Transcript of Episode 16

LaMondre Pough: Welcome to 3DVU, one conversation, three different perspectives. I’m LaMondre Pough.

David Perez: I am David Perez.

Richard Streitz: And I’m Richard Streitz. Thank you for joining us.

Hello and welcome to another episode of 3DVU. Uh, today’s topic. We are going to be talking about, uh, information integrity, um, information or data integrity, um, and the importance of that and how, um, altering, um, the integrity of information can dramatically change or shift, um, and have severe ramifications. Uh, and you know, we’re going to talk about this, uh, certainly as we’ve seen, um, uh, as a nation here in the US and, then certainly the world, uh, the, the effects of this over the, over the past number of years, culminating really, uh, during this past U S election, presidential election, um, that that’s now ended.

And, uh, and I think it’s important that we talk about how. The, the integrity of, of information, news and the transmission of that data, um, and information is passed on and how, um, how we as a peoples, uh, engage with it and react to it, uh, rightfully or wrongfully. Uh, and, and, and so that is, um, that’s sort of the framework of the discussion.

So I throw that out to the, uh, throw that up through the floor and, uh, you know, get your guys’ input.

LaMondre Pough: Yeah. You know, I think that this is such a timely topic with the rise of social media, becoming more and more popular platforms to get information from. Um, and the fact that everyone can contribute to it, everyone and anyone, regardless of credential, regardless of background, regardless of motive, anyone can put anything that they want out there. And honestly, because of the, because of the speed at which information moves now, it can really have a major impact, whether it be real or not, whether it be, uh, verified information or not, uh, people have a tendency. It, it, it, it almost reminds me well, if it’s on the internet is true, you know, and of course, of course we recognize that that’s not the case at all.

So I think that this is a really important conversation, to talk about the pro the, the, how pervasive it is, number one, but also, but also, um, what we can do, what we can do to protect ourselves and to protect our communities and protect our society against, against falsehoods. So great conversation to have.

Let’s go.

David Perez: Yeah. It’s, it’s really interesting to me how we are in an age of information. We’re creating information like crazy. Everyone is able to put things out there and tell people what they feel, what they see, what they have studied, what they, what their research is, and people can agree or disagree with it, but the problem is that having so much information available at the same time for everyone tends to become exactly what we’re seeing.

People tend to go with what, what, with what they agree with, the things that they agree with most are the things that they are going to be sharing and commenting on and get getting to be more popular. And that makes it validated right, in a sense, because we are validating that information that we’re getting, because we agree with it.

So it doesn’t have to go through a rigorous process of peer reviews or anything. If we agree with it, we’re going to share it. And we’re going to make it viral if we can. And if we were able to do that, then we are creating misinformation, even if we are doing it for a good cause. Right. And in our last episode, we were talking about the future of work and there’s a statistic that is rolling around and everyone has heard it about 90% of kids that are going to school are going to end up in jobs that didn’t exist.

That statistic is based on nothing. If you go and backtrack where it comes from, it comes from someone’s idea of what could happen in the future, but it’s not based on real data. And we have viralized it in a way that everyone knows that statistic now, and that’s happening in a conversation about the future of work, where it doesn’t have a real impact right now.

But what happens when that starts happening in conversations really important, like vaccination, like healthcare, like politics and all of those other things.

LaMondre Pough: Right. And we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it start to happen in conversations about vaccinations and honestly, whether or not you agree with this particular perspective or not.

But if you remember, um, I guess about seven or eight years ago, there was this huge conversations about how vaccines childhood vaccinations could contribute to autism. And if you remember, that was a huge topic and we saw record drop-offs in terms of parents who are getting their children vaccinated, but then you also saw a huge uptake in diseases that were thought to be eradicated, uh, coming back and really doing damage.

So it shows really, it really shows how, um, how out of hand, these kinds of things can get really quickly and how that could have real, uh, real, real, real devastating results to a society.

Richard Streitz: You know, one of the interesting things about that is the concept of opinion versed fact or data. Um, and, and the blurred lines between that, um, it seems that what social media has given the ability for is force an individual’s opinion if propagated enough now becomes a fact. Um, and you know, and, and that can be extremely dangerous. Uh, if, if a, if a popular or dangerous idea, um, becomes, uh, so, uh, so viral and so, um, and so accepted as, as a commonplace or fact, then that can have, uh, you know, serious ramifications and distortion, um, to a functioning society.

