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A while back someone told me an electric car was not a car, because it doesn't have a carburetor. So you have to call it an EV. I took him at his word. Then I was on a train and I said something to another passenger about the train car we were in. And I thought;
Maybe the word "car" isn't short for "carburetor", maybe it's short for "carriage"? So I checked. Yup;
https://www.etymonline.com/word/car#5353
Was that EV geek messing with me, or did it never occur to him?
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I confidently passed this non-fact on to a bunch of other people before I thought to fact-check it. At least some of them probably assumed I knew what I was talking about, and passed it on to others.
This is how viral misinformation spreads. Along relationships of trust and credibility, that tunnel under critical thinking. People spreading disinformation hack those channels to spread their intentionally-generated non-facts.
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@strypey cars haven't had carburetors since the 80s? Cars have fuel injectors now. i think he was just dumb.
@tootbrute
> cars haven't had carburetors since the 80s?
Depends on the vehicle maybe? But what I know about fossil fuel powered motor vehicles could be scribbled on the back of an envelope : P
> i think he was just dumb
What does that say about me, given that I believed him without question? 
In Europe, carburetors were largely replaced by fuel injection in the late 1980s, although fuel injection had been increasingly used in luxury cars and sports cars since the 1970s. EEC legislation required all vehicles sold and produced in member countries to have a catalytic converter after December 1992. This legislation had been in the pipeline for some time, with many cars becoming available with catalytic converters or fuel injection from around 1990.
@strypey it is a 'fact' that sounds good so people go with it. just a coincidence that fits together.
@strypey @tootbrute Well, you eventually thought about it, questioned it, *actually looked it up*, and then *talked about it publicly to get the correct information out there.* By my reckoning, that makes you a genuine prodigy capable of things most people aren't.
@biogeo aww shucks 
A quick glance at your profile tells me you're a neuroscientist. Cool! Your comment suggests maybe you don't think this is possible, but ...
Do you have any insights on realistic ways to get people to double check claims passed to them by people and institutions they trust, before passing them on themselves?
@strypey @tootbrute I wish there were a neuroscience-informed solution, but realistically I think it comes down to better education in critical thinking skills and considering individual claims in a broader context.
But in the end, I think it's the human condition to want to share information with each other, and to look to people we trust as sources for that. We all do it, and we all sometimes repeat bogus information as a result.
I genuinely think that our best solution is to do what you did and correct when it happens. Most people get their egos wrapped up in "being right" and will refuse to admit if they realize they've said something wrong. A lot of people get furious if they're confronted with evidence they were wrong. Being able to say "Oh, oops, I thought this was true but turns out I was mistaken!" is rarer than it should be. I think we need to normalize it, and I try to call it out for the praise it deserves whenever I see it. That's the best solution I've come up with.
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@biogeo
> Most people get their egos wrapped up in "being right" and will refuse to admit if they realize they've said something wrong ... Being able to say "Oh, oops, I thought this was true but turns out I was mistaken!" is rarer than it should be
This really resonates with me. Being incorrect is a normal thing that happens to us all at times, but for some reason there's huge shame attached to it. Like farting.
Why does we demonise these imperfections? How do we stop?
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One of my permaculture teachers says;
If you're not making any mistakes, you're not learning anything.
That really stuck with me. When I get things wrong - especially in areas I consider myself knowledgeable about - what I try to do is focus not on what I failed to do (be right), but what I did do (learn something).
I give myself props for having the humility to accept my human limitations, and the courage to transcend my current knowledge. I celebrate it (see the #MeaCulpa tag).
Another inspiration for candidly admitting my mistakes was FailCon;
When I post to my blog, and generally when I'm posting to this account too, I'm wearing my independent media hat. When I get things wrong, that's a fail. Potential an embarrassing one.
But I try to remind myself that well paid professional journalists, published in newspapers of record, still get things wrong. Scholarly journals retract papers. No human being gets it right all the time.
Speaking of #MeaCulpa, about a week ago ...
Me:
> the latest changes at NZ Herald owner NZME, including canning the jobs of dozens of journalist
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/114050137385461268
In my head, possibly confusing it with previous waves of news media job losses, I was thinking the number was in the hundreds. A subsequent listen to MediaWatch corrected that, to just about 40;
Technically this is about 3 dozen, which is still a lot of people losing their livelihood, but ...
