Mike On A Bike Episode 5: The Truth Special

Truth is taking some hits lately and the future doesn't look bright. 
In this episode I ask a range of people the same 5 questions on the subject of Truth.
Let's check back in on this episode in 2031 and see if we survived...

Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:00

Hey listeners, welcome to another Mike on a Bike podcast. Prior to recording the first episode of this podcast, my first guest asked me if I had a theme. Of course I didn't. Over the course of the week leading up to that recording, I spent a lot of time thinking about a series theme. And I knew it wasn't going to be bicycles. There's already 5,000 podcasts about them, and I knew that cycling would inherently be embedded in the podcast anyway. That subject seems to follow me around. Anyway, during that week of deep thought, Australian politics lurched to the right. I'm a keen observer of the process of politics and government, and my mind was taken away for several days with imagining what this country would look like under an extreme form of nationalism. Aha, I thought, this is the theme. I posed these questions to my podcast guests, and in an episode later in the year you'll hear some of their thoughts. And then this week in mid-June of 26, we lurched again. What seemed possible three months ago now is inevitable, and I'm sure that in two years we'll have a nationalist right-wing government that will take the sword to lots of things I treasure. Once our sources of truth are gone, it will be even more difficult to find the truth among all of the BS. I'm pretty sure that truth is the key. Who do we trust? And what do we think is true? Is it even important? So here's a special mic on a bike episode. This is the truth special. I'm going to ask lots of different people the same five questions and share their answers, and somewhere along the line I'll find out the answer for myself. Let's get into it. What is truth? My dad used to say you never let it get in the way of a good story, and I don't either. I do think that there are two sides to every story though, and the truth generally lies somewhere between them.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Truth is reassurance of one's perspective. I think truth by itself can only be really be based on someone's perspective of whatever it is. For something to be true for them, it's reassuring themselves and what they experienced or you know perceived.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

To best of my knowledge, it is fact or reality, backed up by the best possible facts or knowledge available to prove it.

SPEAKER_06 2:38

So fact checking?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:39

It's not truth until it's been verified.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, but even then it might not be.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

It's hard to tell anymore what truth is, isn't it? I know when I'm being fed a half truth or an untruth. Um I know I know what truth isn't, but these days I don't know what truth is.

SPEAKER_07 2:56

What is truth?

SPEAKER_18 2:59

It is facts.

SPEAKER_08 3:02

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_18 3:03

Yeah. Truth is facts.

SPEAKER_08 3:05

Is it possible for you and me to be presented with the same fact and think it's a different kind of truth?

SPEAKER_18 3:12

Probably, but it's still the truth, it only comes down to facts.

SPEAKER_04 3:15

Well, the first thing about truth is that it's absolute. We do live in an age of relativity. In other words, what's true for you may not be true for me, and that's fine. This relativism has definitely uh uh increased in in in the last ten, twenty years.

SPEAKER_07 3:34

I agree with you. Ten years ago I had never heard anyone use the phrase my truth.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

Yeah. I guess opinion and truth have sort of gotten mixed up a little bit, haven't they? I mean everybody is entitled to their opinion, but people seem to have lost sight of the fact that your opinion may not necessarily be true.

SPEAKER_11 3:52

Truth to me is the facts, what's right and free of inaccuracy.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

There's a deviation between truth and fact. Like fact is like if that wall is white, or even that's not fact. Um no one knows if everyone's colours are the same. Truth is individual, fact is more so like if something is a fact.

SPEAKER_06 4:12

It's the same fact for everyone.

SPEAKER_05 4:15

Yeah. Good question. I don't know. Believe in what you see, not in what you hear. I would say truth is a result of fact and experience.

SPEAKER_13 4:32

I think I think truth's a couple of things. Um, I mean, at face value, I think it's it's um synonymous with accuracy, so something that can be um demonstrated with um through or proven or supported with you know verifiable, testable evidence. I guess that's your your more scientific definition. Truth's what's proven or can be proven. But then I think you know, you've also got other interesting cases of truth where you you may take someone who's giving an account of someone something, um, and they're giving that account truthfully, but they may be um misinformed or under a misapprehension, um, in which case they you've got this interesting situation where someone may be truthful um insofar as they're giving an honest account, um, but it may not actually be accurate.