Um, and. And, you know, that’s, I think it’s that blurring of lines. Um, because one thing that we’ve lost is, is clearing house of information, because there are so many of, uh, you know, clue clearing houses. So let’s, let’s look at news organizations, um, and the tick. Uh, typical or traditional network news organizations or newspapers.

Um, they used to be sort of the official clearing houses because, um, David, I think you were saying before we, we, we started, you know, editors sort of helped be curators of, of that information, fact checking and making sure that when they printed something or when they talked about something that it was based on, on some set of tangible, uh, facts and they took the, the individuals in those positions took their role extremely seriously because they knew the importance of what they were doing and, and the ramifications of what they were doing. You add social media into, you know, you know, uh, nowadays, uh, and the immediacy that all of us have and, you know, in our hands, um, to be able to amplify a single opinion.

And if there’s a, if there’s enough individuals that accept that or, or adopt that, or buy into that opinion, that now becomes the, uh, The new reality or the new fact, and, and that’s done, um, without necessarily, uh, by, by individuals without necessarily the same level of responsibility that individuals who curated that, that data and curated not as in generating it, but individuals who dug into it to, to examine the validity of, of that information.

And that’s something that, that we’ve seem to have lost the ability to do as a, as a society. In some of these news organizations, they still do that, but it’d be, it has become so diluted because of the, um, the, the over magnification, um, and bombardment of information that we get from, from other sources like social media.

David Perez: Yeah, it is, it is really interesting how social media happened and it was the greatest thing. And now everyone’s starting to see the problems, right. Everyone’s starting to see what could happen if each one of us was their own editor in a sense of what they get as news and as facts basically. And I don’t think that it’s a bad thing completely.

I think that it’s, it’s a good thing that you’re able to find the things that are interesting to you. At some points, there are topics that have been completely eraised from history because they were not talked about and people have been excluded from conversations. So giving, opening that door was a great thing, but how do we start to keep integrity in information as we are creating more information now than ever before, it’s it’s really hard and it’s going to get harder, but I think the natural evolution of this is going to be people being able to make those decisions themselves without editors having to tell them what is wrong. And what’s right. There has to be. I, I really have to believe in human beings being able to do that because if we don’t get there, well, it’s going to be a dystopian future to say the least. Because people are going to segregate more and more and more and more instead of being the future that we hope for, which is more inclusive.

LaMondre Pough: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think that, I think that you’ve made a really important point. This is like a new frontier. This, this is a, uh, you know, a newly discovered land that we are, that we’re exploring that we’re walking into that we’re inhabiting and here’s the thing we’re going to live here. We’re going to live here. So there is a tremendous amount of possibility. There is a tremendous amount of optimism. There is a tremendous amount of hope, but then the flip side of that, and that is, it’s the wilderness.

There’s a lot of wild things out there that can eat you and wants to eat you and absolutely tear you up. So we’ve got to figure out how do we, how do we keep the freedom that this new frontier offers and the ability to self-distribute that this new frontier offers, but how do we keep it safe and how do we keep it?

How do we keep the integrity there? How do we make it a place? Where truth can really reign. Um, and it’s interesting because it is, it, it, it does swing both ways because I think about, I think about how it was social media that showed the murder of George Floyd to the world, to the world. And the world reacted to that now here’s, what’s interesting.

This is nothing new. This has been happening over and over again. We saw it back on video with Rodney King, you know, back in the late eighties, early nineties. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know if the rest of the world saw that when the Los Angeles police department brutally beat Rodney King over a simple traffic situation, but we saw that broadcast then, and yes, it had an impact in the U S however, it did not result in systemic change, but now you fast forward some 30 years later and you see a man brutally murdered. And even if you took the, the commentary away from it, if you took the, the, the interpretations away from it.

What you saw was a handcuffed man being murdered and it was social media and it was the, the, the, the ability for people to share it and move it out there that really woke people up, that really helped people to see, Hey, this is something that’s been happening. So without this incredible thing of social media, it would not have been possible to see that and begin to right those kinds of wrongs.

