The Internet is a fantastic tool of rumour - it's free to send as many emails as you want and the impact can be big, especially if a chunk the population believe in rumour more than they do of actual fact. In our society it makes even more sense to believe in something however fantastical if it makes or saves you money, more so if it is something close to home. All you need is the ability to keep a straight face (it's not easy to do, trust me) when telling the story to someone you know and start the chain reaction.
Plausible story? Check.
Photoshop skills? Check.
People who are bored? Check.
People who will believe anything? Check.
People who will forward whatever they receive? Check.
After all, rumours are sexy compared to the drab news on economic stimulus and unending peace-fire-peace-fire-peace-fire news of the Middle East.
I know I'll end up insulting the intelligence of some on here by suggesting that they are that gullible to believe in everything they hear but it's a common fact that:
i. If you repeat a rumour often enough, it will end up 'true'.
ii. If you repeat a true story enough, it will end up different from the original at the end.
Here is what I do when I get those viral emails (those that survive the Delete button) with topics that I might find interesting:
1. Throw partiality out the window
Fail this part and you might as well just skip (2) and (3), believe whatever you want.
I listed this as the very first step for the reason of it being the toughest to do. Growing up in different backgrounds we will unfortunately have prejudices, be it regional, racial or religious - often the last two. Prejudices will shape what we choose (yes, choose) to believe and not to believe.
Here are a few questions for you:
- What if you were born religion A and not religion B?
- What if you were born of race A and not of race B?
- What makes you think your race is superior to race A?
- What makes you think your religion is superior to religion A?
- Are you the one who made that spectacular history of your race?
- How does the spectacular past of your ancestors makes you great now?
- Does your allegiance to the country of your ancestors benefit you in anything?
- Does the country of your ancestors even know you exist?
- Can you prove the above without any doubts? Scientifically even?
Before you accuse me of racism and religious bigotry, let me make it clear that I apply the same questions to me myself all the time.
2. Check your facts.
Still with me? Congratulations!
It's good to question the validity of a story if it happens to be provable by science or common sense. For example I received an email regarding the use of crushed papaya leaf juices to cure dengue fever from a friend off a forum. This is a pretty well known 'remedy' of sorts - even my mother prescribed this to me when I was struck down by a mild bout dengue fever that lasted a week.
Papaya leaf juice is used as a vermifuge ie. a substance to help purge intestinal worms, so it would make a good deworming remedy due to the property of the compound papain that, while is not as good as commercial prescriptions, contains tannin that helps to protect the intestinal tract by making it harder for worms to attach. It also happens to be a cancer fighting enzyme in clinical research. In short it's a good remedy for indigestion.
What papaya leaf juice helps though is by helping to cool the body. Dengue as with other viral fevers causes the body to overheat in trying to disrupt the replication of the germs, similar to the cooling effect of coconut water.
Hence it is simply irresponsible to spread the story that papaya leaf cures dengue fever. Those who think they can get away with avoiding the visit to the doctor might end up playing dice with the devil in a gamble on drinking papaya leaf juice and end up endangering their lives. It is no substitute to a qualified check by the doctor and professional medical care.
What about the severe dehydration, septic shock and drop in platelet count that comes together as part of the package? Or the fact that dengue is caused by a virus, not parasites like malaria (hence quinine being an effective agent to purge the germ).
Sure, there are stories of this being succesful - one of my distant relatives were bedridden and was already losing his faculties from dengue fever until a house maid from Indonesia ground papaya leaf juice and gave it to him, and voila, miraculously cured.
Anybody care finding out the statistics of people who actually died from taking the same remedy? I know I'm one the many who recovered after being admitted to the hospital and be put on saline drip to combat the severe dehydration.
My colleague has a very fitting comment about this in Hokkien 'khiang du ho, mai keh khiang' which literally means good to be smart but don't try to be smarter than you are.
3. Check for validity of story
Receiving many of these emails daily, I can't help but notice that they always begin as a story by a friend of a friend of a friend (substitute the three friends with your choice of people - father, cousin, sister, uncle, auntie, mamak etc) and never directly from the originator of the story itself. And very often we are the 6th, 7th, 8th or more hand recipient of the email, hence making it either very hard to prove or to disprove, making it 'credible'. Pretty often the stories warn of dangers, hence nobody would be stupid enough to invite problems by proving it (I might be stretching it by saying 'nobody' but let's make peace).
Let me give you an example - many years ago I received an email regarding the consumption of human foetuses in a certain province in China, with a picture as proof of such horrible practices. It shows of a man chewing on a blackened torso of a child with its head visible.
Terrible and inhuman! The UN should be onto this crime against humanity and the authorities to be put to the fire for allowing this to happen.
However...
By the way, Snopes is a great website to check the validity of stories as such, they will never put something down as fact until they can prove it as fact or fiction.
4. Make up your own damn mind.
In the end it's really up to what you want to believe as freedom of thought is something that truly is your own. My common stance is to sit on the fence for unproven stories that might sound plausible (until it is proven or disproven), dismiss outright those that are nothing but sensationalism and keep a level head when it comes to matters that cannot be proven in certainty (read: politics).
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