{"id":13239,"date":"2017-01-26T19:19:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T18:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=13239"},"modified":"2017-01-26T19:19:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T18:19:13","slug":"facts-what-if-there-were-an-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/facts-what-if-there-were-an-alternative.html","title":{"rendered":"Facts? What If There Were An Alternative?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13241 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Do-you-have-any-alternative-facts-small.jpg?resize=608%2C380&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Do you have any alternative facts small\" width=\"608\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Do-you-have-any-alternative-facts-small.jpg?resize=608%2C380&amp;ssl=1 608w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Do-you-have-any-alternative-facts-small.jpg?resize=768%2C480&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Do-you-have-any-alternative-facts-small.jpg?w=1000&amp;ssl=1 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 608px) 100vw, 608px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What do you do if the facts don&#8217;t suit you?<\/p>\n<p>One of the problems of the modern era is that we have more data &#8212; and hence more &#8220;facts&#8221; &#8212; than ever before. This means that it&#8217;s easier than ever to cherry-pick just the data sources that match your strongly-held opinion.<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, you could just claim\u00a0the facts are wrong, created by people that have a biased agenda. This has the added benefit of diminishing trust, giving you more leeway to say whatever you want in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, psychological studies show that trying to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skepticalscience.com\/docs\/Debunking_Handbook.pdf\">debunking false data actually reinforces it<\/a>. So just go ahead and make up your own facts &#8212;\u00a0and watch civilization burn&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facts? Sad!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[1210,1209,226,1211,482],"class_list":["post-13239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cartoons","tag-alternative-facts","tag-alternativefacts","tag-cartoon","tag-debunking","tag-facts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Do-you-have-any-alternative-facts-small.jpg?fit=1000%2C625&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3X9RF-3rx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}