SPEAKER_18 5:17

Yeah, a fact is a fact, so that's the truth.

SPEAKER_17 5:22

Truth is who you are as a person, it's it's your morals and the way that you see the world. There are some universal truths that everyone agrees on, but there are also truths as in religion. People believe that God is their truth, but there are other people who go, God isn't my truth. But we find our truth in other things, we can find it in other people.

SPEAKER_15 5:52

To me, truth is integrity and vulnerability. What is it gonna cost someone to tell you the truth? What's in it for them to not tell your truth? What's so what are they risking by telling you the truth? What's their vulnerability?

SPEAKER_12 6:07

Truth for me is literally actual factual events or situations without anyone's opinion or emotional connection. Um, when anyone tries to bend the truth, i.e. lying, uh, they're eventually caught out. I personally can't lie because I don't appreciate when people lie to me, and I can always tell a liar and the conversation just feels differently.

SPEAKER_09 6:28

Well, at the risk of sounding a little bit kooky, the whole matrix thing, I I think truth is a construct basically defined by how well a statement fits within an established system of beliefs. So, you know, for example, yeah, we say money has a value, but this is only true because a group of people agree different places around the world have different beliefs, and and that's their truth. So one truth in one place could be not a truth in another place.

SPEAKER_14 6:51

True. What is truth? People have their own truth, people refuse to believe things if it disagrees with their truth. Sometimes you just can't talk to people. Not a good time because I'm thinking about my landlord at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

It's a good question. What is truth? I I think that truth exists independently of our beliefs, wishes, or biases. And all we can do is have an understanding of a truth in an attempt to represent reality as faithfully as possible.

SPEAKER_14 7:21

It's very fluid and very relative. I agree. It's person to person. I'd just like people to be honest. If you've got a blatant lie, just don't say it. The truth's not a competition. It either is or it isn't.

SPEAKER_08 7:38

Spending two weeks asking people what truth is has left me even more uncertain. I'm uncomfortable with the expectation that I should give cultural space for others to live comfortably with their own personal truths. It feels to me like personal truths and alternative facts are the same thing, and for the most part, I've tried to discourage bullshitters. But I still believe in the idea of you do you and I'll do me. So I'll live with that. The truth will have to sort itself out. I think that my second question will have some contentious answers. Trust is both relative and subjective, and is heavily impacted by the things we believe to be true. Who we trust to tell us the truth is more about which channel we are plugged into, because the volume of channels allows us to find exactly the one that fits our world view.

SPEAKER_05 8:36

Family, they only tell you what they want you to hear. So many different factors are hurdles in getting the truth out there. Media, government, they can't be trusted. I think you're the only person. Me or you, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 8:52

You can only trust yourself to tell yourself the truth. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_11 8:56

I trust my close family and friends. If I want to get world news, I'm not going to get it from Facebook or TikTok. I'm going to get it from somewhere like the ABC or um SBS or The Guardian. And I also like to think that I trust science. I didn't always, because I've been a bit of a um conspiracy theorist in my life, but my husband has started to get me thinking more critically.

SPEAKER_13 9:23

I very much um trust in institutions and learned people, people who've put um study and and research into whatever the topic is that we're talking about. If we're talking about truths about, say, myself or an experience or something, then I I trust people close to me, um, my wife, my parents, my brother. But I suppose in terms of the character of people that I trust, it's people who are generally not overly emotive, who who have a sober view on things.

SPEAKER_17 9:52

Also, people are inherently biased, you know, even then, even people say, No, I'm not, I could never. But there's always gonna be bias. That's just part of human nature.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

In Australia, you don't have to declare an ingredient if it's constitutes less than five percent of the the total volume.

SPEAKER_08 10:11

Right. I can spit it up to 4.8%.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Currently, the only person I trust to tell me the truth is my two-year-old grandson, no one else. And the reason that he tells me the truth is because he doesn't know how to make things up, he doesn't know what an untruth is.

SPEAKER_12 10:29

I can tell a lie like in an instant from kids because they're just easy to read like a book. Trust no one, Steve.

SPEAKER_08 10:38

Trust no one, yeah.