Now, the flip side of that, is that it’s also through social media, that we see this bullying, um, thing, just go in areas that you never thought, in elementary school or middle school or high school bully could go. And we’ve never thought that, that the things that we saw as kids when I was a child, anyway, things that we saw as, as childish kind of antics that really never had a real impact on, on, on your trajectory as an adult that this stuff really is now. And it really can. So again, it’s, it’s, it’s the new frontier, it’s the wild Wild West over again. And we’ve got, we’ve got heroes and we’ve got bad guys. And the thing is, how do we, how do, how do we secure uh, every one so that they can have a piece of it. And I guess that’s the question.

David Perez: I think the answer lies as in everything in education. I think we need to educate the world in how to deal with this reality. Because there there’s a science called epistemology I think, that studies how we create knowledge for ourselves.

Right. And the idea of, of, of that is that we start from our own perspective, from what we know is from what we create knowledge and from what we gather knowledge. So everything that you see LaMondre, you see one perspective and that’s basically what this show is based on LaMondre’s perspective, Richard’s perspective.

And my perspective is completely different because we have different realities, completely different realities. So starting from that, and then moving forward to now that you know that you are creating knowledge from your own reality, that you’re looking at life through your lens, try to gather more lenses.

Try to get more perspective, try to understand the world from their perspective so that you can see what you are doing and how it affects each and every individual. And that is the only way that I see that we can start to maybe create a reality where people are able to discern a little better, what’s wrong and what’s right with the information that they’re creating and socializing.

Richard Streitz: Yeah. You know, I, I think certainly we, each individually have to sort of become the clearing house. Right. We each have to take on the deeper understanding and responsibility of when we put something out, especially with the intent that it is meant to, um, to, to stir people, um, emotionally an emotionally charged statement.

Um, we have to have some level of responsibility as to how we use that, so that we can be better stewards of not only just, um, uh, good citizens. Um, but, but also making sure that we don’t run into the problems that we have seen certainly, uh, exasperated in, in more current months, but, uh, building over the course of the past five, six years, um, leading to this, uh, you know, with the freedom comes responsibility, um, you know, yelling fire in a, in a, in a, uh, in a crowded theater is, is it goes beyond just freedom of speech. Um, you know, it’s just a really bad thing to do because it creates all kinds of problems and, and sort of,

LaMondre Pough: Unless there’s a fire.

Richard Streitz: Unless there’s a fire. Exactly. Yeah. And again, that goes back to that integrity of the information, right. If the information is true, well, then it’s true. Um, but, but if it’s not.

It can create absolute chaos and mayhem. And I think that’s sort of where we see ourselves, is because there’s a lot of alternate truths. Now that’s not to say that some of these in, some individuals who are saying this have become absolutely convinced that you know, what they’re seeing is, is a reality.

So. From those individual standpoints. It is, it is fact-based. But how did those individuals get to the point where they believe that that, that is a new reality? You know, that is the systemic problem that we’ve built up to, to this point in time. Um, which is why social media certainly has exasperated this, but it, it, that I think sits on top of a much of of a larger issue culturally, and now I’m going to speak just in the U S of, of suppressed feelings, um, and not necessarily being true or genuine to oneself. And for whatever reason, social media has allowed, um, allowed what has existed to come and be more normalized and become a, a new, a new reality. Um, and.

And I, I think, you know, that again comes down to a responsibility we each have of, of making sure we understand what we’re reading and what we’re seeing.

LaMondre Pough: Yeah. You know, I think, um, you know, David mentioned the best way to really, uh, start to move this is through education.

Richard Streitz: Through awareness.

LaMondre Pough: And bringing the different perspectives in and, and.

And respecting those different perspectives and actually hearing them. Um, but I think that that is the, and I think that that is one of the major challenges, um, because we have actually started to develop a world where your perspective can be your own and you don’t have to hear anybody else’s, we’ve created these echo chambers.

We’ve created these silos. Where anything that’s contradictory to what I think in what I’m saying, I can absolutely 100% unequivocally blackout and don’t have to hear it again because let’s face it. Many of the algorithms, uh, algorithms are written in such a way that it just feeds me what I’m eating.

