A little knowledge goes a long way sometimes… and maybe not in the direction we’d like.
As I’ve noted before, my college degree is in computer animation, specifically geared to film making. In the course of earning that degree, I learned a lot of film making tricks and tactics, as well as the extra layer of tomfoolery that computer graphics permits. As such, it’s very hard to watch a movie these days and not see all the little hacks and cheats. I can’t help but see behind the curtain because I’m so familiar with what goes on back there.
I have a similar problem with games. Since I work in making games, usually creating, texturing and animating 3D models, and I’m very familiar with the industry, I see all the little tricks that other game developers use in their games. Even if I’m willing to suspend my disbelief and just be entertained, it’s a reflex to see, catalogue, and examine how things work, and perhaps more importantly, how they don’t work.
Similarly, since my degree is technically a Bachelor’s of the Fine Arts, and I’ve been an artist who studies art for a long time, I have a lot of experience with art, both creating it and in analyzing it. I see art problems way too easily. Even my hobbyist knowledge of astrophysics, physics, math and science makes some things hard to swallow, like the awful science in that recent Star Trek movie.
This is the effect underlying the Uncanny Valley effect. Y’see, we’re all experts at being human, just by virtue of, well… living life. When we see something that doesn’t agree with our experience, it just seems wrong, no matter how well-crafted it is. It need not even be conscious; we notice the inherent wrongness whether or not we want to, and it colors our experience. Even something like basic kinesthetics can be thrown off, as is the case with the Kinect motion sensor control system for the XBox. The functionality is wrong compared to what we know so well, and it just doesn’t work.
So when we see something like this, where a psychotic nutjob’s murderous actions are blamed, in part, on video games, as gamers, we cannot help but shout:
We know enough about the reality of games from our own expertise to call “shenanigans!” on the media narrative.
Of course, there’s a flipside to this. If we don’t have personal expertise in a topic at hand, and don’t want to bother informing ourselves about it, it becomes very easy to just go with the flow, accept fallacious authority, and accept whatever we’re told, especially if it’s something we think we agree with and fall prey to confirmation bias. If we want to hate someone or something, we’ll find reasons to do so. If the narrative suits our taste, we’ll happily ignore facts. We embrace ignorance and live in our own little perception bubble, because we’re happy there. Manipulative agenda-riddled media is more than happy to play along.
This is certainly obvious in politics and the so-called “mainstream media”. This is one reason why blogging is changing the world and why it’s important to protect in the face of political opposition and Big Brother control; the “news” networks get called on their lies and matters of public policy can get a bit more transparency with concerned citizens involved. Nothing quite dies on the internet, and it’s increasingly easier to do a bit of research and do a little fact checking. Of course, even then, so-called “fact checkers” are usually biased, too. You really have to go do your homework and proper research if you care about something.
Remember the murderer who played WoW? When there’s a causal link implied by shoddy reporting and poor courtroom procedure, and you know the argument is pure crap, you don’t trust the narrative, and you are right to be distrustful. You know better, no matter what the talking heads on the magic light box try to tell you.
The really crazy part is when you see through the curtain sometimes, but decide to let it slip back into place later, say, if the same media outlet reports something you want to hear. They are no more trustworthy than they were before, but this time, since it’s something you agree with, it doesn’t matter what goes on behind that curtain. The narrative is what matters, not the truth.
WoW subscription numbers down 300,000? The game is finally dying! Thanks for the brave reporting, guys!
WoW subscription numbers steady next quarter? Must be a statistical blip or someone cooking the books. They are desperate to show they aren’t dying! Lousy lying media!
So what? Just sayin’…
Trust, but verify. Understand your own bias and get past it… at least, if you care about truth. Sometimes, we just want to be lied to. Being able to swallow the lies, benign or otherwise, certainly makes it easier to be entertained.
Ah, this is so well said and well timed, all one can say is amen. To detect ones own blindspots is possibly the toughest lesson in self-awareness. We are all addicted to being right.
Btw I really liked Phoenix Wright, hehe.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been subconsciously waiting to use that Phoenix Wright “Objection!” video for a while; it seems a perfect fit for the inevitable courtroom abuse of video games.
I’m confused TTT. You are obviously thinking deeply about truth and trustworthiness. You explaijn clearly that we need to be sceptical of just accepting given truths and that we need to verify the facts and think for ourselves. Yet you continually link (on this blog and in your twitter feed) to sources that are very partisan, and not particulalry coherent or convincing.
It strikes me that you have only made half the journey. Thinking for your self means being equally sceptical about all sides.
Most of my links are about questioning the media and modern journalism. The media trends liberal. It’s that simple.
For what it’s worth, I trust very little of any of it, and when I look at politics on the whole, I find much to dislike about all of them.
Fair enough Tesh but if you are really concerned about truth then you need to look beyond simple labels like “liberal” and “conservative”. The real truth is more complicated than any simple label.
Oh, definitely. There’s a whole spectrum of policy and opinion, and a good chunk of it doesn’t fit the labels. The labels mean different things in different contexts, too; “liberal” used to mean “freedom-seeking” as in “liberty”, but these days that’s covered by “libertarian”… and then there are differences across oceans. “Liberal” in the EU is different from “liberal” in the ‘States. And then there are the different axes to measure on, like social and fiscal. It’s all far more complex than two terms.
The problem is that there is too much information out there. We need some sort of filter to bring to attention the information that’s important to us. And the modern news media is not really a good filter. It’s as much entertainment and fear mongering as accurate reporting of facts and events.
It’s also all autocorrelated in that a lot of “news stories” are essentially press releases from various organizations that news agencies report without bothering to fact check at all (despite that ostensibly being their job). If ten different organizations use the same press release as the basis of a story on some topic, they are going to get it right or wrong in pretty much the same way.
You can theoretically check into any story for yourself. However, I know that I personally don’t have nearly the spare time it would take to investigate even half of the stories I care about. The fact that it’s possible for Jo average to dig deeper into a topic via the internet is a new development. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it much more realistic to expect most of us to take the time out to do that for any but a small fraction of topics we care deeply about.
Very true. Makes it important to pick and choose your fights, I suppose. Also, it strikes me that wariness isn’t a bad default state.
[…] storytelling, since it’s often all too easy to see the author’s hand in events, the chicanery behind the curtain, as it were. That, or the story is so random that it doesn’t satisfy my desire to see […]