8 ms·

"We really just need better public education" I agree 100% as long as you put me, or people of my worldview, in charge of the curriculum and personnel.

cookiecaper 9y ago
Yes. In today's age of near-universal literacy, "uneducated" is just a euphemism for views disliked by the the side in control of the education apparatus. While thought-policing media, schools, churches, and any other possible venue of "indoctrination" may "work" to a superficial extent, it mostly just completely destroys the credibility of your authority and leads to stunning implosion and destabilization. See: the Soviet Union. Like it or not, you can't just beat "undesirable" views out of people, either with schools or social media moderation.
- slx26 9y ago
  I understand and agree with some points of your criticism, but I disagree with the part that we can't beat undesirable views out of people. Well, we can't do it completely, but it's not a binary thing, and I believe we really can do a lot to educate people. And not a political education, but teaching them about their own biases. Teaching them to be critical, to not just ignore evidence when it goes against their views, to be fair to others, etc. I don't know, I don't think we have actively tried yet.
- InitialLastName 9y ago
  > Like it or not, you can't just beat "undesirable" views out of people, either with schools or social media moderation. You absolutely can. An example: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/22/atheism-east-germany-godless-place https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/22...
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    That is indeed an inspirational example.
    - InitialLastName 9y ago
      I don't mean it to be inspirational, only to indicate that persistent propaganda and organized information warfare can indeed drive ideas fully out of the population.
    - mmirate 9y ago
      Broken clocks are right twice a day. Religion sucks, but Soviet Communism's anti-religious nature doesn't excuse its foibles.
- bllguo 9y ago
  Being able to distinguish fact from fiction is not a skill that is near universal, and it should be. Seems like a straw man to attack "thought policing" and "indoctrination." We're talking about critical thinking and logical reasoning.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    This argument is completely disingenuous. Your average person is capable of critical thinking and logical reasoning -- those who aren't are either wards under the care of another person. Normal people just think logically and critically in reference to local optima, and that's not something that we can or should try to program out of them. That quality is also known as adaptability and it's crucial to successful survival and prosperity, for exactly the same reason that it's useful in mathematics: global optima are generally difficult to deduce, if they can be conclusively and authoritatively determined at all. Saying Side X is "not being logical" or "can't think critically" is virtually always just a cop-out. It says you either a) don't understand or b) don't want to admit the validity of some of their concerns. Most of the time when the other side's argument is understood, the disagreements are a matter of priority and/or credibility, not nonsensical thinking. And those priorities are usually determined intrinsically; values as such can't really be programmed or taught. They're the result of the years of experience each individual has endured in the real world. A good example of this is that many engineers are known for a just-the-facts, no-frills approach. This is because engineers tend to prioritize facts and correctness over aesthetic and emotional value. Other people who don't do this aren't objectively wrong -- they just put different weights on the considerations, leading them to different conclusions. Another example is outlet credibility. Your average Fox News viewer may believe that MSNBC is propaganda secretly dictated by the shadowy figures in the background, and vice versa. If you believe this, the logical conclusion is to dismiss