The world of information is transforming at light speed, and getting sucked into a misinformation vortex is a constant problem. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says, “Just the Facts, Ma’am.”
Rob Artigo: Ray, looking at page 26 of your first Zen of Zinn book, Zen of Zinn one. It says, you wrote this, “Get it right and don’t be bamboozled by others. Think it through. Does it make sense? We are inundated by the news media and other sources that try to influence our views and opinions. You need to make sure what you are hearing is based on facts and not opinions made to sound like facts.” That sounds like good advice, Ray.
Ray Zinn: Yeah, that one got a lot of responses on when we wrote that one. It’s like being confused with AI. AI can tend to overload us with too much information, and when we get overloaded, of course, it’s like an engine. If you overload an engine, you’re going to blow it up. So having the right amount of information that’s been vetted properly is the key to making the right decision.
Rob Artigo: It is a… When you look at it this way, there are so many avenues now for information. And even AI, which I’ve noticed is that sometimes you are looking for some detail on something. AI spits back some information to you. It all makes perfect sense. But if you don’t check the details in it, you might find that it, because it doesn’t really discriminate against sources very often. It’ll find something on the internet and I’ll see it as, oh, there’s some evidence associated with this that says this is a fact, when really the evidence is only siloed echo chamber fact. Just people saying, oh yeah, that’s correct. And AI might give you a sentence or two that is not true.
For example, like quoting a law, like Schmo versus Schmo as case law, and you look it up and there’s no such thing, it might even give you a number and there’s no such thing. Somebody just pulled it out or made it up. So it’s hard to determine in today’s day, particularly with, think about it with the deep fakes out there, the AI videos that people can make, the AI images that all you have to do is suggest to crock, for example, put a crown on Trump’s head or something like that, and then it’ll create an image that looks realistic. It is hard to tell. You have to be discerning. That’s where you take your personal responsibility to determine what’s accurate and what’s not.
Ray Zinn: Yes, an opinion is an unsubstantiated fact because you try to make your opinions sound like they’re factual and that’s not correct. So you question everything unless you have personal knowledge, you should question everything and dig into it and vet it and make sure that it is accurate and properly reflects the information you’re trying to decide upon.
Rob Artigo: When I’m doing research for anything I’m writing or creative work, I’m working on what AI does, and obviously AI is important because it comes up so often in our podcasts. But what AI does for me is it cuts down my research time. I can type in a prompt and say American name, name a couple of Americans who contributed to American leadership but aren’t often heard of in modern time. And then it’ll spit out a few names and then it’ll tell me the sources on those and I can go to those sources and look at them and say, is this what I’m looking for? And so that’s what you’re talking about here is whatever it is, you can go find a source and you can go find an original source on something. And sometimes a quote is not attributable to anybody. It doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate quote, it just doesn’t have a, it is so old that the actual origin of it is unclear, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a fact.
Ray Zinn: Well, I recently wanted to find out who was the President of the United States during the First World War and that was William Howard Taft.
Rob Artigo: Yeah, right.
Ray Zinn: Before, I would’ve had to look that up, as a kid I had a set of encyclopedias that covered a whole bookshelf and it would’ve taken me hours, not hours maybe, but take me at least a couple hours to go find out, get that information. So unless of course you’re a student of that, then you know right where to go in the encyclopedia. But now all I got to do is just ask the computer. I said, who was the president during the second war or during the First World War and within two seconds he gave me his name.
So you’re right, you can learn a lot more information more quickly with the search process that we have now available to us. I wanted to know what the speed, how fast an F-22 would go, and it took me two seconds to find that out where, I mean, it wouldn’t even been in encyclopedia back when I was a kid, that kind of information. So yes, we have information. We got to make sure it is factual that there is good reference material to back up that information. We are able to do more and learn more quickly than we could 30 or 40 years ago.
Rob Artigo: The one word that you could ask a college student today and they wouldn’t be able to define it for you is the word glossary.
Ray Zinn: Yeah, that’s true.
Rob Artigo: Looking in the back of the book for a word and finding out how many pages it’s on and then find the encyclopedia thing is a great example. People don’t buy encyclopedias. It used to be a big investment families would make is they would buy a new set of encyclopedia because their kids are going to school and they’re expecting that they would have sources and really good information right out on the shelf there. Now that’s obsolete.
Ray Zinn: Yep, it is.
Rob Artigo: Same for law books and that kind of thing. Well, Ray, I appreciate the conversation. We have so many great topics here on the Tough Things First Podcast. Listeners should be aware of the fact that they should be rating this podcast on their favorite platform and give us our thumbs up, four stars or five boxes of popcorn, whatever it is, what kind of rating system they have there. And join us once again for our next podcast here on Tough Things First. Your questions are welcome at toughthingsfirst.com. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course pick up Ray’s books. The first one is The amazing Tough Things First. You also have the series, Zen of Zinn one, two, and three. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, a best-seller on Amazon. Thank you, Ray.
Ray Zinn: Thank you.
