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Power And Deception: 30 Times In History Authority Figures Misled The Public
We all lie. From little white lies to intricate manipulations, lies lurk around practically every corner of every single social interaction you have. TED estimates that we’re lied to between 10 to a whopping 200 times a day. We ourselves tell 1 or 2 lies every day, on average (even if we’d like to think of ourselves as humble and honest).
And while some lies are made with good intentions so as not to hurt someone’s feelings, others are done to actively harm and deceive others. For instance, some might cover up sensitive information that would harm a company’s profits because of how dangerous a product or material really is. Others use lies to further their political or corporate agendas by cherry-picking findings.
From people being told that smoking and lead in gasoline aren’t dangerous to sugar supposedly being ‘healthier’ than eating fats, the folks over on r/AskReddit called out all of the biggest, most destructive lies in human history.
The viral thread is a living testament to the fact that, though we should generally lean towards trusting scientists and experts, we should also learn how to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources. Not to mention how important it is to double-check facts, think about the potential hidden motivations of any authority figure, and ask hard and uncomfortable questions. No authority figure should be taken at their word blindly. (The key word here is 'blindly.')
Bored Panda reached out to the author of the viral thread, Reddit user u/thoughtofeverything to have a chat about information reliability. What's more, we got in touch with Steven Wooding, a member of the Institute of Physics in the UK, a member of the Omni Calculator Project, and the creator of the Weird Units Converter. Read on for both interviews.
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#1
Climate change is YOUR fault. YOU need to change the way YOU do things. Not the corporate conglomerate that's pumping a billion tons a year
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#3
Nestle — The Baby Killer Scandal. They deliberately lied to mothers in developing countries to sell their baby formula, telling them that their own milk was nutritionally insufficient and their babies would be unhealthy if they continued to breastfeed them. The result of this marketing campaign was approximately 66,000 infant mortalities. Source: https://www.nber.org/papers/w24452
The author of the viral post, redditor u/thoughtofeverything shared a few thoughts about distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources and experts. They said that there probably isn't a definite answer to this.
"In our post-truth world it’s harder than ever to find information that’s not only truthful, but isn’t skewed in a way to present a particular bias or pit people against each other," they told Bored Panda.
"The only advice I can give is to not blindly accept anything and not rely on just one source of info. It’s our responsibility to be critical, discerning, objective and not fall into the confirmation bias trap."
#6
Plastic is easily recyclable so long as the public does their duty to sort it and bring it to its designated waste area.
Redditor u/thoughtofeverything told Bored Panda that they tend to rely on the BBC for more unbiased news. "As far as mainstream news sources, I like BBC World News. It helps to have a source outside of the US with no political agenda," they said.
"I’m also fond of the podcast Abe Lincoln’s Top Hat, which I think does a pretty good job of covering US Politics from a more neutral perspective, despite the show’s hosts being pretty liberal themselves."
The OP noted that redditors, as a whole, tend to have "very strong opinions about things," which is probably why the thread went viral in the first place. They also added that they'd like to pass on their best wishes to the people of Iran and Ukraine.
#7
Climate change isn't real Vaccines cause Autism Trickle down economics Take your pick, the top is the end of the world as we know it, the second is keeping many diseases around and literally killing millions of people, and the last is what enables the wealthy to continue to exploit the rest of the world.
#8
Sugar isn’t the problem, it’s fats! Let’s make everything “fat-free” & just triple the sugar content!
Meanwhile, science-savvy Steven, from the Omni Calculator team, told Bored Panda that "if a claim comes from a single source (whether it is an authority figure or not), you have to be quite skeptical."
He said that we have to look for independent sources to back up the claim. However, even then, this might not mean that a specific claim is necessarily true. "Even if there are loads [of independent sources], they may have gotten locked into a 'groupthink' situation, and the claim is actually false. We should never have blind faith in authority figures. There is always a chance they could be wrong."
According to Steven, experimental bias or cherry-picking results are the most common ways that authority figures can mislead others. "Often you just need to look at who funded the research. It's not surprising that (in the past at least) research funded by a maker of cigarettes said that their product was safe," he told Bored Panda.
The expert believes that there seems to be a "reasonable balance" between outright skepticism and blind faith in the scientific community right now. "If the public were very skeptical, science would be hindered, and progress slowed. In areas such as healthcare and technology, science is delivering for people and making a difference in their everyday lives," Steven said.