or at least discount the perspective of the propagandist. You cannot "prove" that one side is propaganda and the other side isn't, because it is impossible to definitely deduce the intentions and motives of other people. Reports that say reports from MSNBC were more frequently errant are of no value because you can just say "Oh yeah, says who? The same shadowy figures?" to that. It is important to understand that humans hold a variety of totally non-falsifiable beliefs -- things that cannot be definitively proven one way or the other, even if you try, like the state of mind of the speakers we're around. These have to be approached from the subterranean to be understood, let alone addressed. All we can do is understand that our own perspective is not the default or de-facto correct one, and that other people are entitled to their own assumptions and unfalsifiable opinions just as we are. They're entitled to their own credibility heuristics and decisions about who is worth trusting. People are free to make their own decisions and conclusions, whether we agree with them or not. Understanding that is critical to learning that it's OK to disagree with people, without having to pretend that they're insane just to preserve your own ego and self-worth.
- tbabb 9y ago
  Education is not indoctrination. Education teaches critical thinking, science, history, numerical literacy, and the general skill and toolset to differentiate fact from falsehood, rhetoric, and manipulation-- regardless of where it is coming from. Education is an immune system for the mind. Generally it is the manipulators who don't like an educated populace, because it decreases their power. They tend to be the ones labeling education as "indoctrination".
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    >Education is not indoctrination. Right, in principle, it's agreed that "education" is "good knowledge" and "indoctrination" is "bad knowledge" and/or "fake news". As long as you think that the inoculations being administered in the school system are valid, you'll call it education. Once you stop thinking that, you'll call it indoctrination. So you're not really arguing anything. Every side calls training that biases you toward their preferred narrative "education" and training that biases in the opposite way "indoctrination". Is your point that "sometimes people disagree"?
    - tbabb 9y ago
      Do you understand the difference between knowledge and critical thinking?
  - Kalium 9y ago
    > Education is not indoctrination. This tends to last until someone realizes that an educational system is a wonderful indoctrination tool to advance their goals. Often enough this is followed by enacting that. This isn't new. "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man."
moduspol 9y ago
We've already got people with the correct worldview in charge of curriculum and personnel. The problem is that there are still dumb-dumbs that sometimes think there are valid alternatives to our worldview. That's why we need better education.
- potta_coffee 9y ago
  "correct worldview". People like you scare me.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Sorry--it is satire, but the comment represents literally how it comes across to me when I see claims that "better education" will effectively bring about less toxic discussions. The implication is clear: If only people were rational and educated, like me, they wouldn't think the way they do, and then we would all agree.
    - mistermann 9y ago
      How about this: first teach advanced critical thinking skills, so people have the skills (if not the will, that's another problem) necessary to see through propaganda from both sides. I have a feeling a lot of people would have issues with this approach though.
      - moduspol 9y ago
        How do you teach critical thinking?
        mistermann 9y ago
        I would start with someone who is skilled in both critical thinking and education, or am I misunderstanding the question? Logical fallacies would be one place to start, you can see examples of this all day long on reddit for example.

