of the persons who appear to be "real" people aren't actually "real" at all - and that goes even for fake persons who command large followings on social media. This is, clearly, a big problem for our ability to engage in "self-government," which is the activity that I keep saying ought to be one of the major ways we spend our time and energy.
Trying to live and act "online," as opposed to living and acting in the real, physical world, is becoming problematic. All the more reason to "Find Some Friends," as I keep saying, referring to a book by Octavia Butler (a book of fiction, by the way) that talks about how we might reconstitute our society after social breakdown has occurred.
I know that it's somewhat hard to admit to oneself that we need to ground our thoughts, beliefs, information, and action only on what happens in the real, physical world - and that this can occur only after real, physical meetings with real, physical people, but that's the conclusion I'm coming to. If you might be inclined to agree that it would be hard to do that, let me say something that might be at least somewhat comforting. I spent twenty years as a local elected official, making a big difference in my local community, and that kind of "real life" politics was the only alternative available during the time I served in office (1975-1995).
That kind of life, and that kind of politics, based on real interactions with real people - activities that take place in face to face, physical interactions, is not so bad!