SPEAKER_17 10:39

Can you trust what you read in the paper? Well, I don't read the paper because I'm not in my fifties.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

And probably trusted media companies like like the ABC or the New York Times. Definitely not a YouTuber without a name.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Usually I would say truth comes from the people who you don't want to hear it from. I reckon there's probably like levels to truth. Like there's the ones that you don't want to think about because you don't want them to be true. You know, like you don't want to think you're a bad person.

SPEAKER_08 11:06

Sometimes it's true. Sometimes you just don't want to hear it.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

I don't think I personally have like exact this is where I go for truth or anything.

SPEAKER_08 11:15

Do you think there there's been an erosion in how we trust some of those professions? Doctors, no one's ever trusted lawyers or new bicycle salesmen. But do you think that some of those old trustworthy professions think they're still there or the erosion is inevitable?

SPEAKER_15 11:32

Yeah, I think there has been definitely some erosion, but that's probably also the growth of the internet, right?

SPEAKER_17 11:38

The internet is a lie. Everything you see there in on the internet is a highlight reel. You don't show people what you're actually going through. I've grown up in an age where the where the internet is so accessible. People edit themselves, they don't show the bad parts about them because people will judge them.

SPEAKER_04 11:57

I'm an optimist. I've always trusted people up front, unless they give me a reason not to trust them. That has bitten me very hard in recent years. So I'm a little more query on who I trust, and I'm a little more questioning on what they tell me, and I try very hard to ask more questions.

SPEAKER_07 12:16

Who do you trust to tell you the truth?

SPEAKER_18 12:20

I don't know. Not AI and not Google. Nobody, really. That's what happened with Santa Claus and the kids. You can't even trust your parents to tell you the truth.

SPEAKER_08 12:31

Are there any people that you trust to tell you the truth?

SPEAKER_18 12:33

I guess my own daughter.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

Yes, we trusted our politicians, we trusted the media. We would trust you know, we would trust certain newspapers, if not all of them, but to be impartial and to and to do good journalism. And then lo and behold, we realized that oh, this certain newspaper is left-leaning and that certain media outlet is is right leaning. And we didn't know it twenty years ago.

SPEAKER_08 13:01

We didn't know that. We just knew that if it was in the Daily Telegraph, it was bullshit. And if it was in the Sydney Morning Herald, it was probably true.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

Yeah, yeah. Uh you know, politicians should be able to, at least given the grace, to change their minds. Circumstances change, policies change, society changes, and they need to be up, you know, they need to be agile and nimble and be able to say, right, well, yes, I did say that, you know, two years ago, but things have changed, and we think this is the best thing for the country now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Then the best that I can do is to trust people who genuinely try to describe reality as accurately, accurately as they can, even if they're wrong. What I'm looking for is intellectual honesty rather than certainty. It's kind of okay to say you don't know or have heard or read or announced your source. I might not share your view, but I can respect your belief. And in turn, I'd hope that you do the same for me.

SPEAKER_15 13:54

To me, it's family is who do I trust. It's generally family, but family expanded. Family doesn't have to be a literal physical DNA that I've also got mates that go right back into 35 plus years. Um you trust them all to tell you the truth. Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_12 14:16

I I thought theirs was a really, really good one. Um, and my answer would be only people close enough to me who know I'll know if they're lying. They just don't even bother.

SPEAKER_14 14:27

Who do I trust to tell me the truth? Not mainstream media. I I haven't paid any attention to free-to-wear media news for 20 years. Yeah. Because I don't like being bullshit at too. Right. I think all they care about is towing the line and not offending the very few advertisers that they have got left. Um, and you can't trust the internet either. I'd like news, not analysis. You see too many stories come up with the headline analysis. That's just that person who calls themselves a journalist, that's just their opinion.

SPEAKER_08 15:08

We haven't really come up with any new ideas, have we? No.

SPEAKER_14 15:11

We haven't gotten this martyr, nothing's changed. It's just moved platforms, it's sliding sideways.

SPEAKER_09 15:17

Yeah, well, at the sake of alienating my life, I don't think we can trust anyone to tell us the complete truth. But I think that's okay because sometimes a lie could be the kindest result or outcome. I think where a lie is filtered using kindness, um, then I believe that potentially that lie is is not wrong.

SPEAKER_08 15:36

You use the term complete truth. That's not in the question. So I'm interested in understanding how you come to read the question and then add the word complete in there.