cookiecaper 9y ago

Yes. In today's age of near-universal literacy, "uneducated" is just a euphemism for views disliked by the the side in control of the education apparatus. While thought-policing media, schools, churches, and any other possible venue of "indoctrination" may "work" to a superficial extent, it mostly just completely destroys the credibility of your authority and leads to stunning implosion and destabilization. See: the Soviet Union. Like it or not, you can't just beat "undesirable" views out of people, either with schools or social media moderation.

slx26 9y ago
I understand and agree with some points of your criticism, but I disagree with the part that we can't beat undesirable views out of people. Well, we can't do it completely, but it's not a binary thing, and I believe we really can do a lot to educate people. And not a political education, but teaching them about their own biases. Teaching them to be critical, to not just ignore evidence when it goes against their views, to be fair to others, etc. I don't know, I don't think we have actively tried yet.
InitialLastName 9y ago
> Like it or not, you can't just beat "undesirable" views out of people, either with schools or social media moderation. You absolutely can. An example: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/22/atheism-east-germany-godless-place https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/22...
- jessaustin 9y ago
  That is indeed an inspirational example.
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    I don't mean it to be inspirational, only to indicate that persistent propaganda and organized information warfare can indeed drive ideas fully out of the population.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    Broken clocks are right twice a day. Religion sucks, but Soviet Communism's anti-religious nature doesn't excuse its foibles.
bllguo 9y ago
Being able to distinguish fact from fiction is not a skill that is near universal, and it should be. Seems like a straw man to attack "thought policing" and "indoctrination." We're talking about critical thinking and logical reasoning.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  This argument is completely disingenuous. Your average person is capable of critical thinking and logical reasoning -- those who aren't are either wards under the care of another person. Normal people just think logically and critically in reference to local optima, and that's not something that we can or should try to program out of them. That quality is also known as adaptability and it's crucial to successful survival and prosperity, for exactly the same reason that it's useful in mathematics: global optima are generally difficult to deduce, if they can be conclusively and authoritatively determined at all. Saying Side X is "not being logical" or "can't think critically" is virtually always just a cop-out. It says you either a) don't understand or b) don't want to admit the validity of some of their concerns. Most of the time when the other side's argument is understood, the disagreements are a matter of priority and/or credibility, not nonsensical thinking. And those priorities are usually determined intrinsically; values as such can't really be programmed or taught. They're the result of the years of experience each individual has endured in the real world. A good example of this is that many engineers are known for a just-the-facts, no-frills approach. This is because engineers tend to prioritize facts and correctness over aesthetic and emotional value. Other people who don't do this aren't objectively wrong -- they just put different weights on the considerations, leading them to different conclusions. Another example is outlet credibility. Your average Fox News viewer may believe that MSNBC is propaganda secretly dictated by the shadowy figures in the background, and vice versa. If you believe this, the logical conclusion is to dismiss or at least discount the perspective of the propagandist. You cannot "prove" that one side is propaganda and the other side isn't, because it is impossible to definitely deduce the intentions and motives of other people. Reports that say reports from MSNBC were more frequently errant are of no value because you can just say "Oh yeah, says who? The same shadowy figures?" to that. It is important to understand that humans hold a variety of totally non-falsifiable beliefs -- things that cannot be definitively proven one way or the other, even if you try, like the state of mind of the speakers we're around. These have to be approached from the subterranean to be understood, let alone addressed. All we can do is understand that our own perspective is not the default or de-facto correct one, and that other people are entitled to their own assumptions and unfalsifiable opinions just as we are. They're entitled to their own credibility heuristics and decisions about who is worth trusting. People are free to make their own decisions and conclusions, whether we agree with them or not. Understanding that is critical to learning that it's OK to disagree with people, without having to pretend that they're insane just to preserve your own ego and self-worth.
tbabb 9y ago
Education is not indoctrination. Education teaches critical thinking, science, history, numerical literacy, and the general skill and toolset to differentiate fact from falsehood, rhetoric, and manipulation-- regardless of where it is coming from. Education is an immune system for the mind. Generally it is the manipulators who don't like an educated populace, because it decreases their power. They tend to be the ones labeling education as "indoctrination".
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  >Education is not indoctrination. Right, in principle, it's agreed that "education" is "good knowledge" and "indoctrination" is "bad knowledge" and/or "fake news". As long as you think that the inoculations being administered in the school system are valid, you'll call it education. Once you stop thinking that, you'll call it indoctrination. So you're not really arguing anything. Every side calls training that biases you toward their preferred narrative "education" and training that biases in the opposite way "indoctrination". Is your point that "sometimes people disagree"?
  - tbabb 9y ago
    Do you understand the difference between knowledge and critical thinking?
- Kalium 9y ago
  > Education is not indoctrination. This tends to last until someone realizes that an educational system is a wonderful indoctrination tool to advance their goals. Often enough this is followed by enacting that. This isn't new. "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man."

moduspol 9y ago

We've already got people with the correct worldview in charge of curriculum and personnel. The problem is that there are still dumb-dumbs that sometimes think there are valid alternatives to our worldview. That's why we need better education.

potta_coffee 9y ago
"correct worldview". People like you scare me.
- moduspol 9y ago
  Sorry--it is satire, but the comment represents literally how it comes across to me when I see claims that "better education" will effectively bring about less toxic discussions. The implication is clear: If only people were rational and educated, like me, they wouldn't think the way they do, and then we would all agree.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    How about this: first teach advanced critical thinking skills, so people have the skills (if not the will, that's another problem) necessary to see through propaganda from both sides. I have a feeling a lot of people would have issues with this approach though.
    - moduspol 9y ago
      How do you teach critical thinking?
      - mistermann 9y ago
        I would start with someone who is skilled in both critical thinking and education, or am I misunderstanding the question? Logical fallacies would be one place to start, you can see examples of this all day long on reddit for example.