Evaluating Sources – Forty Years of Data Gathering and Analysis

Every day we are inundated with a deluge of new data and “perspectives.” Perspectives are a crude, often very crude, form of analysis. The average person is way too busy with the demands of the consumerist treadmill to deal with that deluge. Jobs, cars, the new iPhone 200, the 700 inch TV, the $2000 whizbang outdoor grill, demand so much attention. All so that they can spend their weekends with friends, glued to the TV watching sports games, drinking alcohol to self-medicate, and arguing over millionaire sports player’s stats. They don’t have time or the resources to learn and gain the experience to better their lives and those around them. It is also a lot of work to maintain vigilance, situational awareness, and risk management/assessment in order to be safe and secure. That’s what we have a bloated government and armed law enforcers for, right?

Take the best interest of you, your family, your close circle, and tribe/community into your sphere of management. Don’t leave your peace of mind, safety, security, liberty, or freedom in the hands of others. No one will put your needs (not wants) first, except you.

I offer this advice when you select sources of analysis:

1. Trust but regularly verify (everyone needs to trust someone)
2. Reject those who consistently offer negative analysis.
   1. Nothing is always right or always wrong.
3. Select someone who provides direct empirical data and source points for the in-depth data.
4. A genuinely skilled analyst is able to wade through the muck of negative data and decern a positive direction and plan of action to not only survive it but grow and prosper through it.

Once you have found a few of those trusted analysts, you have a baseline from which to work. Having them does not mean that you don’t need to work. The trusted analysts will provide a jumping-off point, a guide, a poke in the side for your own research. Your experience, place in life, work, etc. will give you a unique perspective. When you search and go down the rabbit hole to find, verify, or clarify data, you may find things that the source would never look at. The information that you find should be logged and then shared with others for them to refine wherever possible. You will own the data because you will be part of its development.

The fuel for the machine of self-determination and personal responsibility is wisdom.

(See the articles under the category – Forms of Reasoned Thought.)

I have linked to each relevant article in my suggested order:

True Preparedness Demands Effort

Liberty, Freedom, and Sovereignty

Reactive Response Forfeits Liberty and Freedoms

Survival, Altruism, and Self Interest

How to Handle Raw Data from Sources

Beware Pseudointellectualism

Fact Checking & Data Processing

When facts are not the whole story

Knowledge is NOT Power

Normative Data (Subjective)

Empirical Data (Objective, Verifiable, Reproducible)

Data Sharing versus Analysis

How Visual and Audible Inputs Alter Perception

Motivation, Manipulation, Coercion, and Enticement

Hegelian Dialectic -Manipulating People for Power & Profit

Civil Protest and Reasoned Civil Discourse

Why are people brutal?

Survival Is Rarely Pretty or Peaceful – Ask Nicolo Machiavelli

 

Will’s Universal Maxims – Tips for Life

 

Language – The Glue That Binds a Society

Perspectives in Leadership and Group / Cohesion Survival

The Power of Civil Dialectic and Conversation

Dunbar’s Number

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Data Sharing versus Analysis

Every modern form of communication, “news”, shows, social media, etc. endlessly inundate Westerners with information. It is repetitive conditioning from the minute you rise until you lay your head down at the end of the day. Unfortunately, we are not taught how to differentiate data sharing from an analysis. If you have not already read the article “Fact-Checking & Data Processing”.  You should probably read it first.

Data sharing is the presentation of information without a conclusion. In other words, data sharing lays out raw data or Information (Filtered Data) without telling you what to think of it. It leaves the analysis to the recipient. See the article “How to Handle Raw Data from Sources”

Data Analysis is the assertion of an opinion or analytical assumption of the meaning of the data. In other words, Data Analysis is the assertion of a purported expert’s opinion after reviewing the data presented.

Nearly everything that you are presented is an analysis. Most content purveyors do not want to risk you coming to a decision other than their desired one. They won’t take that chance. So, they tell you what to think. They do not present you with useful empirical data that you can use to validate them. Instead, they generally offer globs of drippy normative hyperbole to activate your emotional response.

The first sign of a reliable analysis is that the analyst provides reproducible empirical data. Empirical data; knowledge – information proved through real-world trial and experiential data. The recipient should always test the asserted conclusions utilizing both the empirical data presented and other data that the recipient finds when crosschecking.

All peer-reviewed professional research gains notoriety and respect because their peers (often who disagree) test the initial analysis of data on their own with a critical eye. The goal for a top-notch analyst is to vet their theorem enough to attain a point of REPRODUCIBILITY. Reproducibility is the hallmark of a skilled analyst. As you repeat the process of validating analyst’s work, you will rapidly learn how to spot lazy, narrow-minded, biased, or outright shills. Once you verify a few analysts who always “get it right,” you can relax a bit to trust them. An analyst proves themselves trustworthy and reliable after a series of sophisticated analyses are presented, and the recipient can validate the conclusions. You should regularly test their analysis just to assure that they are still reliable.

 

Supportive Details:

The internet, social media, and generally ubiquitous electronic communication has fueled the modern media’s insidious Yellow Journalism to new heights. The incident that I highlighted in the article, Yellow Journalism, was a landmark because it blackmailed USA President McKinley into war with Spain. As significant as that event was, it is only one of the countless others that have shaped the minds and ideologies of nations.

Writers and the media practiced Yellow Journalism against the USA’s Appalachian People during the early 1900s. They targeted them again in the late 1960s with the “rural purge” from television. CBS terminated every show in their line up that reflected rural America; Jim Nabors, Mayberry RFD, Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillies, and more.

See the video on YouTube, “Do You Remember The Rural Purge? CBS Showed NO MERCY to Granny!”