The Red Quest wrote a great article a couple of days ago, it’s titled, The Most Stridently Asserted Opinions Will Disappear Down The Memory Hole. It’s a great read and it got me to thinking…

I wrote about Time Wasters a few weeks ago and in it I mentioned that one of my huge “battles” is trying to ascertain if someone is saying something that I simply disagree with, but otherwise they have some valid information and they make valid points, or are they shitting the bed more often than not, i.e. they are time wasters. Red Quest, whether he knows it or not, gave me another piece of the puzzle that I have been trying to solve, and for that I thank you, Red Quest.

In his article, like the title, he mentions that the most stridently asserted opinions will disappear down the memory hole. In our age of ADHD technology, it’s real easy to say something with absolute conviction, knowing that you have God and “ScIeNcE!” on your side, get your likes, your shares, and your retweets, and then not even three months later, have your assertion proven false, and yet you’re able to move right on to the next absolute conviction without blinking an eye, and no one calls you out on it because that proven false assertion has already been forgotten. This is what I call “Shitting The Bed.”

Red Quest asks the question: “What are they (“they” being whoever is running their mouth at the moment) stridently asserting today? Should we believe it? Why?”

He goes on: “I haven’t seen any of the voice who were confidently and wrongly asserting this thing or that thing, talk about how they were wrong, why they were wrong, and most importantly what will change in the future.” (Emphasis mine.)

Red Quest continues: “Internet memories are very short, even shorter than tweets. When you see people, or a group of people, be wildly wrong, that should affect how you think of them in other topics. Someone can be right in one domain and wrong in another, but being totally wrong in one domain should make us question what’s happening in others.” (Emphasis mine.)

Red Quest goes on to talk about the how’s, the what’s, and the why’s of what is going on here and I’ll leave it to you the Reader to continue down his rabbit hole if you so desire. I highly encourage you to do so, it’s a thought provoking read and it definitely made me think.

When I see someone shit the bed, especially if they do it more than a couple of times, and then they move on like nothing happened, and they don’t back up and say something like, “Ooops! My bad! I fucked the dog on this one!” and then hopefully they do more due diligence on the next go around, I have to consider them Time Wasters.

An occasional shitting of the bed is excusable because we are all humans, make mistakes, and are prone to errors. We all have egos to protect, and I get that. But to continue doubling down on something that is clearly in error, or to move on to something else with that same bravado and certainty is going to make me stop, raise an eyebrow, and question what is going on here. I’m going to start looking for patterns and if and when I find them, I’m going to act accordingly.

If a guy shits the bed on one subject one time, no harm, no foul. If he continues shitting the bed on the same subject, or better yet, he moves on to another subject entirely and shits the bed there, it’s time to question why you are listening to this guy.

A broken clock is right twice a day.

Sometimes someone gets lucky and guesses something right. Sometimes they know something about a certain topic and they are correct, that doesn’t mean they know their ass from their elbow when it comes to some other topic.

Sure he got something right, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

This is the obstacle I encounter now. Not just learning new things, but trying to ascertain if the individual or group or entity is shitting the bed. Are they broken clocks? Or do they actually know what they are talking about?

I don’t have an easy answer because there are no easy answers. The only thing that I have found that has worked for me is making a conscious effort to remember, to not let stridently asserted opinions disappear down the memory hole. And while the internet never forgets, we do. It’s upon us to remember, to do the digging, to do the research, and in my opinion, call out and remind those that shit the bed, that they indeed, did shit the bed. Not as a punishment or shaming tactic, because they most likely aren’t going to listen to what you are saying anyways, but to serve as a warning to others who happen to go down that rabbit hole that you ventured into.

It is upon us to figure out who are Time Wasters and who are not.

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