Whatever I’m eating. That’s what it is. If, if, if, if, if what I’m eating is spaghetti, you bet not dare try to slip some corn in there because it won’t get in there. They’ll get blocked out right away. You know, and, and so that’s a part of what we have to build against as well, is allowing those other perspectives, because here’s the thing.

And I’m like, I’m with you, David. I’m an optimist all the way through and through. I believe in us as well. David started the show off with, I believe in us and I do, but I think that it’s important. It’s important that, that as we build through this, that if we can get people to see different perspectives, if I, if, if, if you can present a different perspective to me and I actually see it, if, if I can get you to see a different perspective, I believe we’ll consider it.

But it’s awfully hard. When what has happened is other perspectives has not been, have not been, just looked at as a different perspective, but it is looked at as an enemy. It is looked at as a, a bad thing to see and feel and think differently. You know, there was a point where we could disagree and still remain friends.

One of the, the biggest things that, that, that, that, uh, I saw this and this has become a thing. Um, it was the moment where Kamala Harris gave a fist bump to Lindsay Graham and people were like, just bugging out about that. And I’m not, and I’m not here talking about the merits of that, but just the concept of, because people absolutely disagree on multiple levels that you shouldn’t be civil at all.

Richard Streitz: And, you know, and I think that’s exactly one of the challenges that we, where we find ourselves right now, is that opinion, um, has, is so polarized that there, there can’t be. If you don’t believe what I believe you, you are wrong.

And the idea that there can’t be more than one perspective, uh, you know, I think that is the, that is absolutely at the root, at the fundamental root of, of what’s wrong is that people have gotten to the point where any other opinion is obviously wrong. Just out of, categorically. And, and that, you know, again, a broader awareness of broader understanding of, of the fact that there are other points of view and that, uh, being able to have an open dialogue without necessarily being so impassioned about, about your stance, that you are unable, you’re blinded to, to any other potential, um, idea or concept, you know, that is, that is something I think that we, as a broader population and as a global population really need to stand back and say, you know what? Yeah, there may be, maybe there are some other ideas or maybe other opinions and, and that I should listen to. And, you know, and, and the challenge is that social media, because of exactly what you were saying about how social media’s silos, the infrared creates bubbles that we, uh, that we get into and social media is to blame for that because that’s how they through their advertising, uh, algorithms and so forth. This is, this is a unnecessary thing that was in theory originally created to be helpful for us, because if we looked at X, Y, and Z, we got ads of X, Y, and Z. And if we said X, Y, and Z, we got ads of X, Y, and Z. So that’s supposed to be helpful. Well, of course, that can, that can go all the way.

What could possibly go wrong for that? Right. And that’s what we’re seeing is that everyone is, is only seeing what they want to see. Because that’s, what’s being fed to them because of how these, these mechanisms are set up. So some of it is external and some of it is internal to ourselves as to how we propagate this.

Um, and so I think what’s critical is that we just take a stand back, we all stand back and take a broader look at what everyone is saying, and truly try to understand where, where, and how and why the other person is coming from a particular position or a particular stance. And, and try to understand that.

And see where there is potential for common ground, because there always is, we all live in the same country. We all, you know, we, we, we all drive the same, you know, we follow the same traffic rules when we’re driving. There’s a lot of commonality that we all agree to. Um, and there’s no reason why, ideology doesn’t have to be so horribly polarized that there is, that it’s absolute. Um, and you know, and again, I think that’s sort of how and why we are, where we are right now.

David Perez: I, I really want to go back to several things you guys said, the power of education is such that it can change completely how we do things.

Richard Streitz: Absolutely.

David Perez: Right.

So we know that a few years ago, the LGBTQ community was completely marginalized. And there was no way that you could talk about that. But we were able to educate people into accepting that there were different genders. There were different people with different preferences and that became mainstream.

Right. What, what LaMondre said then was that even though.

We are here now and think these, these types of things are happening, that there was a time where we were able to disagree. I think that that, that time where we were able to disagree and still remain friends was a time where you were able to disagree with someone, but you knew that the status wouldn’t change, status quo would remain the same. What happened now is that everything or any minority group, or anyone can create something that generates actual change, really fast because of the fact that we are living in a social media reality, where everything starts moving. So now you have to be more protective of your status in society, and that’s what started happening.

