easy cheesy beautiful covergirl

Waves and clouds. Studies in the decorative art of Japan. 1910.

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond

A lot of propaganda is not even half-truths.

A lot of propaganda actually is telling you the truth, but is feeding you a specific conclusion that the author wants you to draw from it.

This makes it a lot more robust, because if you go searching for sources to confirm the information, you'll find them!

So an important thing in evaluating information is not just "Is this true?" but also:

"Wait, does this lead inevitably to the conclusion this person is presenting? What other conclusions could I draw here? What other reasons for this piece of info could there be? How does this information fit into what I already know?"

"What are the motivations of the person who wrote or created this? Why did they want me to draw that conclusion? Do they themselves believe the conclusion they're drawing, or are they just trying to convince me? If they do believe it themself, why? If not, why are they trying to convince me? What's going on for them here?"

"What other pieces of information might I be missing? What am I extrapolating without noticing? What did this person deliberately leave out, or want me to ignore or gloss over? What other contexts and comparisons are applicable here?"

"How does this information with in with not only the specific conclusion that is presented, but with the author's overarching thesis? When I use it, how well does it fit into my thesis? When I take a step back, does this piece of information actually make any sense as supporting evidence for this person's thesis?"

Are people bringing up demographic details to get you to associate an unrelated group with the situation being discussed?

Would the solution being talked about actually prevent this from happening again?

Did the person presenting this information already want to put that solution in place before the situation being discussed? Are their new arguments consistent with the ones given before this?

Are two people's traits being described in a way that implies those traits are at odds with one another, or that one "counterbalances" the other?

Are two numbers or statistics being cited together as if to imply a link between them, when there may be no such link?