The online world presents us with dilemmas we never faced before.
With communication quicker and easier than ever, we have created new opportunities for swindling, and it’s quickly catching on (even in medicine).
Amongst physicians especially, there are now many new ventures, and new creations, formed to “help others”.
They all make promises galore. But they don’t all necessarily deliver.
Do you believe you’re insulated from being fooled by ventures that make “emperor new clothes” claims?
If so, what are your methods of “sniffing” out BS?
With communication quicker and easier than ever, we have created new opportunities for swindling, and it's quickly catching on (even in medicine). Click To Tweet
The Tale
I always think of the famous tale of the emperor’s new clothes, as I scroll through social media.
It’s hard to tell, more often than not, which offers stand to be tried, versus which ones aren’t.
Here’s how the story goes, for those who don’t know.
The vain emperor believes in the new tailor in town, who tells him only stupid people don’t see the clothes he weaves.
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He doesn’t actually weave anything, he just pretends to.
But since no one wants to admit to not seeing the clothes (because it would mean they are stupid), no one challenges this, and he gets away with the BS.
When the emperor ends up walking around the town with his “new clothes”, no one is courageous enough to tell him he’s actually naked.
In the end, it’s an innocent child who speaks up, brave enough (through that very innocence) to announce the embarrassing truth.
The Questions
How do we protect ourselves from such trickery? Thievery, even.
How do we prevent ourselves from getting sucked in to the “tailors” in our midst?
Where it comes to online ventures, especially, how do we decide when to call things out?
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Should we support others blindly, just because someone is our colleague, a fellow professional in our field?
Should we support them even when they are tailors, and we are looking out at emperors with NO actual clothes?
Who is actually responsible in such instances: the greedy and gullible? Or those who do the swindling?
Is the emperor, or tailor, to blame?
