Forward Thinking

One of my most important notes to myself when I started this blog was “Be Positive. Do not use your blog to whine about stuff. Nobody visits blogs to hear more whining than they usually hear”. However, let me please whine a little once is a while. And today’s whine is about the stuff that passes off as “Forwards”

I really have to admit one thing. I judge people a lot based on WhatsApp. But No, I don’t judge those who read every forward and “LOL” at each joke or comment about each video. True, they seem to have too much time. But if they are able to complete all their work in spite of their unlimited WhatsApp time, then good for them.  Similarly, I don’t judge those who leave WhatsApp groups without so much as a goodbye or those who hardly ever reply. They have their reasons, no doubt.

But I do judge people based on what they choose to forward to groups. I am not going to give many examples but just the basic categories.

1. Forward this to 3 other groups and the Pakistan flag will change to Indian Flag, Forward this to 5 groups and the balls will start bouncing, Forward this to 7 groups and the battery of this phone will charge to 100% and all that guff. What are these people thinking? How can forwarding something to seven groups recharge your phone’s battery? I am completely unable to wrap my head around this gullibility.

2. There are 4 Sundays, 4 Mondays etc this February, this is a rare thing that happens only once in 823 years. Chinese Astrologers say it is lucky.When there are 28 days in a non-Leap year’s February and a week contains 7 days it logically follows that (28/7=4) each day will occur 4 times. This is nothing special at all. Pure maths. But here, I mean any forward that will only require a look at a calendar, or perhaps a calculator to refute it. Google will willingly help too. I read something about Israelites having more Nobel Prize winners than any other country. This is not so. Why do some people lie so much? Why do some people believe it so foolishly?

3. Some things about the toerings that Indian women use making them super fertile and the sindoor making them super awesome and other stuff about the earth’s magnetic force running through their body and energizing them. I totally hate it when people say “Scientifically Proved” without thought and others start believing them without any effort to check out how Scientific experiments are really carried out. If they give reasonable example regarding how these experiments were carried out and how these things are inferred then that is different. But just throwing around words “Even the Scientists were baffled” does not make every story true. Why is that people can’t see this?

And my main confusion is this. Is it wrong to point out that these information are false? Should I just keep quiet? To some friends I send a private message about the real information about the forward. But most times I have to let it go. For no one likes a smart-aleck. But all this is so sad. I have a dream, that we will start living in a thinking world.