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> I'm starting to feel like there's an unexpectedly enormous number of people out there with zero ability to critically evaluate information, and it seems as if
by lylecubed 8y ago
> I'm starting to feel like there's an unexpectedly enormous number of people out there with zero ability to critically evaluate information, and it seems as if all a terrible idea needs in order to gain critical mass is that it be emotionally satisfying and generally known.
Aristotle observed this in the 4th century BC. He wrote about it in his book Rhetoric. This is by no means a new development.
- CommieBobDole 8y agoTo clarify, I didn't mean that people uncritically accepting bad information was new, it was that there's now a means of getting that information to everyone with little to no effort, and the same easy access to good information doesn't seem to do much to mitigate it.
- buth_lika 8y agoIt's not in a vacuum though, other things multiply it. Radio was a phase shift and an important factor in enabling fascism along with industrialization. You can say WW2 and the Holocaust wasn't anything new because there's always been war and murder, but that's like saying a glass of water and the ocean are the same. Now we moving towards automated analysis and manipulation of billions of people in real time, combined with incredible means to observe and control, not to even talk of weapon systems; and an astonishing obedience or naivity about it on behalf of the subjects. "This is not new" is no excuse and of no help. You could say this about almost anything... as if we only get a chance to be critical of something and express that criticism (which is the first state of organizing change) the first time something "happens".