Belief is [still] the enemy
I get emails periodically from a person who really doesn’t have the time of day for me. I don’t understand that, honestly. But you know… whatever. I guess hitting ‘forward’ on your email client is the new substitute for actually giving a damn.
There used to be a lot of moralistic tales in this forward slush pile, especially anything with overtly christian overtones. These have become fewer in number, I imagine primarily because I objected and/or parodied their earlier efforts.
But something that hasn’t died off is the stream of warning emails. These range from the “forward this or something bad will happen” genre to specific medical or trading advisories. I suppose this person sees it as their mission in life to educate us lesser mortals.
But I am yet to be totally convinced that these things are happening. Or if they are happening, that they are happening on the scale of the warnings they produce. The inherit problem I suppose is that these things are possible. They could happen. Well meaning people find these warnings in their inboxes and feel fortunate that they have friends considerate enough to share such information. So naturally they return the favour.
Some email programs automatically include your signature on the bottom of forwards, often in a way that it is difficult to distinguish the original email from your admendment to it. Emails turn up with the name, email and business contact details of police officers. It is mostly assumed that this is because the police officer witnessed the offending practice and wanted to warn the world. Although closer inspection invariably reveals they are just another considerate forwarder whose details became attached.
But there seems to be a tendency to want to believe in their contents by some readers… as if their world view is so bleak that not only is it conceivable, but it is to be expected! It is us email forwarders versus the world.
And of course if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the email forwaring problem.
The problem I have is that I’m not sure if forwarding an email is part of a solution of warning unsuspecting publics, or if it is part of a problem that produces unnecessary fear and terror.
There was a time when I would have consulted snopes.com regarding such a dilemma, but there are some people who see it as a heresy of sorts. Another example of people judging the content of a site by how strongly it validates their own personally held beliefs?
EDIT: A small footnote to this entry. This appears at the top of the most recent email of this nature I have received.
This email has been around for a while, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious and pass it on; there are just too many weird people out there. It started a few years ago, but doesn’t mean that theives [sic] aren’t still using this tactic.
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