Thinking critically

I try to think critically when I read news, history, or things on the internet. Here are a few questions I try to consider:

1. Is this true?
   
   Headlines don't always match the story. For example, the headline for this story reads "Scientists believe an alien spaceship could have crashed into Mars," but when you read the artice, it's much more circumspect. "Scientists say an alien spaceship crash landing onto Mars can't be ruled out as the cause of strange spikey protrusions found on the planet." That's not the same.
   
   From a scientist's perspective, nothing can be ruled out, which means that every fantastic theory technically has a non-zero chance of being true. By this logic, a media source can write whatever they want in the headline. As long as they cite a source, the content itself doesn't have to be true to get printed.
   
   They can't always get away with it, though. Fox news got into trouble because it knowingly reported false information regarding the 2020 election. Its pundits talked about their opinions, and the news side reported on those stories as fact. While it was true that "So-and-so said such-and-such," those so-and-sos knew that the such-and-such wasn't true. [Source]
   
   Before getting outraged by something, I try to "triangulate" a story by reading other sources.


2. Is this representative of a broader trend?
   
   Even if something is true, that doens't mean it's indicative of a broader issue.
   
   Consider the matter of "Black Confederates." Those wishing to deflect accusations of racism against the Confederacy point out that blacks in the South served in the Confederate Army. Whether that's true or not is a matter for scholars, but the numbers are much clearer. The number of black Americans who *might have* served in the Confederate Army is a pittance compared to the number of whites, as well as the number that served in the Union Army. As such, Black Confederates representative of neither the black experience nor the Confederate experience.
   
   Or take the issue of election fraud in Texas. It is true that there were instances of election fraud during the 2020 election. However, those instances were not representative of a wider trend that could have altered the results. Yet Texas attorney Ken Paxton (who is currently being impeached) has "stoked election-fraud myths for years. Amid Paxton’s campaign to prosecute Texans for voting crimes, his office screened the movie “2000 Mules,” a film by GOP political operative Dinesh D’Souza that falsely claims there was significant voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election — assertions that have been debunked. [Source] In short, some problems are simply not worth the coverage or discussion they receive.


3. How is this supposed to make me feel?
   
   Given that news outlets -- even when they *are* actually *news* outlets -- are for-profit companies, there is an inherent bias toward news stories that provoke anger or outrage. But is the subject matter really a problem?
   
   This meme shows a hypothetical example. While something may be true, and it may even be representative of a wider trend, that doesn't mean it's worth getting upset about it.
   
   For a more concrete example, Texas Republican Sid Miller recently posted about Nancy Green being "erased" because she's no longer featured on the Aunt Jemima packaging. And while -- sure -- maybe that's a shame, it's not really worth being upset about. Nancy Green died in 1923; at what point would Sid Miller has felt it was OK to change things?

There's a lot to filter through on the Internet these days. Unfortunately, a lot of it is manufactured outrage. Hopefully, by thinking critically, I can keep my stress levels at a manageable level.