Thought bubbles.

I can't emphasis enough on this but critical thinking, the ability to question and reflect on the knowledge and information presented before us, is becoming ever so important in the evolving new media era. The recent push for tighter regulations on online space and tackling fake news has doubtlessly raised the bane of spreading unreliable and non-justifiable claims online. There is always two sides to each coin,  I feel that we people are gaining more awareness and becoming smarter with new media. But at the same time I also think we are too quick to judge these days and most of the time, follow sources blindly. Few months back I chance upon a harmless article about a young couple who purchased their own house at the age of 16/17 and the netizens were raving about the hullabaloo, with admiration and harsh critics all came flowing in until a few weeks later I saw another headline and it turns out that the couple posted it as a joke and didn't expect it to go viral. Like Woah, number one I don't get why people were angry with them because 关你屁事, and number two I don't get why such trivial matter actually has the power to go viral across the world but again 关我屁事 Opps ~ 

Well what stuck me to write this post is how there was an article circulating online since yesterday about the new President 'wasting tax payers' money for staying in her HDB' because 'security will have to be beefed up, and more officers and equipment, like surveillance cameras, are likely to be deployed' which was also part of my conversation with Lnr last night, while Lnr felt that it seems really a waste of resources I thought that these securities measures are needed no matter where she resides in for her role as a president of the country. And it was this morning that things came to light when I saw my Uni professor posted that 'This petition reflects some people's ignorance of how presidential protection works, and no president of Singapore after Devan Nair has actually ever lived full time  in the Istana.' ( I did my fact check this time round and Opps so it is, the villas in Istana are meant to be used for foreign heads of state but are used rarely. ) What I'm trying to bring up here is that really, how ignorant we all are and being too quick to make conclusions, judging based on mostly emotions instead of facts. To which I actually passed by then President Nathan's private residence before though this slipped off my mind last night. (Just to sidetrack a little though, I feel that the crux of the issue is that HDB is a public housing and by beefing up securities measures in the area brought inconvenience to the other hundreds of residents sharing the same block as her lololol, if she were to stay in a private estate at the far end of Singapore people would less likely have made any fuss about it. Meh)  This is just the society, want to be humble also need to be humble in the right context if not people are gonna talk bad Ohwells. 好人难做~

Right back to this, I have to agree that it is extremely difficult to make the right conclusion in this fast paced society we are living in. To be a really successful critical thinker requires questioning the perceived knowledge, rejects any anecdotal and examines the source of all information. The person should be kept an open-mind ( which I feel is lacking at large in what I observed in the online space) and well- informed, and eventually drawing a cautious yet evidence-based conclusions.  But nope, we simply don't damn do that. We scroll through hundreds of news and tabloids a day during our mindless past-time, we stop and move on after a glance, we absorb partially and our brain shapes our thinking based on what we perceive. I always believe in being neutral and in a nastier term, sitting on the fence. I feel that it's the best I could do for I don't know the whole truth behind anything. Although frankly sometimes I can't help but to loathe at people who pass nasty / absurd / non-factual comments. I feel that a part of the urban dwellers has really low tolerance and lacking compassion for others. 

Okay no generalisation Junting. No no no. Let's just mind our own business~ Sometimes I  don't know which is better, to become more vocal for the right thing ( or rather what you perceived to be right ) or be a silent reader behind all these while the world is in a chaos.