its not what you know, its who you believe

I was having a discussion the other day with a coworker regarding the high price of oil, and the fact that the oil companies profits rose by 44% over the last year, while the price of oil rose 40%. It seemed reasonable to me that if the american consumer was just having the higher cost of oil being passed on to him/her, then the amount of net profit for the oil companies would not have risen so dramatically.

My coworker asked where I got my facts, and I responded NPR.

"Natually", he said. "They are anti- business"

This made me think. Was NPR lying to me? Are his factual sources unbiased while mine are biased? Are my factual sources unbiased while his are all biased?

So maybe there are no real facts. Maybe all information is based on who you believe. There are folks out there that are absolutely convinced of things like...

God made the earth literally in 6 days, just a few thousand years ago, and buried fossilized bones that date back earlier, just to test our faith.

women are intrinisically inferior to men and should be subservient

non whites are genetically inferior because of their physical differences from whites

anyone not believing [insert your religion here] is literally gonna be tortured forever by God

gay people deliberately choose to do horrible disgusting things that they know are evil and will make them burn in hell, just beacuse they want to.

Large Corporations have the interests of consumers at heart.

americans are all devils out to control the world

muslims are all devils, out to destroy the world

it is possible to justify cutbacks in spending on the poor while providing tax cuts to wealthier people

where do they get their facts, I wonder. Someone they trust espouses these things? So if facts are nothing more than just believing someone you trust, maybe their are no true facts.

Maybe the world really is flat?

sometimes it seems better to be a gnome.