Actually, we’re all born suckers. That is, until and unless we train ourselves to listen carefully and think logically, something that’s relatively new in human history. Furthermore, apropos the media and the internet, there are a bewildering number of ways to deceive.
Big Fat Lies
We expect advertisers to lie. Pick any cosmetic company. Deception is the foundation of the entire cosmetics industry. Without deception, Revlon, Estee Lauder, L’Oreal and even Proctor and Gamble wouldn’t be where they are today. You don’t really believe that your hair will have that shiny look like the TV ads picture if you buy the goo that they’re advertising? A chemist will tell you that all cosmetics companies are using the same chemicals and producing what is basically the same product. Most of what you pay for is “make believe.”
Big Fat Liars
We also expect politicians to lie. Both Democrats and Republicans. The only deterrent for politicians is the possibility of the falsehood being discovered. Why did Schwarzeneggar wait so long to tell the truth? He knew the voters wouldn’t elect him if he talked about it before the election. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Paul Ryan throws some curves on his budget plan and Obama exaggerates its impact on us. Before you argue with me read the research on Ryan and Obama on FactCheck.
Big Profitable Liars
We now know the finance industry is lying—and getting away with it. The cheat sheet on the financiers is long, and thus far, no top banking executives have been prosecuted. But the list of ways to deceive is long—and maybe getting longer.
So where does this leave us?
We humans are born inherently vulnerable to lies and liars. We’re all born suckers. If you believe in evolutionary biology, and I think there’s a lot to say for it, there are good, evolutionary reasons for the way our brains work. We’ve got caveman brains that used to protect us from a lion’s roar or a snake’s hiss. If we stopped to ponder too long then, it was all over for us. We may have just taken off running without bothering to think about what might happen to us, and lived to have children who were also wired to react without thinking.
Although we humans have been walking the earth for about 200,000 years, our modern notions of logic only showed up about 2,500 years ago. What’s also true is that modern technology—the media and the internet—multiplies the means by which we can be deceived. The scientific method of systematically testing our theories of what’s true against hard evidence is even a more recent invention than that. And today, for no good reason other than that politicians and ministers would like to keep us in the dark, the scientific method is getting a bad rap from the public.
The Caveman brain doesn’t fit the internet age. We’re all going to need to recognize deceptive messages, navigate the internet mine field, learn to think logically and find reliable authoritative facts. That’s what it’s going to take to succeed in your business and your career today—and tomorrow.
For more insight on deception and disinformation, see Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamison, unSpun: Finding facts in a world of disinformation.
