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or, we could look at it as the greatest opportunity to teach critical thinking that has ever existed.

• Spooky23 7y ago
  Educate 5 billion people to not be idiots, or stop a few dozen media companies from spraying shit at them. The level of effort is very different.
  • yters 7y ago
    Perhaps, but the ability for the population at large to think critically also has great value. If you dumb down the populace even more by spoonfeeding them acceptable information, then they become even more susceptible to bad reasoning. It is like having a child grow up in a completely disease free environment. They'll remain healthy, but in a very fragile way. Plus, there's always the problem of who watches the watchers.
    • ceejayoz 7y ago
      > Perhaps, but the ability for the population at large to think critically also has great value. Yes, but what's your actual plan for getting them that ability? This is a South Park "step one: collect underpants; step two: ???; step three: profit!" scenario.
      • yters 7y ago
        Step 1 is to stop all this platform censorship, especially of clearly crackpot theories. Only censor people who are clearly proposing people harm others. Such as Spike Lee posting a couple's address on Twitter during the Zimmerman trial. Or the social media mobs trying to ruin the lives of those they disagree with.
        • ceejayoz 7y ago
          > Step 1 is to stop all this platform censorship, especially of clearly crackpot theories. No, I'm asking what your concrete plan is to teach people to think critically.
          • yters 7y ago
            A lot of that is their personal responsibility. They learn in the school of life, just like we can naturally inoculate ourselves by living out in the real world.
            • ceejayoz 7y ago
              > They learn in the school of life, just like we can naturally inoculate ourselves by living out in the real world. Well, they're not. That's the problem. You said this is "the greatest opportunity to teach critical thinking", and now you're saying no teaching? Which is it?
              • yters 7y ago
                How do you know they are not? And there is no contradiction. It is more a matter of not stopping learning. Learning is always happening naturally. People mostly need the opportunity.
                • ceejayoz 7y ago
                  People have plenty of opportunity. That we have anti-vaxxers and 40% of Americans rejecting evolution makes it self-evident that opportunity is not being taken.
                  • yters 7y ago
                    Or, apply modus tollens and maybe the arguments for those positions could be better.
            • fzeroracer 7y ago
              So you don't actually have a plan. You just want to keep going down the same status quo which is what allows people like Alex Jones and what not to spread conspiracies which have directly resulted in harm to people.
    • Spooky23 7y ago
      Why are the owners and managers of Twitter and Facebook and a Google not held to that standard? Perhaps if Twitter thought critically about why they give white supremacists and folks seeking to hurt people with crazy conspiracy theories things would be better. Maybe if YouTube didn’t syndicate and promote antivax messages through their algorithms, some children killed in an outbreak last year would be alive. Political speech has nothing to do with media platforms. You have a right to speak. You don’t have a right to be heard.
      • yters 7y ago
        Perhaps free speech saves lives, too.
  • lonelappde 7y ago
    To set context: do you believe the US has too much freedom or China has too little?