The #DISPROVE Challenge

Well…
I was cooped up in my apartment, not knowing whether to play a video game, do my laundry, or just – cry… just cry. You see, I have this smartphone. It is a wonderful device that has apps meant to share all sorts of things with my friends. Apps like Facebook. Oh boy. Facebook, that glorious 18-wheeler of word vomit, is not the only source of material to gain news and guidance; yet it is a dominant, consistently nagging aggregate for what your friends think. And, many of us are often wary of how we are seen amongst our friends. This program – by itself – is a source of over 90% of my pain. Back when I had a job, and things to do, I could avoid it all together, and simply postulate my elevation above all the nonsense, family bickering, and incessant fear-mongering; whimsically adrift on my own for most of my day. But now, if you aren’t Zooming with your friends, business partners and love interests, watching your favorite non-pornographic streamer on Twitch, or binging countless hours of the life you wish you had on Netflix, you are sharing your hopes and dreams on the one main website that has been given the designation of ‘dream crusher,’ and possibly catching a more deadly contagion than any we have seen in the past 30 years – slanderous indifference; a.k.a. the AA bug. If you didn’t know, this means Annoying Asshole.

And, similar to a support group, AA members end up coalescing with the same crowd recycling the same mantras, just to get thru the day. The diagnosis is simple. First, they read or watch a post on the FB app. Second, members typically go through twelve whole stages of grief in 15 seconds (even I can’t fervently address that process without proper protective gear), and last everyone becomes motivated to SHARE their findings with others, primarily because THAT’S HOW THE APP WORKS – and gets paid. But a secondary reason is to validate their findings as affirmative. Most people only want to recognize that such an amalgamation of data was repeated and often sourced as credible ONCE before giving the green light to make their own ‘war time reenactment’ of the news they have compiled. Bear in mind, this posits that most people hear only passing information with no real quality controls to assure their audience the validity or proper use of said information. And tickets for each performance, as always, are free – provided you assert to repeat this story ad nauseam to the rest of your friend network and refrain from critiquing the show’s production in any way.

Recently, a group of us savvy ‘edge lords’ would gather on Discord – a site for voice and text sharing mostly used by gamers and freshly relocated teachers for their students – just to air out our dirty laundry and speak our peace on the complicated world we live in. It comes as no surprise that plenty of us have differing results in our meanderings on in the digital landscape. What we haven’t done is held a forum to fact-check each other; partly because… we want to stay as friends. We also aren’t in the position nor pay-grade to do the physical labor that journalists rightfully are called to do, yet resoundingly fail to do. That doesn’t mean we are immune to the AA bug, even here on Discord. Sure enough, once the discussion shifts to the global pandemic, the temperature rises, and our need to correct each other becomes parasitic in nature. Once someone spouts their particular angle, everyone gets confused. We all reveal different interpretations of the facts on the ground. Many of us fight over simple estimates and dates. A lot of blame gets shoved at China. A lot at our government. Soon one of us will spit out a quick and easy retort, alert us to the next game he wants to play, and the group calls it a day.

It hit me just how much uneasiness I could hide from the microphone when the conversation ended. I knew that I didn’t have – nor should need – all of the facts to get by. However, I do believe that all this influx of information has affected my world, and I don’t like how we got here. It seems that a key detail we would have liked to know usually never surfaces until it is poignantly too late to respond. I hate that. The regret lingering over my mind like a wet fart. The feeling of helplessness and morose contortion to circumstance.

We all want a ‘leg up’ on the competition. We should be seeking the same for our daily base of knowledge. I propose the more direct method of mirroring the methodology of the scientific community and, with every claim presented, opting to ‘disprove’ what is ‘proven.’ That doesn’t mean prove that claim wrong. It means for each idea find any and all facts or relative information on the topic, making sure each fact is sourced properly and can be verified as concrete. Then finish the process; carry out the data and the claim to its logical conclusion. If the facts presented are not relevant to your claim, then you can’t cite them as proof. If there is no information available, you can’t say anything about that subject except that it was a passing rumor or thought. The idea is to make certain that the ONLY result you find is what is claimed, and assess whether unexpected events would occur or not. Most of the time, we forget that other less desirable events could occur when we use a product or alter our routine to fit the model provided. Critical thinking is just one part of the equation – the other part is adhering to your own standard of operation. If you want to do something extreme to solve a simple problem, then go for it. Most wouldn’t, and I assume efficiency and frugality would be paramount when deciding what methods or products to use in a certain desperate situation.

If there are questions about how to do this, given our proximity to facts and the internet… and just how much we resign to care about any of these topics, then I have come up with a direct, easy, and thorough process to do just that. I call it the #DISPROVE challenge. It just involves finishing anyone’s pre-drawn arguments. If someone claims that African Americans make up a random percentage of all crime, then find out the total number of crimes and those who commit them. If there is a claim that Mexican immigrants take most of their earnings back home to Mexico, find the actual data on immigrant wages and expenditures. Google makes most of this supremely easy in a matter of minutes; all with the pleasure of feeling smarter. I happened to have the negging question of whether or not China housed all of the recent viral strains in the past 40 years. I did one #DISPROVE challenge and found out my claim couldn’t have been remotely accurate. If SARS and MERS are counted as viral strains, well China would have to be relocated – because the M.E. in MERS stands for Middle East. Epic fail. In 2012, Saudi Arabia reported the first strain of the MERS-CoV respiratory virus; one of the many CoVID strains in the ‘coronavirus’ designation. Whilst SARS was found having its first trace of infection in the Guangdong province of Southern China in 2002, other communicable diseases have been found to have origins much closer to home.