"In the past few decades, [faith in the scientific community] has probably increased. Climate change is now more widely accepted than ever before now that its effects are clear to see. And science has got the world through the recent pandemic with innovative vaccines, anti-viral drugs, and data science." Steven added that the Omni Calculator team recently released a journalist's guide to numbers e-book that might be useful for anyone working with numbers, looking for trusted sources of information, and fact-checking claims.
#15
“Everyone’s a winner” or “Everyone is special and gets a gold star” mentality. I understand the goal to build up kids, but it makes adult life and real loss so much tougher on them when they’ve always been told they should get everything they ever want and will always win. There’s barely any resilience built with this mentality. Might be explaining this poorly but it’s hard to word without sounding like I want to smash the happiness of children into the ground because I don’t think everyone is a winner and should get a gold star
It’s absolutely horrifying to learn the effects of having added lead to gasoline. Research shows that exposure to leaded gasoline lowered the IQ of around half of the population in the United States. Gas that contains lead was banned in the US only in 1996.
Florida State University and Duke University researchers found that lead exposure during childhood cost Americans an average of 2.6 IQ points each. Those born in the 1960s and 1970s were affected far more than later generations: some Americans lost up to 6 IQ points while others lost more than 7.
In 2022 nearly everyone has access to the internet, so double-checking facts and verifying the reliability of a person or sources should be easy-peasy. Right? Unfortunately, the increased speed of the spread of information and the rise of social media means that it’s not just the truth that moves around lightning-quick—lies and fake news do, as well.
So while it’s easy to scoff at people in the past for ‘naively’ accepting the fact that gasoline had lead in it or that smoking wasn’t addictive or dangerous, the fact of the matter is that conspiracy theories, corporate lies, and hiding health hazards are all part and parcel of life in the current day, too.
Just look at the events of the past few years if you need any evidence that some people are ready to believe practically anything and anyone, so long as it conforms to their worldview. The sad reality is that even with easy access to different sources and in-depth analyses and fact-checking, quite a few people don’t do their due diligence and accept whatever they read online. And that keeps false narratives and half-truths spreading.
Media expert Mike Sington previously explained to Bored Panda that media literacy is vital in this day and age. He said that there are various red flags that indicate a claim might be fake. If a claim is outlandish, sounds too good to be true, you haven’t heard it before, and you’ve never even heard of the source sharing the ‘fact,’ then odds are that it’s a lie.
You should do your best to find a couple of other reputable sources that back up any particular claim. Even doing a simple Google search before resharing anything you come across on social media can help slow down the spread of misinformation. And until you find additional evidence or sourcing that validates any ‘fact,’ you should remain skeptical.
"Do this and think before reposting or you may be contributing to the problem. Amplification doesn’t make a claim true or accurate," the media expert told Bored Panda that constant repetition does not turn a lie into the truth. He noted that some trustworthy sources include the Associated Press, Reuters, and The New York Times because they employ fact-checkers.
#19
The 1964 Surgeon General’s report concluded that smoking cigarettes causes death and disease. However, in a 1971 television interview, the president of Philip Morris denied the health risks that pregnant women and their babies face, saying that “It’s true that babies born from women who smoke are smaller, but they are just as healthy as the babies born to women who do not smoke. Some women would prefer to have smaller babies.”
#20
“Radium paint isn’t poisonous.” Thousands of watch-dial workers in the US used to apply radium brushes on their tongues to paint numbers on watch dials, and almost all of these workers were women. As these workers were dying due to radiation poising, the companies brought in fake doctors and convinced the victims and their families that they have venereal diseases like Syphilis. As this was mostly affecting women, most were scared to share it with their families for fear of retaliation and abandonment. The suffering endured by these women was extremely awful, their jaws fell off, their bones fractured, their hair was lost, and most lost eyesight until their eventual painful death. These women were called “Radium Girls”. Eventually many fought back settled lawsuits and brought the entire Radium production industry down, unfortunately, many innocent women lost their lives before this evil industry was brought down. Source: https://www.britannica.com/story/radium-girls-the-women-who-fought-for-their-lives-in-a-killer-workplace
#21
“Get a vape pen, it will stop you from wanting to smoke” ***does the complete opposite aggravating my addiction*** Meanwhile ***little kid sees it*** Little kid: “It smells like strawberries, I want a vape pen too” Now you have little kids vaping so much their lung could be worse than mine…
#30
A specific historical example: In 1843, a man called Hong Xiuquan claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus. This led to him starting the Taiping Rebellion, which caused the deaths of between 20 million and 70 million people. Then again, he probably believed it, so it might not count as a lie.
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