SPEAKER_09 15:47

To say that all truths, truths, and lies sit within a very narrow parameter, I think life doesn't happen that way in the right spectrum. Yeah, because life is messy, it comes back to the actual circumstance and the and the individual truth or lie.

SPEAKER_08 16:06

I'm not sure that there's a summary to be had here. I thought that trusted professions might take a hit, but they didn't. But AI definitely did. Science fiction is quickly becoming science fact, and very few of those stories end up with the computers caring for the humans. I think that overall we still trust, but not as much. Has it ever been different? I doubt it. When I asked about separating truth from fiction, I wasn't sure if I would get any optimistic answers. The rise of AI feels like the last nail in truth's coffin, but I'm not sure it has ever been possible to separate fact from fiction, because as my mum used to say, figures can't lie, but liars can figure. She also used to believe that if something was printed in the paper, then it had to be true. I think we would all like to return to those days, but the genie is stubborn and refuses to go back into the bottle.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Is it possible to tell the truth from fiction? I hear you ask.

SPEAKER_08 17:17

That's right. I did ask that.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

It's not possible to tell anymore. Not possible. Not anymore, not these days with AI generation, with voice manipulation. I trust nothing. I trust no one apart from my two-year-old grandson.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

The question assumes fiction is the opposite of truth, and I don't think it is. Fiction is often understood as imagined rather than factual, but it can still communicate truths and genuine truths.

SPEAKER_05 17:43

I reckon it is. Is it getting uh harder or easier? Definitely getting harder.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

So I think a better question is whether we can distinguish truth from error or deliberate deception. And if we do that, then my answer would be yes, sometimes.

SPEAKER_08 18:01

Your answer to your question.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Exactly, exactly. So I'd answer sometimes, and only in as much as we're similarly informed.

SPEAKER_08 18:10

Is it possible to tell truth from fiction?

SPEAKER_11 18:14

Not always. It depends on the context, I would say. How I would navigate this is to try to think critically.

SPEAKER_08 18:22

Do you agree that mainstream media is untrustworthy?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

I think there might be a bit of state influence in some places. I think they probably try the best they can.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

I would say it depends on the individual reading the fiction and the person writing it. A writer can have an intended meaning, but each person that reads whatever they write will take their own truth from it.

SPEAKER_13 18:46

Yeah, so I think um I think a lot comes down to the source of the truth of the fiction. You've got your um your news media outlets which have you know which have got a professional standard that they that they work to, there's reputations at stake, there's um there's severe consequences for when they when they get things seriously wrong. It is those kinds of sources that are going to be more reliable. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got your YouTubers and your influence your influencers who've got no accountability and probably no training, and they're probably the last people that you'd want to be um you'd want to be listening to.

SPEAKER_08 19:22

So it feels like that you think the the journalistic standards, the integrity of journalism as a craft still exists.

SPEAKER_13 19:32

I I definitely think that it still exists. It depends on um it would depend on the outlet that we're talking about. Um I mean there's certainly some outlets that are more reputable than others.

SPEAKER_08 19:42

Do you think it's easier to spot bullshit?

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Depends on the bullshit. There would be some bullshit that I could like I have a better nose for, but like if someone starts talking about like the financial system, uh I I don't know. Yeah, you wouldn't be able to tell.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

The the ingredients which are supposed to be the truth aren't actually the truth. That's the allowance component, isn't it?

SPEAKER_08 20:03

So I'm allowed to be just this little bit. Yeah. Is it possible that we could both be delivered with a fact and one of us would see it as truth and the other one would see it as fiction?

SPEAKER_15 20:13

Definitely. Whether you like it or not, you've got a preconceived conception of what the world is fact is coming from.

SPEAKER_07 20:20

Uh everybody looks at it at a slightly different angle. Do you reckon you can spot it when someone's bullshitting you?

SPEAKER_18 20:25

Well, I don't know. If they were my really good friends, then I'd probably be it'd be questionable. But if it was just people off the streets, you'd have to kind of go, I don't know whether I believe you.

SPEAKER_08 20:37

You said not AI and not Google. Is that because AI has blurred the lines too much?

SPEAKER_18 20:44

Absolutely, it's blurred the line. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I wouldn't believe anything that was written in the newspaper. But if I went back to a 1985 encyclopedia, I'd probably believe it.