Before I share the next finding, we should see the #DISPROVE challenge at work. I will give you the information. You will try to find a better source or reason for my conclusion. During the year between April 12, 2009 and April 10, 2010, an estimated 12,000 deaths were reported in the United States due to a global pandemic called H1N1, with approximately 270,000 hospitalizations. Since it was published as a rough estimate, it was reported to have a number of deaths as low as 8,000 and as high as 18,000. This was dubbed the ‘swine flu’ and was quoted as such: “laboratory testing showed that its gene segments were similar to influenza viruses that were most recently identified in and known to circulate among pigs.” What is my belief? I assert that viruses can easily come from animals, and we have to ramp up proper protection and regulations concerning all food service workers and farmers to protect the American people from the contamination that could incite similar viral transference to humans. I also believe the popular H1Z1 game had its name influenced by this event.

Note: I did not yet reveal my source, or where the source got its methodology or research from. It is up to you to find out where this data came from, and to find a suitable, reasonable alternative conclusion to my own with the same data. Just look up ‘H1N1 US death rates.’ Which sources do you find? Which reference hit you right over the head as the credible G.O.A.T. source - G.O.A.T. meaning Greatest of All Time? You want the milk straight from the G.O.A.T.’s teat! You want to find the data that created my findings and may have given me that conclusion; and use it to #DISPROVE my claim. Whether you find the work derivative and not a real source, or the data to be inconclusive or even biased due to lack of credentials – or even working with financial interests with real benefit from the results. If I provided a clear source with a non-biased report that gave accurate and clear data, like video footage or peer-reviewed studies, then I gave at least adequate information.

If you took the time to research this, then you will be happy to know I did find that chunk of data from a reputable source that would have interest in seeing a much lower death toll: the United States Center for Disease Control. Referring to my previous quoted statement, the particular strain of the H1N1 influenza virus was first detected in people as early as 2009 in the United States; and has similar builds to the other influenza strains prevalent in North America and Eurasia that have cropped up -specifically from pigs to humans - since 1918. Those pigs spread such influenza from North America to Hong Kong as early as 2004. Moreover, this data is a direct source from a group tasked with the direct health of the nation, and they cite sources who actually studied the virus directly! I think I have found my G.O.A.T…. and that only took five minutes. Can anyone refute my claim that animals should be checked for disease, and to ramp up efforts not to spread more virulent forms of influenza? Is my claim refutable based on this data? Then #DISPROVE it.

Regardless, it’s how you use the information that gives us the perspective we share to others. If you are misinformed and react to that guidance, you will spread any actions you do to the community you live in. Everyone you share that guidance with will be provoked in some way to action. Judging by the current climate online, we see many people fighting amongst each other about who is to blame, and where the solution gathers. Many people end up believing any number of actors who spread lies to sell products, enlist the support of – or governance over – people with their labor or bank accounts, and even gaslight entire communities as perpetrators of heinous acts with malicious fiction. H.G. Wells may have written about the uncommon distress of man in 1984, but I wouldn’t have pegged him to have clairvoyance to see the rise of surreptitious bloggers touting the deadly inflammation of 5G microwaves that join forces with timely-spawned respiratory viruses to euthanize anyone not willing to bend to the will of corporatists. It’s shocking just how frivolous many claims can be.

The current climate does posit a theory. We are more angry, spiteful, distrusting and vulnerable when we are confused about common news. When the landscape of information is bated with garbage, we get more depressed, anxious and impulsive. We end up listening to any voice showing bass and enthusiasm. If it is said repeatedly, we sulk in its inevitable occurrence, and often spew out the same word vomit as an anchor for our own impressions. If I was given any advice I could use right now, it was always to listen, then STOP. Don’t even think. Just marinate on what you hear, then get some distance from the conversation. Approach it when you have freedom to choose how to utilize anything you heard that day. Never use unvetted comments to make impulse or immediate decisions. This is the vital key to help you #DISPROVE anything you hear.

There is one more key to this process: YOU. Any information given is YOUR responsibility to wield appropriately. We should be worried less about the bad news and more about the way we deal with such news. No one should speak for you; they won’t take the blame if you do something wrong based on their claims. You should always know the farthest reach of your decisions and judgements at all times. You should always be proud of what you do, and not susceptible to blame, hostility, liability or regret. I was previously quick to spread the hateful claim that all diseases recently grew in China, when that was nowhere near conclusive. I deeply apologize to all, including the friends I misled, for such hateful and ignorant comments.

The most comfortable responses come from well-informed people. We seek comfort, and when we get good information, we share comfort. Comfort rests in doing good works aided by good data. Such works often spread comfort to others, the exact thing Facebook should be sharing right about now.