TellDear tells you everything about the text you are reading or writing. Or the video you are watching or creating.
For consumers
“I have been confused, polarized, manipulated and fooled by media artifacts. What is really in front of me?”
TellDear will reverse this and make you immune. And help you make total sense.
For creators
“I did my best to create this piece. What have I forgotten, what are the problems, what makes it attackable – how can I create the best version imaginable?“
TellDear will tell you, dear.
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Why
It’s far easier to be wrong than right.
Every day we are confronted with a wild buffet of information. Every dish screams “consume me“. Our methods for sorting out the bad stuff fail. And when we consume it, we often become manipulated and lose our bearings.
We do not know whether the facts are correct and sensibly selected.
We cannot easily see whether the arguments used are logical and what rhetorical tricks are used.
Assessing the actual quality of media products requires a great deal of unrealistic effort.
We tend to polarize, so that we no longer develop common models for what is happening in the world. The inability to act collectively is dangerous in times of existential risk, such as the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, when coordination is needed.
We need help to make sense of the world. Both individually and collectively.
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What
Imagine an independent, benevolent entity that helps you select the best, most relevant food from the polluted media buffet.
One that helps you quickly, comprehensively, and confidently grasp and classify the dish you have chosen. By pointing out to you attempts at manipulation, cherry-picking of facts, false facts, forgotten counter-arguments, illogical argument structures, cognitive distortions and much more.
And all in a format that suits you – as an intuitive overview or detailed in-depth.
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How
TellDear studies texts in a way that no human can.
It points out hundreds of familiar and lesser-known issues to you.
Before you consume a piece, it gives you a clear idea of what to expect. You’ll be prepared. You will study it with much more information – or decide to discard it due to lack of quality.
TellDear guides and directs you as you read or watch, giving you clues when crucial information is missing, illogical, wrong, manipulative – or excellent. It will see things you are unlikely to notice.
It will give you additional information that is missing from the text. It will present counterarguments to the ones presented. It will make the corrections that should have been in the text, had the author been honest.
In short, it will be your friendly ghost, sitting on your shoulder and whispering warnings in your ear. Of course you can always turn it off (and get lost in information pollution again).