The next time you watch network news or read online news, pay attention to the ratio between the reporting of what happened and the speculation about what might happen. Are you pleased with the ratio? If so, what satisfaction do you get from the “would” and “could” and “might” and “maybe”? Is it the same satisfaction derived from reading utopian and dystopian fiction? If so, why not leave speculations to the novelists (or fortune tellers) and the reporting of facts to the journalists? It is essential, I believe, to keep these tasks separate. Because the muddling of epistemological categories like truth, fiction, lie, conspiracy and conjecture changes how we behave … Continue reading Christy Wampole