The Gullible American

A few years ago I received an email from a friend. He sent it to about 45 or 50 of his friends, and he didn't "blind copy" the recipients, meaning I could see every email address it was sent to. One of his friends replied, but that person didn't reply only to the sender, he "replied all," meaning I received a copy of his email.

In his email, my friend was passing along some information he had received by email. He said that the best way to treat a burn was to plunge the burned body part (finger, hand) into a bucket of sand. The person who replied stated in his email that he intended to try that method the next time he burned himself.

I sent that person an email, and I said "Don't do that ... stick with tried and true. Pour cold water over the injury."

He replied and asked, "How do you know water works best? Maybe sand is the best way to treat a burn."

And I replied, "Consider the source of this information. It's contained in an email being passed along from person to person. We don't know the real source of the information. It could be a doctor or it could be a bored 14-year-old sitting in his bedroom sending out bogus information just to make mischief." And that's where the conversation ended.

But my point applies to a lot of things happening today. The QAnon person is an excellent example. So many people take his/her word as truth without knowing anything about the person called QAnon. Is QAnon a person in government? Is QAnon a bored 14 year old? How would you know? And if you do know, how do you know? What evidence do you have? What proof do you have?

Now some of Q's followers are going to prison. So far, some sentences have been for more than five years, and I wouldn't bet against even longer sentences down the road.

People are too gullible today. They fall for online "catfishing" scams and lose a lot of money. The Internet is filled with criminals and fraudsters because so many Americans throw out their common sense and think, "If it's on the Internet it must be true."

"Believe none of what you hear and believe half of what you see," is an old quote. It has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, and others. Use common sense. Check out things you hear, consider the sources, be careful about taking one person's word about something important. Even things you see with your own eyes can deceive you. That is how magicians make a living: they present you with an illusion. What you see isn't really what is happening.

Remember the Wizard of Oz: the wizard never was the "great and powerful" ... he was merely an old man standing behind a curtain. Many people you know may present themselves as the Wizard. Don't be gullible. Don't be a wide-eyed sucker. Don't be a mark. 

Believe none of what you hear; believe half of what you see.