Truth is essential to humanity and life, because only the truth is real. It's no wonder then that a lot of fuss is made over it.
HEGE Series
The World Is Mad — Archbishop Averky (1906-†1976) The time will come when people will behave like madmen, and to him who does not, they will say: you behave like a madman because you're not like us. Fool-for-Christ Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. — 1 Corinthians 3:18-19
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World | Wikipedia
— The quintessential spiritual parable of America and the West — “every man for himself” in the proverbial fools’ chase after money (gold)
Drunk on Foolish Pleasures: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Ancient Greek comedy | Wikipeda — Fools are what make “comedy” in the classical sense, to be pitied not emulated
See — Psychology, American Foundations, Love of Money, Totalitarianism, The Beast
The Hatter and the March Hare are referred to as “both mad” by the Cheshire Cat, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
See — HEGE Series on Main Page
Fact or Fiction?
It's always been hard enough to separate fact from fiction, but in this day and age of deception, illusion, and delusion (and now AI Deepfakes), I'm not sure it's possible any more, especially when most today seem to have forgotten their 3rd grade lessons for distinguishing between the two. On top of that, we're bombarded daily by Propaganda. As Alex Carey has noted, Americans are the most propagandized people on the planet. Politifact.com and Snopes.com can help, but most of us make decisions based on our emotions, not facts, and often fail to distinguish between what isn't factual but merely opinion or an impression, what's only possibility or probability, circumstantial, anecdotal, or conjectural.
The court of public opinion is just that — opinion, not fact, or necessarily good judgement. It's nothing but mass mentality, or herd mentality that's easily manipulated into political “constituency”, or mob, by those who know how — who have means, motive, and opportunity (See — Criminal investigation). It's true that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. But a lot of the people are fooled a lot of the time, and typically refuse to listen or follow the few who historically aren't fooled and who exhibit good judgement.
Fallacy (Error)
In the Information Age, it's imperative to train ourselves to think like lawyers building court cases. We must learn the basics of logical fallacies so as not to fall prey to them. How many today know the difference between raising the question and begging the question, especially when their arguments mainly consist of ad hominem attacks on those they oppose? If we cannot concede to “point taken” or that we simply don't know, then we are not reasoned beings. And if our evidence is unreasonable and will not stand up in court, then we must accede lest we be thrown out of court and lose our conviction, or worse, maintain it on the false basis of claims to “conspiracy theory”, “truthiness”, or “alternative facts” and become guilty of slandering our neighbor.
Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies !
Thou shalt not suffer cognitive biases !
Wikipedia
Sometime before June 29, 2022 it was discovered that —
Someone Slipped Hundreds of Fake Articles About Things That Never Happened Onto Wikipedia.
Apparently, Chinese and Russian language versions of Wikipedia suffer from this the most, but the English version is not immune either.
History of Wikipedia • What Wikipedia is not • No original research • Accuracy dispute • Verifiability • Criticism of Wikipedia • Do not create hoaxes • List of hoaxes on Wikipedia • Reliability of Wikipedia • Wikipedia is not reliable • Conflict of interest editing
Wikipedia Review | Wikipedia
The Wikipedia Review]
Wikipediocracy | Wikipedia
Wikipediocracy
Our Mission: We exist to shine the light of scrutiny into the dark crevices of Wikipedia and its related projects; to examine the corruption there, along with its structural flaws; and to inoculate the unsuspecting public against the torrent of misinformation, defamation, and general nonsense that issues forth from one of the world’s most frequently visited websites, the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit....
[E]ven after 20 years of existence [Jan 24th, 2022], it’s still too easy for Wikipedia to be manipulated by clever and/or tenacious bad actors, even when those bad actors aren’t particularly well-versed on the rules, or even particularly skilled at lying.
Reality or Deception (Illusion, Delusion)?
The Truman Show | Wikipedia - Trailer
— Truman Burbank, “Chosen out of six unwanted pregnancies to be the first child legally adopted by a Corporation”
“True Man”: the one who comes to understand the true corporate controlled condition of modern man and choses to forsake it all for Real Life
Quiz Show (film) | Wikipedia — Trailer
Twilight Zone: The Movie | Wikipedia — Trailer
Simulacron-3 (Counterfeit World) | Wikipedia — 1964 science fiction novel
World on a Wire (Welt am Draht) | Wikipedia — Trailer YouTube based on Simulacron-3
The Thirteenth Floor | Wikipedia — Trailer loosely based on Simulacron-3
The Matrix (franchise) | Wikipedia
— Trailers: Matrix 1999, Reloaded 2003, Revolutions 2003, Resurrections 2021
The Matrix Tried To Warn You — @Moon-Real | YouTube