And that’s why people are so defensive about their point of view or their own reality. And the last thing I wanted to say, is that even though social media is the problem and they are the culprit. I think that they were only catering to human beings because we have always been in bubbles. We have touched outside at some point, like we created churches, we created social groups and those social groups don’t mingle around with many other social groups.

So that inclusion doesn’t exist. We need to see the world how it is, right. We need to see that we as human beings tend to silo ourselves with people that agree with us and social media just magnified that. And the fact that social change is able to happen now, as fast as it can made us scared of change.

So now we are scared of opinions because those opinions can really turn into a reality that’s different from the one that I like right now.

Richard Streitz: Yeah.

David Perez: So we need to start there. I think we need to start by making people understand that other people are people and that change is not bad. Change is good. And if we do that, if we change for the better, I think people are going to start listening better because they’re not going to listen.

If they’re listening from fear.

LaMondre Pough: Right. And I think that that’s the key point right there, particularly about the, um, when we say, you know, we used to be able to disagree and, uh, and, and, and still kind of remain and you brought up an excellent point. Yeah. Because you know, that disagreement didn’t necessarily mean that anything was going to change.

And so there was no, there was no fear in change. And the truth is when we wrap these conversations, when we wrap these opinions or these different opinions in fear, that’s exactly why it then becomes an enemy. You know, this is why that, that opinion and that person then because, becomes the enemy because they’re changing the way that I live.

When the truth is when the truth is, if you’re not a part of that group or a part of that opinion or a part of that, it may not necessarily by and large change the way that you live. It might not impact your life at all, at all. Unless for some reason there is power that you derive from, from staying the same, you know?

And, and I think that, I think that, that, that, that is what makes it scary. That’s what makes it scary. The fact that, if changing means that my life is better, but then you’re threatened by me having a better life. You got to do everything in your power to make certain that that change doesn’t happen. And I think that that is what we’ve been seeing.

And of course, the way you bait that and you get support of that is by amplifying the fear, is by saying, and, and they’ve done this, this has been done for years. This has been done for, for, for, for centuries. For decades that ‘Whoa, if you give these people the right to buy property or the right to vote or the right to live free in the community, they’re coming for your daughters’.

You know. You’re going to have, and, and, and this is a totally unbased, um, unfounded fear. And we do that. I mean, you can, you can, you can swap out whatever example you want to, you do X, you know, X spots the mark, I’m gonna put it that way in terms of, in terms of, of, of what, what diversity, what marginalized group goes in that point.

But the truth of that is something that’s been happening over and over again. And I think that because change is happening. And we’re seeing some of the differences. We saw a recoil to that as well. We saw that pull back and we’ve seen it amplified in politics. We’ve seen it amplified in business. We’ve seen it amplified in so many different areas of our lives, but I think that what you said, David is so important, is that we have to continue the education.

We have to continue to push. We have to continue to open the doors up and what you said, Richard, the idea of fostering that understanding and trying to understand where that opposition is coming from. But now here’s the thing that I want to be really clear on. I do seek to understand, I do seek to, to understand the perspectives that people who don’t want this change to happen um, are coming from, but I can not allow that understanding to stop our momentum forward. I can not allow me trying to protect, uh, and, and, and validate someone to stop the momentum forward, because we know that if we don’t strike while we have momentum, the change stops. There is no change.

Richard Streitz: I, you know, I, I think one of the most important things about any civilization is forward progress.

And as soon as you stop the, the ability of change, um, or, or adjustment or innovation, uh, you have stagnation and we all know what happens. The stagnation is just, uh, it can’t. You know, nothing in nature, uh, civilizations including, uh, can survive with stagnation. Uh, you know, the, the other thing I think that’s really, um, really important about, um, the idea of, of a, of opinions and, and us sharing information.

Uh, I think it’s critical that as we, um, as what we’ve seen is, is, is human nature in that playing to the fears of human nature. Uh, this goes back all the way to the ancient. So, right. Uh, as, as a method of controlling, uh, of populations and peoples and so forth, is, and so it’s, it’s baked into how we’re hard-wired and programmed as, as a species, uh, you know, um. You, you, you throw fear in the mix and now that becomes an extremely powerful way of controlling or motivating.