SPEAKER_08 20:57

You think it's possible to tell truth from fiction?

SPEAKER_17 21:01

Yes, I think.

SPEAKER_08 21:03

If I send you a picture, you'll be able to tell if it's fake or real.

SPEAKER_17 21:07

What kind of fake would it be? Would it be AI fake?

SPEAKER_08 21:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 21:11

Or would the story be fake?

SPEAKER_08 21:13

That's that's the right answer to the question. Is it obviously something that somebody's faked, or is it somebody trying to lie to me by sending me something that looks real but isn't?

SPEAKER_12 21:26

Yes, definitely, but sometimes not straight away. If the person telling fiction is someone that you normally trust, yeah. It comes out in the wash in the end, even though it might be a fairly long time later. For me, it's like proceed with caution because something if it smells a bit funny, then I don't go all in.

SPEAKER_08 21:46

Is it possible to tell truth from fiction?

SPEAKER_15 21:48

No. You've got to go back to who and what do you trust? Where's where's the integrity? Where's the vulnerability? It's getting really hard these days.

SPEAKER_14 22:00

To be hard, did it? No. I used to love a funny video on the internet. Somebody tripping over or Australia's funniest same videos.

SPEAKER_08 22:07

We all watched it. None of it was fake. Every kid that got knocked off a swing to the nut. Rate a trailbike through the fence.

SPEAKER_14 22:15

It was all real. Somebody did it. But now yeah, you cannot look at a video and no, you can't anymore. There are some really appalling ones which are dead giveaway. I'd like to believe that's funny and that it happened, but I don't know anymore. And it's taking the fun out of the internet. Yeah, yeah. AI is the the fun sucker.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

It's getting harder and harder and harder with AI because even with fact checking and doing as much research as you can, um, it's very hard to tell. I think if you see it with your own eyes, maybe.

SPEAKER_09 22:49

Again, I think it's a bit of a yes and no answer. I think we often get lost in the desire for fiction to actually be our reality.

SPEAKER_08 22:55

Yeah. We want it to be true.

SPEAKER_09 22:57

For any fiction to be true, or took for us to think it's true, it needs to be plausible, right? And hold a level of truth within it. And I think unfortunately, it's much easier in this day and age for that plausibility to apply to a lot of fictions. In a lot of cases, sadly, a plausible fiction is often mistaken for the truth.

SPEAKER_08 23:16

Humans have always accepted plausible fictions. In our lives every day, we go beyond the what if. And whether that's in a simple way, like trying a new recipe or the hard way when applying for a job beyond our capabilities. Trying to tell truth from fiction is more difficult, and staying ahead of thieves and scammers takes more knowledge and more effort. But blending truth and fiction has always been our way. I've made my peace with it. With my fourth question, I was hoping to find out if, as adults, we still relied on mythology to give us foundational truth. I think that mythology, in all its forms, comes slowly from the repetition of truths, with stories updated and revised to carry them from one generation to the next. Can myths convey truths even if they are not literally true?

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yeah. Like myths are just they are used to teach Old Truths, right? Yeah. Is there like a agreed upon like this is when after this point in time there's no more myths? Like now that's just history? Or is it like are there still myths being created? Think about like Bigfoot. Like that's a myth.

SPEAKER_08 24:44

When does facts turn into mythology, right?

SPEAKER_03 24:47

Yes, a hundred percent, yes. Um myths? Yeah, yes. The big bad wolf was fiction. But the truth was it was a it it's a lesson in house building.

SPEAKER_05 25:01

You're not a myth kind of guy, are you? Not really, no, it doesn't float my mode that stuff.

SPEAKER_11 25:07

Yes, myths can convey truth even if they're not literally true. It's the fable of the tortoise and the hare. It's not a factual account of talking animals, but it expresses a truth about persistence and overconfidence.

SPEAKER_13 25:19

It's probably probably important to make a few distinctions here, I suppose, about the category of myths. So if we're talking about a myth like, say, you know, Bigfoot or the Yowie, uh, then uh by definition, no, there's really no there's usually no truth to it any in any sort of meaningful sense. I suppose that some of those myths can contain like like a a germ of truth. But if you're talking about say mythical stories or like mythology, um then absolutely they contain like they can contain moral truths. I think you know there has to be some whimsy, some um some you know magic in in kids' lives, um um, and I think that that's that's a lovely thing. Um if he said to me, Dad, is it true? I'd be I'd be quick to point out that that no it wasn't. There's a lot of culture locked up in these in these mythological stories, and they can that's that's that can tell us a lot about people.

