What is the truth?

How is truth a variable ? 

Each of us grew up thinking that the information we received is the truth. 

As a White kid growing up in Apartheid South Africa, the “truth” we were exposed to was to a large degree the rhetoric of the government of the day. This is not dissimilar to many countries of that time period where governments controlled the media and the general population believed the word of the main stream media as opposed to the relatively small and derided opposition voices. 

Efficient Markets

Taking a different view, theEfficient Market Hypothesis, (EMH)  developed by Eugene Fama,, suggests that assetprices fully reflect all available information.  In plain English it assumes that every personbuying and selling in the same market has the same information and eachinterprets it differently giving those who buy and those who sell. There is aterm used called perfect information.  Ipropose that we have never really lived in a time of perfect information.

How do these to ideas come together in 2019 and beyond. We live in an era of fake news and post-truth. And so what then constitutes perfect information ? How does the truth then relate to this ?

Information Overload

My hypothesis is that thependulum has swung from centuries of imperfect information, where buyers andsellers had different information. To a current situation of informationoverload where we all have too much information. The question then is how do weuse this information overload ?  How dowe sort the proverbial wheat from the chaff ? What in 2019 and beyond is thetruth ?

The fake news line has beenused a lot, but I prefer the idea of post truth.

I saw a great definition of post-truth that paraphrased states that post truth is a circumstance where public opinion is shaped by emotion and personal belief rather than objective facts.

I was listening to the Rt HonDavid Cameron (former Prime Minister of Great Britain) a few days ago, in Perth,and he made the comment that when visiting a the USA for the first time heturned on the TV news channels. As he switched between the news channels hecould not believe that he was in the same country as the stories were beingreported so differently.

How often do you see peopleinfluenced by post truth rather than the facts ?

How often are you influencedby post truth without seeking to find the real story ?

The most important questionis what are we doing about it ?

Rael Bricker is a speaker and consultant on achieving BUSINESS EXCELLENCE.  The primary driver of that is creating robust and rich workplace cultures. These encompass presentations and consulting on business excellence, culture, ethics, inspiration, simplifying systems and harnessing growth potential. 

Rael hasconducted unprecedented GLOBAL research into CULTURE by interviewing 70+companies in more than 25 countries.

If youwould like more information, please contact Rael on rael@raelbricker.com or+61408600330