Why are we so gullible ?

"Good news to all of us. UNESCO announces INDIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM as the BEST National Anthem in the World. Pls forward this to all the PROUD Indians ". I got a mail informing this "good news" yesterday and almost fell down from my chair !! By Jove !! From where did UNESCO get such an ludicrous idea ? How can someone possibly determine the superiority one national anthem over another ? The mail did not carry any proof of the claim and I realized that it is just another hoax mail. But the mails kept coming, from "proud" Indians eager to spread the good news !!

This is not the first and definitely won’t be the last such mail. Over the past three years, I have seen a fair amount of such hoax mails. The subjects vary widely such as free Sony laptops, Bill Gates sharing his fortune, baby who needs A- blood, two moons in the sky, Orkut closing its website, pictures of Nano car etc tec. Some even come with messages from Christ, Lord Ganesha etc, prophecing dire consequences if you fail to forward them( I will love to know if they keep Orkut profiles !!) A casual glance is enough to figure out the obvious nature of such mails, because they never provide any proof of what they claim. But the menace has only increased over the years. We laugh at general public going crazy over milk-sipping Ganesh or bleeding Christ or sweet-tasting sea water. But these mails come from people who are supposedly the cream of the society, highly qualified and who use internet in everyday life. What is excuse for such gullibility ? Probably it has something to do with our education, where we spend our whole time running after grades. We parrot the textbooks and never question what we are taught. So we condition ourselves from an early stage to believe anything we see or hear.

Probably it is also a manifestation of Slacktivism, the feel-good that one derives from having come to society's rescue without actually getting his hands dirty, volunteering any of his time, or opening his wallet. We forward mails and sign petitions in support of an issue or social cause that have little or no practical effect other than to make us feel satisfied. We forward mails that requests blood for a dying baby, but we don’t bother to call the no. given with the mail(which always turns out to be an invalid no.) and find out the details. We forward mails, because some unknown and unseen sponsor will donate 10 rupees to a cancer patient for each such mail. Thus we get to help a righteous cause, without spending any bucks or moving our ass from the chair !! How convenient !!

The huge popularity of astrology, Fortune-telling, palm-reading and related practices show a different facet of our gullibility. More on it, in my next post.

P.S. A US student did a gullibility test asking people if they will sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide". The reasons were very convincing ..
1. it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting
2. it is a major component in acid rain
3. it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state
4.accidental inhalation can kill you
5.it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

Out of 50 people he surveyed, only one refused to sign. Dihydrogen monoxide is popularly known as water !!