Feeble minds is a defeatist characterisation, and unhelpful. People have the cognitive attributes that they do. We think in narratives. Our political thinking

Feeble minds is a defeatist characterisation, and unhelpful. People have the cognitive attributes that they do. We think in narratives. Our political thinking mode is entirely dominated by identity, whether ideological, ethnic or whatever. We prefer confirmation. etc. etc. We just aren’t scientific thinking machines. That’s why scientific methods are designed as they are. They strictly avoid the way people normally come to conclusions, even (especially) intellectual heavyweights that have dedicated their lives to rationality. Take away the scientific checks (e.g., the double blindness of experiments), and even the most robust minds are feeble in this sense. The actual mechanisms of culture are too complex to understand, but components of culture and group behaviour can be understood well enough to steer things into certain directions. The underlying problem (IMO) is that FB, Google and others are the only ones in position to play a role they do not want to play. In the past we had “trusted” publications, who had editors and such. We had softer institutions like “journalism,” the culture and methods associated with the profession. These had power, cultural force. None of these were anywhere near perfect (or even decent), but they did have some ability to distinguish between “popular” and “good”. They don’t as much anymore. Google & FB do. They don’t want the job. We don’t really want them to have the job. Something new needs to emerge, and I don’t think that something is a more robust human brain.