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I appreciate how absolutely sophomoric and naive this propaganda is. The US has played this game in Italy, Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Viet Nam, and Iraq just to

I appreciate how absolutely sophomoric and naive this propaganda is. The US has played this game in Italy, Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Viet Nam, and Iraq just to name a few of the literally dozens of foreign victims of US coups and regime changes bought about by their "foreign influence." Now the DHS, an agency thats only 17 years old, thinks a pictograph about pizza is going to somehow help bolster Americans from other nations doing the same thing? It wont. This tactic worked for the Tobacco industry in the seventies, it worked for the cola industry in 2006, and it continues to serve diligently for oil and energy companies during climate change. This model of disinformation has also helped spread measles throughout the developed world through the anti-vax movement. The problem is American education. You cannot spend 40 years cutting public education to the bone and turning colleges into profit mills without some sort of brain-drain. We've arrived in 2020 with a nation of citizens that lack the capacity for intelligent argument and critical analysis of ideas. This is also in large part due to the nature of how we get our information, namely as a "bleeds and leads" info-tainment format where our opinions are cultivated as a product of either 0 or 1, red or blue, liberal or conservative. The american opinion is largely an accessory of corporate advertisement in 2019.

mc32 7y ago
Presumably Europe funds education better than we do, yet measles are as much a problem there as here. It’s not education. Marin county, one of the best educated counties in the country with high tertiary education, have one of the highest proportions of anti-vaxxers. Misinformation isn’t countered with education. It’s countered with counter propaganda -i.e. it’s not in a facts and figures type of way for you to make up your mind by attentively and discerningly studying data. No, it’s someone else offering ready to eat counter propaganda.
- dsalso 7y ago
  Furthermore, one has to distinguish education vs schooling. The upper classes always have access to education, the rest might have access to schooling but not education. The reasons for this are old (19th century Prussia) and tied to the origins of public education systems and their ideologues. Just as an example of what is typically taught as schooling, deference to authority (media nowadays). Just consider doctors and vaccines, what makes you think that the doctor received any particularly deep understanding of this topic, it is not like they are any more critical of what they might have read in a textbook than you. Btw, I would have you reconsider your careless use of the word antivaxxers, if anything ask yourself why is it so heavily promoted in media and what biases it carries? Again, I'm not against vaccination, but there is a lot to investigate about the context of how it is carried out. Kinds of conservation chemicals, optimum schedule, frequency and side effects of all this. You will find there is still quite some debate around this from more scientifically minded doctors.
  - igorkraw 7y ago
    Respectfully, this is largely FUD bullshit. Schooling is an avenue into education, and while 19th century prussia has been an influence, so has been montessori, humboldt and the 20st and 21st century reserach into pedagogy. As for your comments on antivaxxer, they are called antivaxxers because they are anti-vaccination, don't care about the actual problems and and don't respond to the actual arguments. Doctors and researchers will always debate how to make vaccines better, because of course they will, we want better vaccines. There is also debate about when we can get away without vaccination, e.g. in the case of rabies where the vaccine is time sensitive, or malaria, where it doesn't make sense for norwegians to get them unless they visit the tropics and so they can spare themselves the side effects (which are acknowledged and worked on, see before) and society the cost. What you will not find, at all, is any honest scientific debate about whether the default should be to vaccinate or not. I don't know if you meant to imply this, but Poe's law acts here: even if you didn't you gave the antivaxxers a smidgen of credibility, by saying "you will find debate" in a way which could imply "and that means antivaxxers have some reasonable positions". They don't. See also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy#Effectiveness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy#Effectivenes... and this table: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2017106/tables/1 https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2017106/tables/1
scottlocklin 7y ago
> .... You cannot spend 40 years cutting public education to the bone The US spends more on public education than any OECD country other than Norway. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp Americans are kind of morons; pretty sure it has nothing to do with the amount of money we spend on education.
- alamortsubite 7y ago
  Yeah, but the absolute numbers in that table are misleading. Any society whose budget for education is far outpaced by its budgets for mind-numbing entertainment and propaganda is sure to be full of morons. Rewrite those expenditures as a percentage of GDP and you'll paint a wildly different picture.
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    I guess you didn't scroll down far enough to notice they did put those expenditures as a percentage of GDP and it doesn't paint a wildly different picture.
    - alamortsubite 7y ago
      No, it lists them a percentage of GDP <i>per capita</i>. Education doesn't scale like infotainment and advertising.
      - Udik 7y ago
        Can you explain?
      - scottlocklin 7y ago
        You misread the chart: it plots GDP/capita vs $$ spent per student. You have to normalize it with your eyeball. And it doesn't matter; you can normalize it any way you want: the US spends more than almost any other industrialized country per student, whether raw or by % GDP. If you think the US is a nation of dumbasses because of infotainment expenses and advertising, perhaps you have some evidence for this?
kiba 7y ago
And do with the money what exactly? Teach what, exactly? Students are taught the usual math, english, science, and history. If you want to teach critical thinking and analysis, you're going to need to either displace one of the subject matter or retrain how and what teachers teach. There isn't enough hours in the day to squeeze in another subject in between high stake exam training and overloading students with homework. Money doesn't seem to be the constraining factor here. Political reform are needed, and so is the support framework for training teachers to teach in yet "unproven" methodology.
- traderjane 7y ago
  Those areas where students are stressed out studying for their futures is probably not what this person is talking about. There are schools where scientific theories of biology and sexuality are discounted, as well as discussions on climate, and now those are voter issues of today.
- minikites 7y ago
  If you're not teaching critical thinking as a component of every single subject then you're not really teaching anything.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - goto_self 7y ago
    Yeah, knowing fewer facts and understanding where those facts come from and how they fit together is better than just memorizing lots of trivia.

