h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just had a similar conversation at work. Why do I not watch crime/police based TV or films? Because my wife gets annoyed at my laughing or ranting at the telly!

This was a sad case though.

" maybe we need to learn to recognise when we don't have enough information to solve the puzzle."

Sometimes it's good to have wise people to compare notes with -- on the Internet, usually. Have I been hasty about assuming that what I read online was true? Yes. Nor do I get away it, as if I wanted to.

The Internet is part of a larger group, known as The Media. It takes time for detectives to sift through clues. People made bad assumptions in every previous era, but now we are able to make them more quickly. Exoneration of people falsely accused of crimes doesn't always come in their lifetimes.

I know some fairly reputable websites -- imdb.com, for instance, but eve that site has errors. I will not tire anyone out by listing them.

I use Youtube for entertainment. In this era of lockdown, I don't have theaters to go to, nor live concerts.

I've heard of haunted houses, and even lived in one, but never sensed the ghosts involved.....

Barstool detectives may be even worse, depending on the state of inebriation of both the detectives and their peer group.

I am professionally involved in problem solving. Unless there is a really obvious cause, this takes a lot of time and effort. Quite often, the barstool detectives go by the more common name of "manager".

Alcohol probably doesn't enhance problem-solving.

I think the words 'slow down and learn to think more logically' are key. Ours is such a fast-moving society we've come to expect instant information.

I sometimes think of the mothers and wives of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who watched their sons and husbands leave on sailing ships for distant ports. They might not have heard about their loved ones for months. Of course, they must have worried but they had to live with doubt.

Now, we expect a mobile phone call and, if we don't get it we start worrying. We clasp at the first information we have at hand, without examining it too closely. So yes, slow down and think logically.

Living with doubt.

My great-grandmother watched her husband set sail. She spent the rest of her life not knowing what happened to him.