Deconstruction: Is it human nature to be gullible? Why is it that people tend to believe more stuff than question it? I suppose part of it is not having a background....like me and financial advisors, I am way too trusting of them!!
The funny this is that when I got home last night, there was a program on CBC called "Google World". I don't know if any of you caught it. It showed inside the offices of Google and the working stations of employees. Wow! They had desks that were attached to treadmills for the stretches of afternoon when you need to get up and out of your desk. That's productivity! However, the most interesting part was the last 2 minutes or so. It brought up the orginal written contract of the 2 guys that started Google and it said that they had no intention of being a commercialized business. Their sole intent was to take the knowledge of the world and make it accessible to everyone. Also, their intent is that people would be responsible with the information and hence their motto: "Don't be evil". They ended the program with the word "Trust" and that the people at Google were trusting the human race to "not be evil" and to have a responsibility for the information they were posting and using. Now, that's a lot of trust they have!! I think the people at Google are pretty gullible, but as I said...is that just human nature?
That brings me back to the end notes of Professor Hlynka and his MY seminar. Plagiarism is a trust factor as well. When using media or technology, we as a human race have to trust that people are going to be responsible with what we produce and vice versa. In this day and age, with communication tools at our fingertips, why is it so difficult to contact the original creator of stuff....shouldn't it be way easier?
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I think you are right, it is human nature to trust others, at least we hope we can. Its too bad it isn't always reality, however, I do believe most people are trustworthy, good people. You are sure right, it should be easier to find the owner/creator of the content. Even some Creative Commons stuff is hard to find an author for. I found the examples of 'plagiarism' Dr. Hlynka illustrated quite interesting. We read, learn, hear and see so much, that sometimes we use some content and simply do not remember where it came from or if it was our own inspiration.
ReplyDeleteGullibility, literacy and the writing on a wall. Those boys at Google had such beautiful intentions, but would they give up the millions from YouTube by filtering its content? Their stance of openness and trust demonstrates that technology can be used for good or evil. It also says that for some, when money is on the line, beautiful intentions remain intentions.
ReplyDeleteI'll be the first to admit that I don't cite everything properly when I write, but I do try to acknowledge my source. Plagiarism and the internet make for quite a storm. Actually, hyperlinks should make it easier to cite sources, if publishing is done on-line. Regarding plagiarism, I have an interesting story to share. I know a retired professor who did his share of publishing in his career. He was also a manuscript reviewer for a particular publishing company. One day, the company sent him a book manuscript to read. As he was reading it, he came across a chapter that looked very familiar. In fact, the chapter he was reading was taken word-for-word from one of his own books. Not sure what happened to the plagiarizer.
Most individuals are trusting individuals. Plagiarism is a tricky issue. In some respects technology is not the solution to plagiarism but part of the problem. Unfortunately technology has lead to far more plagiarism than when we had to research a topic using books. Some High School kids go and copy and paste from the internet directly. I remember when a student of mine printed something directly from the internet and passed it in. I caught her when I noticed that the paper was shorter than usual. She did not know how the print a web page without the address on it so she literally cut the header off the page! Is is progress that kids can at least copy in paste? Seriously though, some kids don't even know when they are plagiarizing. We need to educate our students a little better and we need to teach them to do proper citations.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Paul! Way back pre-easy to use/ubiquitous technology, I had a kid do an essay by copying - by hand - an entire chapter from our regular Biology textbook!! I don't know how he thought he could get away with that! I asked why him why he simply didn't hand in the text, save a lot of time...
ReplyDeleteInteresting question, "Is it human nature to be gullible?" Plato would answer that it is in fact the opposite, that it is human nature to be rational.
ReplyDeleteBut history has proven time and time again that the trusting, emotional side of the human brain often wins out over the rational, logical side.
In education, trust is of utmost importance, because it leads to learning. A student must have a trusting, positive relationship with a teacher in order to learn new knowledge. Brain research has shown that when a person feels "mistrust", the amygdalae in the brain prevents the lower brain from accepting new information, in effect preventing learning and instead putting the brain into a survival, defensive mode. So trust is important to us teachers, as it is the only way to allow meaningful learning to take place.
The question is how to balance this naive innate trust with a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism that is needed to survive in this dog-eat-dog digital world.