mc32 7y ago

Presumably Europe funds education better than we do, yet measles are as much a problem there as here. It’s not education. Marin county, one of the best educated counties in the country with high tertiary education, have one of the highest proportions of anti-vaxxers. Misinformation isn’t countered with education. It’s countered with counter propaganda -i.e. it’s not in a facts and figures type of way for you to make up your mind by attentively and discerningly studying data. No, it’s someone else offering ready to eat counter propaganda.

dsalso 7y ago
Furthermore, one has to distinguish education vs schooling. The upper classes always have access to education, the rest might have access to schooling but not education. The reasons for this are old (19th century Prussia) and tied to the origins of public education systems and their ideologues. Just as an example of what is typically taught as schooling, deference to authority (media nowadays). Just consider doctors and vaccines, what makes you think that the doctor received any particularly deep understanding of this topic, it is not like they are any more critical of what they might have read in a textbook than you. Btw, I would have you reconsider your careless use of the word antivaxxers, if anything ask yourself why is it so heavily promoted in media and what biases it carries? Again, I'm not against vaccination, but there is a lot to investigate about the context of how it is carried out. Kinds of conservation chemicals, optimum schedule, frequency and side effects of all this. You will find there is still quite some debate around this from more scientifically minded doctors.
- igorkraw 7y ago
  Respectfully, this is largely FUD bullshit. Schooling is an avenue into education, and while 19th century prussia has been an influence, so has been montessori, humboldt and the 20st and 21st century reserach into pedagogy. As for your comments on antivaxxer, they are called antivaxxers because they are anti-vaccination, don't care about the actual problems and and don't respond to the actual arguments. Doctors and researchers will always debate how to make vaccines better, because of course they will, we want better vaccines. There is also debate about when we can get away without vaccination, e.g. in the case of rabies where the vaccine is time sensitive, or malaria, where it doesn't make sense for norwegians to get them unless they visit the tropics and so they can spare themselves the side effects (which are acknowledged and worked on, see before) and society the cost. What you will not find, at all, is any honest scientific debate about whether the default should be to vaccinate or not. I don't know if you meant to imply this, but Poe's law acts here: even if you didn't you gave the antivaxxers a smidgen of credibility, by saying "you will find debate" in a way which could imply "and that means antivaxxers have some reasonable positions". They don't. See also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy#Effectiveness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy#Effectivenes... and this table: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2017106/tables/1 https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2017106/tables/1

scottlocklin 7y ago

> .... You cannot spend 40 years cutting public education to the bone The US spends more on public education than any OECD country other than Norway. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp Americans are kind of morons; pretty sure it has nothing to do with the amount of money we spend on education.

alamortsubite 7y ago
Yeah, but the absolute numbers in that table are misleading. Any society whose budget for education is far outpaced by its budgets for mind-numbing entertainment and propaganda is sure to be full of morons. Rewrite those expenditures as a percentage of GDP and you'll paint a wildly different picture.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  I guess you didn't scroll down far enough to notice they did put those expenditures as a percentage of GDP and it doesn't paint a wildly different picture.
  - alamortsubite 7y ago
    No, it lists them a percentage of GDP <i>per capita</i>. Education doesn't scale like infotainment and advertising.
    - Udik 7y ago
      Can you explain?
    - scottlocklin 7y ago
      You misread the chart: it plots GDP/capita vs $$ spent per student. You have to normalize it with your eyeball. And it doesn't matter; you can normalize it any way you want: the US spends more than almost any other industrialized country per student, whether raw or by % GDP. If you think the US is a nation of dumbasses because of infotainment expenses and advertising, perhaps you have some evidence for this?

kiba 7y ago

And do with the money what exactly? Teach what, exactly? Students are taught the usual math, english, science, and history. If you want to teach critical thinking and analysis, you're going to need to either displace one of the subject matter or retrain how and what teachers teach. There isn't enough hours in the day to squeeze in another subject in between high stake exam training and overloading students with homework. Money doesn't seem to be the constraining factor here. Political reform are needed, and so is the support framework for training teachers to teach in yet "unproven" methodology.

traderjane 7y ago
Those areas where students are stressed out studying for their futures is probably not what this person is talking about. There are schools where scientific theories of biology and sexuality are discounted, as well as discussions on climate, and now those are voter issues of today.
minikites 7y ago
If you're not teaching critical thinking as a component of every single subject then you're not really teaching anything.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- goto_self 7y ago
  Yeah, knowing fewer facts and understanding where those facts come from and how they fit together is better than just memorizing lots of trivia.