SPEAKER_16 26:14

How can a book be true if it's fictional? Anything can be true because you can always pull from real life examples. Right.

SPEAKER_17 26:22

I think it's just people creating something so that they can feel better about their choices. It's the same thing with religion. I religion is a man-made thing.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

What do you think? I think yes. Um, it d depends on how you define a myth, of course. Because myths can be written in a way for us mere humans to simply understand that it's a type of language. Yeah. It's a message, it's it has a hidden meaning, or or maybe it has a a very obvious meaning that you're meant to take away from it, but the actual details of the myth or the story are kind of not really important. In today's society, we don't give myths enough credence. I think we've become so cultured and so proud of our scientific achievements that we no longer have a purpose or a use for myths.

SPEAKER_10 27:20

Uh yes to a degree. A parable is like a story that which has parts of truth in it. So some people can't make out those two things um apart from each other. And they take the entire story as all true.

SPEAKER_15 27:36

Yeah, definitely. Those old wives' tales and different um things that have built up over time have probably, you know, do they start on an element of truth and then people have added and subtracted along the way, make a better story. Did they create stories of dragons in the water to keep people away from certain islands?

SPEAKER_08 27:51

Yeah, well, that's where the gold is, right?

SPEAKER_09 27:54

Well, this is one that I am in the yes camp on from the start. I think they can if they're not factually true. I think myths are often a collection of information, generally it originates in truth. I think myths exist to sort of serve as a bit of a mirror for human nature.

SPEAKER_12 28:10

I love this question, actually. Um, I believe myths can convey lessons similar to the actual truth, kind of like fables, but no, not the truth. Truthful things actually have to happen.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

A myth may not tell us the truth about history, but it can tell us about human nature. And it can tell us about things like morality, fear, love, sacrifice, or meaning. Wisdom often lies between recklessness and timidity. Human ambition without judgment has consequences. So that that that those are those are the kind of truths that can come out of myth.

SPEAKER_14 28:44

Yeah, I think so. Myths to me are sort of like a moral story, you know, Aesop's fables. They're made up of stories to basically say don't stick your hand in the fire because your hand will get burnt.

SPEAKER_08 28:55

That's right. And what about modern mythology? Do you think that there's mythology still being created?

SPEAKER_14 29:01

I think there's some maybe some urban myths get launched.

SPEAKER_08 29:04

That it seems to be one of those things.

SPEAKER_14 29:06

Well, there's another big cat sight in last night, so we can go to the big cat.

SPEAKER_08 29:09

Is it the big cat thing is still getting around, is it?

SPEAKER_14 29:12

Alright. Oh, yeah, there's a big cat sighted at Dorigo. Just stuff that that people like to talk about when there's nothing to do, and you're sitting down around a campfire.