Um, and so, you know, going all the way back to the ancients, this is something that is just a bit of a common theme in methodology, and it’s no different today as it was, you know, a thousand years ago. Um, so that’s, that’s sort of interesting. What has changed is, and David, you, you pointed, uh, you pointed this out is, is the idea that in previous, uh, generations or periods of time, uh, prior, you know, pre social media, um, is we did silo.

Um, but those groups were a little more organic in the sense that. They were still human contact groups. So when you went to church, you were, you were going to a church, but there was a lot of people and, and they, some may have agreed with you. Some may not have agreed you, but you were involved in conversation.

So sort of rounded, um, uh, that, that had rounded our organic opinion processes and development. Um, one of the things and you know I say churches, just as an example, it doesn’t matter a social group or what have you. And you know, and any group, the fact that you were dealing with, with human interaction meant that those conversations were much more organic and very analog in the direction as to how they were approached.

They could have been broad, they weren’t necessarily so razor specific. And I think one of the things that, uh, that social media has provided is allowed us as individuals to get extremely laser with our opinions. And so you don’t necessarily have that sort of broader, rounder, more analog approach to a conversation.

It can be just so, so digital. And I think it’s interesting, the, the use of analog and digital in the sense that we’re talking about vocal and verbal, inner, personal interaction and an analog process where, you know, we’re using digital processes that, that becomes very digital in, in regard to our opinions and the topics to which we talk about.

So as a result, those, those opinions that are formed using that extremely narrow or very laser-like very, uh, very refined or pinpointed application of, of opinion and information can, can create fields of distortion for individuals that stay within that. Um, As opposed to being able to have that certainly more rounded uh well-versed and, and as a result of that more analog interpersonal relation conversation, there is some education and awareness that can happen more organically in those conversations.

LaMondre Pough: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I think, uh, I think about the whole digital and analog thing and the change and the resistance to change.

And, you know, I think it really is about coming back to the fact that we’re all human, that we’re all people, um, that we have freedoms and along with those freedoms become responsibilities. Um, and, and we have to own up to all of that. We have to own up to all of that. And I think that through education and through the realization that, that, you know, not, no one is going to think the same, always.

Every time. And if you think the same way, always, every time, one of you is not necessary at all. Uh, and I think that that is a, that is a part of the growth. That is a part of what we are. And even in this brave new world with technologies that foster the spread of information much faster than ever before, the spread of ideas, the spread of interactions that we really have to look at this as a serious responsibility and really begin to not only police ourselves, but also hold ourselves accountable, um, for what we put out there and what we say.

And I think that as we do this, we’ll begin to find that integrity and the information that we share integrity in the data that we, um, that we ascribed to. That, uh, that we’ll see those things begin to rise again. And I still believe that even though it’s the, it’s the wild wild, new frontier that we’re on.

I still think it’s an incredible frontier. We’ve just got massage it to get it to where we need it to be.

Richard Streitz: No. Absolutely. Yeah. Everything is cyclical. Right. And so, uh, uh, there’s no progress without some level of, of experimentation. And sometimes those experimentations are successful. Sometimes they’re not, so they’re not so, but we learn from them and we move on and we become better as a result of them.

And, you know, and I think that’s, what’s so, so wonderful. Uh, as, as we, as, certainly, uh, as, as a nation and as a global people, we have proven time and time again, that we, that, you know, given time we, we figure it out and we are better than, than we were moving forward. And so, uh, it’s messy. It can be a messy process, but, uh, I certainly have extreme hope and, uh, and, and very positive outlook on, on where we’re going.

All right. Well with that, we leave on that more positive note. And, uh, and we thank you again for listening and, uh, we’ll be here the next time.

David Perez: Thanks for joining us this week on 3DVU, make sure to visit our website ruhglobal.com/3dvu. That’s ruhglobal.com/3DVU. Or you can subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts or join our YouTube channel so you will never miss a show. While you’re at it, if you find value in the show, we appreciate it if you would leave a like or comment, or simply tell a friend about the show that would really help us a lot too, if you would like to join our conversations, you can join our Facebook community 3dvu, three perspectives, one conversation.