Cascading stories

Posted on by Reena Saxena

“Speak a lie ten times, and people take it as the gospel truth, but it takes a lot of effort to craft and layer a series of lies to make it credible,” the coach is from the corporate world but is training a bunch of youngsters to enter the political arena. “… and you need a differentiator to catch attention – work on yourself to check what makes you stand out in a crowd, and is believable at the same time.”

Prathak is the most silent trainee in the group, and often causes raised eyebrows amongst the boisterous lot.

He interrupts softly, “Say my USP is to state unembellished facts and let people reach their own conclusions, how much effort would it take to farm truth and reduce dependence on stories, and to build capability to make correct assessments?”

“I’m sorry, Prathak, but the human brain is wired to stories and incapable of interpreting truth without bias.”

“My problem is that the moment I start crafting a story, however authentic, I’ve painted it with my brush and my palette of colors.”

“Pure, colorless truth disappears instantly, what remains are Version 2 stories, and all the stories that cascade from the source.”

Six Sentence Stories

24 thoughts on “Cascading stories”

  2. I believe the solution to the issue of becoming a painter with a brush, is to be transparent about who you are, where you stand, what your biases are. Unbiased news is, or used to be the ideal, but bias isn’t the problem so much as the prevalence of most in news media deceptively HIDING those biases and attempting to manipulate their audiences. The intent there, and the deception, is the thing that really distorts. Dispell that, be biased but honest, and people CAN factor that in, along with the fact you feel it’s important to BE transparent about yourself and your coverage, and can form their own conclusions without you attempting to manipulate them into the ones you prefer. That’s the approach I try to take. I’m biased in the extreme at this point, but I don’t hide them and they are founded on solid reasoning, realities, and results. And if anyone disagrees, at least they know I’m not being phony just to dupe them into perceiving me as more trustworthy or relatable. To do so under false pretenses would make me quite the opposite, ultimately, as it has done to most fake news mainstream news corporations, pundits, and supporters/believers of theirs. An honestly biased citizen-based press is far superior to a maligned, corrupted, deceptive corporate press.

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    1. It is not just the press. Opinions are influenced by Whatsapp, Youtube and FB. I wonder why nobody asks about the source, but just believes what comes close to their own opinion – only confirmation bias, nothing else.

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      1. Not confirmation bias. Deductive reasoning, comparative analysis, pattern recognition, and critical, independent thinking. Subjective opinion doesn’t negate objective reality. It can distort, warp, and even change it. But it can understood, explained, and ultimately, verified.

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  9. I suspect I agree with the coach that “the human brain is wired to stories and incapable of interpreting truth without bias”. Another word for “bias” might be “assumptions that one isn’t about to change”.

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