SPEAKER_08 29:25

I suspect that in our modern world, the mythology comes first and the facts arrive later. In the course of recording these interviews, this came up a few times, and I think there are some great historical examples of the shifting nature of truths, fictions, and mythology. In 1989, I was 22 and I lived through the global outrage of the civil unrest in China that led to the Tiananmen Square massacre. At the time we saw limited granny footage of protesting, the declaration of martial law, the photo we now call Tank Man, but we didn't see any real footage of the armed forces murdering the people they were supposed to be protecting. The Chinese government put a hard lid on what was happening across the country, and at the time it was definitely more mythology than truth or facts. Something had happened and it was bad. What happened to Tankman? Is he okay? Did the tanks really roll over people? As time passed, we got more and more videos smuggled out of the country and the truth began to appear. Yes, the tanks really did roll over people. Thousands dead, hardliners took control, progressive reforms were wound back and the Chinese government suppressed everything. Did 1,000 people die or 10,000? The facts we'll never know for sure, but the truth was evident. It was bad. Nearly 40 years later we're back to myths again, because time and too many opinions have rounded off all the hard edges of this story. Documents leak that add to the mythology, but there's still an official suppression order within China. It was bad. Lots of people died, but China is okay now, let's move on. Myths can convey truths, and if you say something enough times, you can turn a myth into a truth. This is especially true for governments. In August of 1980, Azaria Chamberlain was taken by dingos on a family camping holiday at Uluru. The media frenzy was both unrelenting and unrepentant. Did the dingos actually do it? The body was never found. Did mum do it as a sacrifice? She seems a bit weird. Why does she wear black clothes? Does the name Azaria mean sacrifice? We had no facts and the mythology took over. A coronial inquest in early 1981 exonerated the parents, but the political pressure was so great the government quashed the findings and a very public trial was held. The mythology already said that Lindy Chamberlain was guilty and there was no chance of a fair trial. She went to prison for life and she would still be there if the baby's clothing hadn't been found by chance in 1986. The verdict was overturned and Lindy was free. An absence of facts fueled the mythology and it lived on as truth until the facts reappeared. Can myths convey truths even if they are not literally true? Yes, they can. And it's dangerous. I think old myths built up over time and regularly tested can convey truths. Whether they're fables, parables, or old wives' tales, they contain truths and lessons in a palatable and easy to consume way. They're good for us. But new myths, I think they're bad. I think that when we create mythology because of an absence of facts, the worst of our nature is on show or in print. Is truth more important than belief? Probably. For many people it's an unfair question. How can something be true if you don't believe it? It's possible to lead a full life whether you think this statement is true or not. The engineer places all their believing in the equations because one plus one always equals two. While the tarot card mystic knows that your world is about to change if you turn the tower card. How we balance beliefs feels like the most personal of tasks. Is truth more important than belief?

SPEAKER_09 33:48

Yeah. And I think difficult to just give a straight out yes or no answer, but I think it depends on whether you're, you know, you're focused on the physical world or you focus more on motivating or driving human behavior. My example here is the Dran conflict, you know, where information is curated and controlled. Often the information that we get is one-sided, then we decide an outcome based on trust rather than truth.

SPEAKER_08 34:12

That's interesting. You put a third word in there. Trust. And you've created this Venn diagram with trust in the middle of an overlapping piece of truth and belief.

SPEAKER_09 34:23

Yeah, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think I think that's a good thing. Um it's great because uh my heart says truth should be more important. We should never just be going to war because of a belief, because that that belief may not always be a truth. Um and that unfortunately is often the case around these situations.

SPEAKER_08 34:43

So I think we've always gone to war because of belief. I don't think we've ever gone to war over truth. Is truth more important than belief?

SPEAKER_17 34:54

No, they're the same. It's opinion-based.

SPEAKER_08 34:58

What truth or belief? Both of them.

SPEAKER_17 35:00

You can believe that truth is more important, but they come hand in hand. You have to believe someone. You have to have belief in that person to be able to trust them.

SPEAKER_08 35:13

We weren't talking about trust, we were talking about truth.

SPEAKER_17 35:16

No, it's the same shit. And yes, I know that trust isn't the word you use, but truth and trust to me are the same.

SPEAKER_04 35:27

Yeah, I think so. Truth is absolute. If there is only one truth, then it doesn't really matter what you believe, whether your beliefs align with that truth or another truth. Two different people can come up with two different beliefs based on the same truth.

SPEAKER_08 35:42

Binger, there's the problem. Is truth more important than belief?

SPEAKER_01 35:48

In my opinion, yes. That key point is definitely going around a bit.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Truth is belief, and belief is truth. If you have a belief, then it is truth. Or at least it's your truth. People have a belief in something so it becomes their truth.

SPEAKER_05 36:08

I'm gonna say truth is way more important than belief.

SPEAKER_10 36:16

Absolutely. Because when it comes down to it, you can't rely on Skydaddy to uh help you out when things get tough.

SPEAKER_11 36:24

I believe that yes, truth is the actual facts, whereas belief is skewed by a gender bias and is subjective. You can blindly believe the earth's flat, but if science truthfully and accurately proves otherwise, then this has to trump belief, which sadly is not how we operate in society for many people.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

I don't think you can have belief without truth. So it's not that like one's more important than the other, but one is created from the other. Everyone is a a bird trying to build their own nests and all the different sticks and like pieces of hair and just truths they pick up. Some people have, you know, trash nests, but then again, that's based on perspective.

