An Uncertain Source: Why You Should Doubt the Internet

This semester my call to change is focused on changing the undeserved trust that people give to the internet. In my midterm video, I began by recapping a normal interaction on the internet; seeing a product, following a link to a website, reading reviews and then purchasing the project. While this seems normal and harmless, the fact is that the internet user just followed an unverified link to a website who’s reviews they blindly trusted and then gave very personal information, including a personal address and credit card number, to a company they have no real knowledge of. Basically the reckless way in which we approach the internet will come back to bite us if we don’t put measures in place to protect ourselves.

The Dead are not Powerless, and Neither is the Chief

“The dead are not altogether powerless”, Chief Seattle concludes, after outlining the fundamental difference between the white man and his people. When the white man dies, he says, they go our into the stars and their ancestors abandon their graves, but the land still hold the dead of his people, who once numbered as the “the grass of the plains”. Those aiding in the death of his nation will never be alone, the Chief is saying because the memories of his people will always be with them.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The year 1789 was an important year for human rights, first producing the Bill of Rights in the United States constitution, followed a few months later by the French's own official penning of the rights of the men of their country, titled The Rights of Man and of the Citizen. It followed the storming of Bastille by the citizens, and was introduced into the general assembly that only a month before had abolished feudalism. The document was introduced by Lafayette, and was greatly influenced by Thomas Jefferson, whom the general had worked with during the American Revolution.

In Regards to the Internet

People give to much authority to information circling the web. We need to start taking more caution in how much trust we put into articles, reviews, and yes, even videos giving us information on the internet.

Not Everything on the Internet is True??

As I browsed various internet articles and their comment threads regarding the legitimacy of information gathered over the internet and how to personally verify the source of said information, it struck me as ironic that I was falling into the mindset I am arguing again by blindly trusting the opinion of anonymous strangers over the internet. After all, how credible are anonymous opinions about credibility on the internet?

Credibility on the Internet

While the amount of money and time put into shopping sight unseen had increased with the introduction of internet vendors, the thought behind the spending has not, and this is a problem. Someone in the late 1800s ordering a stove from the Sears catalog could depend on the reputation of the company in a way that someway putting their credit card information into an obscure website cannot, and yet they make the purchases with the same amount of trust. Studies have shown that 88% percent of online shoppers will trust a review like they would trust the recommendation of a friend.

A Most Eventful Meet

I’ve always been prone to freak accidents. Once, in fifth grade, I got a black eye from PE golfing, and I’ve even had a paper cut on my eye, but the oddest accident-and-injury pair I’ve ever experience happened at a swim meet my sophomore year of high school.

Sola Scriptura: How Anyone Can Know God

“If God spare my life, before very long I shall cause a plough boy to know the scriptures better than [priests] do!” -- William Tyndale

It can be said that the spirit of the Renaissance really culminated in the Protestant Reformation, which was a veritable rebirth of religious spirit and connection with God sparked by the perceived materialism and of the Catholic Church. Tyndale, who is best known for translating the bible into English, believed like many that a priest was an unnecessary intermediary between an individual and God, that what was really necessary was faith and the scriptures.

Scriptures as Evidence

When I was a freshman in high school, an upperclassman on my swim team started a conversation that left me perplexed, given that she was citing scriptural reasons why, in her opinion, my faith did not qualify to reside under the umbrella label of Christianity as hers did.  While this particular incident left me hurt and confused (especially considering my knowledge of the scripture at the time was more focused on the broad details than the specific) what happened was a small example of a common theme in Christian history—utilizing the scriptures to form a personal opinion on how gospel principles should be played out in a church.

Of Complainers

It’s said that you are who you surround yourself with. This means that if you are around good, kind people you are more likely to be a good, kind person, and vice versa. If that train of thought is believed, than by associating with complainers you are likely also a downer. Is that always such a bad thing though?

Montaigne, in his essay Of the Resemblance of Children to their Father’s, asserts “if [the body] seems to find the disease evaporate… in making loud outcries… let it roar as it will.”

The Fly and the Windshield

Like most teenagers, my main focus in early high school was getting my driver’s license. Nothing was more important than having that little piece of plastic that got me off the school bus and gave me freedom to go on adventures with my friends. Therefore, armed with my permit I took on driver’s education with vigor. One assignment for driver’s ed was to complete a total of 50 hours of driving, with at least ten hours between the three practice drives. As I undertook this course during the summer, in one of the stretches of time between assigned drives my family decided to vacation down on the coast of Oregon, several hours away from where we lived near Seattle.

Father of the Spanish Language

Somewhere in the packed filing cabinets of my mother’s office are several small books that where made out of printing paper by my second grade self. These books contain colorful drawing and incoherent story-lines filled with characters from my imagination (and the movie Tarzan, because the elephant was my favorite character at the time) and peppered with the silly made-up words that my friends and I used in our everyday conversations. Likewise, in the works of Spanish writer Cervantes you could find many colorful characters and made up words.

The primary difference between the books written by Cervantes and myself (besides the literary merit, as needless to say nothing I wrote was near as good as Don Quixote) was that while my words slipped out memory after a few weeks the words that Cervantes created are not only still remembered, but are part of a regular Spanish vocabulary. In fact, Cervantes is to Spanish what Shakespeare is to English, buoying up the vocabulary of the infant Spanish language like the plays of Shakespeare contributed to the English language. He might have had even more of an impact, given that his works where published in the early 1600s, and where therefore in circulation longer. With the established dictionaries of today words created by an individual are less likely to catch on, but the brilliance of writers like Cervantes makes it easy to see why their words have endured and are still used today.

Timor Omnis Abesto

Above the stairwell in my grandparents’ home in Washington state is a copy of the Macnab family crest, which boldly proclaims “Timor Omnis Abesto”, or “let fear be far from all”. This is the family motto, and it plays out differently through the history of my family. The most famous of my ancestors, Francis Macnab (pictured below), also known as Francis More (or Big Francis), was one of the most notorious of the Scottish chiefs. He drank a lot of whisky, gambled, sired at least 32 children (despite being unmarried) and generally lived a lavish lifestyle. He was a large man who was said to “carry a golden eagle” on his arm, and feared no debtor.

The Macnab, by Sir Henry Raeburn (1802)

This lack of fear was unfortunately the downfall of the Scottish home to the Macnabs, as The Macnab’s heir was unable to handle the high level of debt, lost the ancestral lands and eventually fled to England and then Canada. Many clan members followed him to settle the Mcnab territory, and my family line remained there until my grandfather immigrated to the US in his early twenties. The lack of fear drove my family to seek new lands, which in turn led my grandfather to the US where he met my grandmother and joined the LDS church, and so I believe that the family motto has served us well, even if we don’t aren’t living as large as The Macnab did in the 1700s.