Are we Living in a Post-Truth Era?
Hans Rosling, through his lectures and his book Factfulness, seems determined to ground our view of the world, and our public discourse, on objective truths. Sadly, he may be fighting an uphill battle. As we confront a bewildering array of data from a burgeoning number of sources, we struggle to distinguish the signal from the noise. At the same time, public confidence in governments and other institutions to provide unbiased information has declined precipitously. Indeed, our post-modern sensibilities doubt the existence of “objective truths” in the first place.
For those of us who cling to the notion that objective truth not only exists but must – somehow – inform decisions at all levels of society, Hans Rosling offers something of a lifeline. Although the sources that he and his co-authors cite in Factfulness are now a bit dated (the book came out in 2018), the approach seems to us a useful one: continually search out the most robust sources of hard data and examine them dispassionately before forming judgments about the world and about the means to address its many problems.
Rosling does have a message for us, contained in the book’s subtitle: “Things are better than you think.” Whether that’s true, of course, depends on how bad you think things are!
As always, please share your views on this topic, and also on this week’s acrostic, which includes a variety of clues and answers relating to truthfulness or the lack thereof.
And speaking of things that are a bit dated, here’s a classic from 1975 that we referenced in Clue/Answer R.:
Another thoroughly enjoyable acrostic and especially insightful about the times we are living in. The clue and answer to entry O. are worthy of a chef’s kiss!
A very “to the point” quote for our current era. Several smile-producing clues and words for me; Word L, a word of the year that is two words, Word O, so apropos, but I wondered where it originated, Word V, a very fun word relating to the gist of the subject.
One of the hardest acrostics I can recall – objectively! When I figured out GPS and a long word like NOVITIATE, and guessed from the other YOUs in the grid that the opening was YOU SHOULD NOT, I thought I was home free. But items like the book title and not remembering the capital of Togo even when I had 3 of 4 letters left me frustrated for a longer while…and I’m ashamed to admit that the very apt answers at L and O eluded me for too long. (And that I never heard of FATTOUSH.)
I will say that the quote also leaves me frustrated, because where can we get our worldview? Not from government, these days…I guess I should check out the book…
That, truthfully, was a toughie.
First-class puzzle and quotation, as always. The book came out long before our corporate overlords decided that we wanted to see the AI answer first, whenever we googled the subject.
The siren-like temptation is that often the AI answer is accurate, concise and useful. But often it is not, with AI just scraping up, say, some medical advice from quasi-frauds like Dr. Oz.
So if I’m seeking, for example, medical advice, I will usually toss into my search request the names of (usually) trustworthy institutions, like Mayo Clinic, Harvard and Stanford medical schools, Johns Hopkins, etc. Then, at least, references to those sources bubble up to the top.
I only thought of NOVITIATE as the person and not the period of training, so that slowed me down. Great puzzle as usual!
Another very nice puzzle. The quotation you chose was a great analogy. I lingered a moment over the Eagles song before I realized it was [aha!] “Lyin’,” not “Lying” … and I loved the little blank square for the hyphen in “fact-based.” I don’t think I’ve run into that in an Acrostic yet. Thank you as always!
Another very nice puzzle. The quotation you chose was a great analogy. I lingered a moment over the Eagles song before I realized it was [aha!] “Lyin’,” not “Lying” … and I loved the little blank square for the hyphen in “fact-based.” I don’t think I’ve run into that in an Acrostic yet. Thank you as always!
Another winner. I didn’t have many answers on a first pass, but miraculously I had enough to envision “navigate around the,” and equally miraculously, the letters I gained from those words helped me get a couple more answers and that was enough to get me started. I hesitated on ATTABOY, because I think of that as two words. Except for the depressing nature of the quote’s subject, this was an enjoyable solve.