Quantum Experiment -
Cool, huh? Now. if only reporters could learn to be so smart. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the media being directly responsible for a large portion of the economic hardship we are going through. Yes, I'm talking about the media doing anything but enhancing our lives ... once again.
Sorry I don't have a fancy video for this, but its fairly easy to illustrate. Ask yourself, "How does the stock market work?" Basically, it works by opinions and rumor. People say or believe a stock will go up and everyone buys it. If people say a stock will plummet, people dump it quick.
So what happens when every news source says Wall Street and the world economy is in the tank? People go, in droves, to take their money out of play. Their observing and reporting effects reality, in spades. Quantum Reporting in action.
What is the alternative? Well, I'm not sure we are ready for the alternative as it is a little radical. To see the alternative, we have to understand why our system works as it does. We live in, what I'll term, Hyper-Time Reality. Hyper-Time Reality can be defined as reality that happens all at once to everyone (who elects to be plugged in). All at one time, you are experiencing the reality of talking with your friends, listening to the University game, checking the internet for the latest gossip and watching National News. All four are your reality. We, in essence, experience it all in the present. This is a very odd way to live as our brains were invented before we could tap secondary and tertiary sources of input.
This Hyper-Time Reality principle actually creates interference with our lives in a number of ways. We'll only go into one here but there are many others. In our example, if someone tells you and a million of your friends that a business your invested in, is failing, what do you do? You pull your money out and fast! Because you know those million other people heard it too! You don't want to be the last one to pull your money out or you'll get whatever is left over, if anything. That's how we live now. Technology has made us slaves to any variation that occurs in any of those realities in which we simultaneously exist! Trippy, huh?
So, the alternative? What if we (and I know this is even "trippy-er") promise to honor longer term commitments to our reality? Personally, we would commit to allow our resources to work for the companies we hope would make it for a set period of time, and not until times get rough or a better offer comes along. We would not walk away from mortgages because we have to tighten our belt or even get a second job to honor our commitment to the bank. And since we know we could not walk away, we would not get into short term financing structures that we can't afford when the note comes due. The bank wouldn't even offer them! In short, we would not live on money or terms we cannot afford.
As journalist, we would honor our long term commitment to a "better reality" (for lack of a better term) and report with a positive bias. They would support what we should be doing, not only what they see happening. The journalists might cry out, 'But that's not unbiased journalism!" To which I say, "Wake up, guys. There is no such thing and that flushing sound you hear is your daily unbiased reporting sending our economy down the toilet."
Reporting on an event effects that event. Those niave enough to belive otherwise need to watch the Quantum Experiment again. And all of us need to consider what we say and do, and (it stands to reason) what we think, as what is in our heads is the beginning of all action.
