Dealing with a co-worker or manager who says demonstrably false things can be a challenge, particularly at holiday office parties. Here’s a guide to handle a colleague in denial.
In Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle, inhabits his own crazy paradigm, yet ultimately events frame him as a hero in the eyes of others too.
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As Orwell knew only too well, if the concept of objective truth is moved into the dustbin of history there can be no lies. And if there are no lies there can be no justice, no rights and no wrongs.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces the launch of Oculus Go virtual reality headset in October.
(Handout)
Will the arrival and popularity of Oculus Go and other VR systems make us think differently about alternative realities and so-called alternative facts?
Is speaking some evil really so bad?
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We gave four scholars from different disciplines a chance to offer their opinions on this important question.
People reject science such as that about climate change and vaccines, but readily believe scientists about solar eclipses, like this one reflected on the sunglasses of a man dangerously watching in Nicosia, Cyprus, in a 2015 file photo.
(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
People universally believe scientists’ solar eclipse calendars, but vaccine warnings or climate predictions are forms of science that strangely do not enjoy equivalent acceptance.
A statue of Henry David Thoreau in front of a replica of his cabin in Concord, Massachusetts.
Chris Devers
Thoreau spent his life pursuing the ‘hard bottom’ of truth. But he confronted a sensationalist newspaper industry that, in many ways, mimicked today’s media environment.
We cannot stand outside the fray, but instead must engage in the ‘post-truth’ debates about politics and knowledge.
Richard Ricardi/Flickr
Pundits have been keen to link post-truth to post-modernists, post-positivists or any other ‘postie’. They should turn their energy to forming a real popular front against Trump’s faux populism.
Public anxiety about the post-truth era inspired a New York Times advertising campaign.
Beneath simple labels like post-truth, alternative facts and fake news is a complex set of issues. Any debate about the problems needs to start from some common points of reference.
The road to reconciliation doesn’t begin and end with truth commissions or trials. Change must occur at a systemic level, and communities must commit to rebuilding relationships.
Commemorating victims of enforced disappearances in the Philippines.
EPA/Eugenio Loreto
Alternate realities don’t just exist in politics – and not all falsehoods are lies. Distortions of the truth can range from a normal part of human nature to pathological.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer and senior advisor Kellyanne Conway chat.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
People who read false news items come to believe them – even if they know better. It doesn’t help to know the source is unreliable or the report has been debunked.
Sharing election hashtags: Dots are Twitter accounts; lines show retweeting; larger dots are retweeted more. Red dots are likely bots; blue ones are likely humans.
Clayton Davis
If people can be conned into jeopardizing our children’s lives, as they do when they opt out of immunizations, could they also be conned out of democracy?
Donald Trump has become the poster boy for ‘post-truth’ politics.
Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
To decide between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, American voters will have to decide which narrative they prefer, leaving the truth to emerge later from the political rubble.
There is no spoon. At least, not the way you think there is.
Warner Bros
The world around you might be an illusion and you’re really a brain in a vat connected to a supercomputer. Sounds preposterous? But can you prove it’s not true?
Do you ever feel like this? It’s not helping you get smarter…
Chris Hope
We now have access to an Internet containing a vast store of information much bigger than any individual brain can carry - and that’s not always a good thing.
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Psychiatric Times., Tufts University