SPEAKER_18 37:07

No. I think that sometimes you just have to believe to get through life, even if it's not necessarily the truth. You're having a meltdown, and the truth is you probably need to go to the doctors and get some antidepressants. But right now I'm going to make you believe that you're okay. The truth is you're fucking off the planet.

SPEAKER_08 37:29

So is truth more important than belief?

SPEAKER_04 37:32

Um, I thought it was, but now I'm not sure. I'm not so sure. What I believe is is what is true for me. And what you believe is true is true for you.

SPEAKER_15 37:40

I think it is. I've had people, especially employers, look at me sometimes in complete disbelief that I have just told them the truth, just honestly, to my own detriment.

SPEAKER_12 37:52

Yes, truth is more important than belief, but sometimes people need to believe in things so badly that their belief becomes their truth. And belief can be circumstantial or situational. And I I feel like religion is one of these conversations where science and belief fight it out for the truth. In the end, truth is always the truth, and it will always be the truth, and good hard facts will always be the truth.

SPEAKER_15 38:18

Some people need something to believe in, that that that there's something more powerful than than what they can see and what they know is the absolute truth, you know, that that having that belief is something that allows them to get by, to get to to do what they need to do. Um, the sports people that have to believe in uh 1% I'm destined, I'm the great one on the chosen one.

SPEAKER_08 38:41

That's a different way of thinking about it. The sports person that doesn't work on truth, they work on belief.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

What I think is that belief should serve truth, not replace it. It's not that I'm diminishing the importance of belief, I think it just gives it the right role. So belief should be continually tested and refined against truth. Truth is the destination, belief is the vehicle. A vehicle is only valuable if it's traveling in the right direction.

SPEAKER_14 39:07

Towards truth.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_14 39:10

Um, I think they have to go hand in hand. People need to believe, whether it's religion or not, and you need truth to believe. I would have to go with truth because I I imagine that that not every person who believes in religion, whichever their religion is, and they know that the planet Earth wasn't created 10,000 years ago in seven days. I sort of ended religious people who can reconcile both sides.

SPEAKER_08 39:42

And then this is a really interesting point. We're dealing with these existential crises. Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? Am I a good person? And meanwhile, all these religious people over here are going sweet because Jesus, right? Jesus is doing it for me. If I don't know whether I should get up, then I can just say, Hey Jesus, what do you reckon? Oh, Jesus says, you know, take the day off.

SPEAKER_13 40:05

Truth has to be the foundation of belief, and it is reasonable for some for someone to say, I believe that the airliner that I'm about to get onto is safe. That belief is based on real-world experience, as opposed to say something like faith, which is by definition belief in the absence of evidence, that's that's a different thing. In a lot of aspects of life, we we do have to believe. Um, but but I think what is most important there is that the that belief is founded on good principles, on accuracy, on fact.

SPEAKER_08 40:40

Um, do you have any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Oh, I would just say truth before comfort. That's maybe one of the tattoos I'm gonna get.

SPEAKER_08 40:47

You said truth is more important than belief, and that is what you believe to be true.

SPEAKER_11 40:54

My head hurts.

SPEAKER_08 41:01

I think all I've proved here is that humanity exists on a spectrum, but I'm pretty sure we knew that already. This episode of the podcast has been an opportunity for me to clean up a messy part of my mental desk. It makes me happy to know that I wasn't alone in that, and I think I'll do more episodes like this one. Collectively, we have opened up a disused filing cabinet and taken out the jumble of papers on subjects that are rarely part of our conscious thoughts. The papers are filed away again now, but I think we can agree that the process of sorting through our thoughts and assembling them in order makes us a little wiser. Thanks to everyone who participated. I left out your names on purpose, but you know who you are. Hopefully, you'll all join me for the next one.

SPEAKER_18 41:58

This podcast episode was made on the lands of Wannarua people. We acknowledge them as the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to their elders, past, present, and future. I would list the authors, producers, sound recorders, editors, and directors of what just happened, but we all know it was just Steve and that he was assisted by the dog. In the next episode, Steve goes for a ride with two very fast ladies who have big plans for the future. Tune in for a chat with them soon. Funny story a bloke came into the shop this week and he saw the bed where Molly sleeps while we work. He pointed at it and said, What's that? It's Molly's nest, I replied.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

He looked at me and said, Some people have, you know, trash nests.