4 ms·

Teach logic in school so people can recognize fallacious arguments, it will also help combat the barrage of nonsense spread by China & Russia as most of it rest

Teach logic in school so people can recognize fallacious arguments, it will also help combat the barrage of nonsense spread by China & Russia as most of it rests upon logical fallacies(Whataboutism is a prime example).

faitswulff 6y ago
So first we have to fix education...
patcon 6y ago
I don't have much faith in any single educational approach to deal with changes that are coming at us in sub-12-year timelines. We have to fix education, but that fixes prospective 12-year-out challenges, which I think we can safely assume we haven't the first clue what they'll be. For our current challenges, we must change the space outside minds, to add assistive tools that help untrained minds read the landscape better.
- TinkersW 6y ago
  Logic is literally a toolkit for dealing with BS, and can be taught in one semester, so no it would not take 12 years. Make it a required class in high school.
  - patcon 6y ago
    Good point. I suppose I just don't think education on frameworks of the individual mind are the main path out of this. Frameworks of the social spaces and relationships between minds are where I'd place my bets. I feel re-education campaigns, essentially sowing of specific knowledge into minds, are overrepresented in the solution space, prob because it's how we did it in the past. I'm more a believer in primarily changing/repairing the SHAPE of the network, and deemphasizing focus on the content flowing through it. Of course, neglecting either is ignorant. I just think we've leaned in recent history quite hard on hand-tuning information flowing in the network, and the world is changing in ways that weaken that
  - finiteseries 6y ago
    US government is a required class in high school.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Logic is hopelessly useless in dealing with the kinds of BS you encounter in most discussions. It's trivial to construct logical arguments that are utterly false or misleading. A lot of the disagreements you'll see people complain about aren't even about logic - they are about the very premises. Let's take just one simple example: is the Earth actually warmer than it was 50 years ago? Of course, the real answer is yes. But to actually believe this in the middle of a very cold winter, you would have to either become a climate scientist yourself, or trust in the scientific community - a classic appeal to authority fallacy if I ever saw one!
    - throwawayboise 6y ago
      Another example: Is the earth warmer 100 years ago than it was 10,000 years ago. Yes, but obviously not because of anything humans did. So another logical fallacy: climate change theory is based on cherry-picked data.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      That's as simple as explaining to someone the difference between 'climate' and 'weather'. You don't need to be a climate scientist and you don't need to trust the scientific community, you could simply look at the recorded average temperatures for the last 100 years or so and then you could make up your own mind about this. There aren't many problems of that magnitude that would require so little in terms of evidence and understanding as that one. Once you agree on the basic terminology.
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        What are these average temperatures? Why should I trust they are accurately computed? Why should I trust they are meaningful? Why should I trust that the model will hold and it's not just a bump? How do I know estimates of historical temperatures are accurate? These are all questions for which the only two answers are to trust the scientific community or to essentially become a climate scientist yourself. Just to be clear, please note that my intention is not in any way to call man made global warming into question - I fully believe that it is the most pressing concern for the global economic system. I'm only trying to point out that logic is not enough to accept even basic facts - you need a good deal of understanding of natural (climate vs weather, greenhouse effects) and human processes (the scientific community and its workings).
  - 29083011397778 6y ago
    If it's not practiced constantly, it will not work. People will forget how it's done [1], and it will be a lost skill within a few years of completing high school. Couple that with the fact that most people would rather take the easy way out instead of thinking harder about problems and information, and we're back to square one: a population that struggles to think critically. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/let-s-get-digital-from-bitcoin-to-stocktok-plus-what-low-literacy-means-for-canada-s-economy-1.5873703/nearly-half-of-adult-canadians-struggle-with-literacy-and-that-s-bad-for-the-economy-1.5873757 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/let-s-get-digital-from...
jl6 6y ago
Beware of logic alone, because it works just as well with false axioms and gives no tools for navigating the map between the precise discrete objects of pure abstract logic and the fuzzy constructs of reality.

faitswulff 6y ago

So first we have to fix education...

patcon 6y ago

I don't have much faith in any single educational approach to deal with changes that are coming at us in sub-12-year timelines. We have to fix education, but that fixes prospective 12-year-out challenges, which I think we can safely assume we haven't the first clue what they'll be. For our current challenges, we must change the space outside minds, to add assistive tools that help untrained minds read the landscape better.

TinkersW 6y ago
Logic is literally a toolkit for dealing with BS, and can be taught in one semester, so no it would not take 12 years. Make it a required class in high school.
- patcon 6y ago
  Good point. I suppose I just don't think education on frameworks of the individual mind are the main path out of this. Frameworks of the social spaces and relationships between minds are where I'd place my bets. I feel re-education campaigns, essentially sowing of specific knowledge into minds, are overrepresented in the solution space, prob because it's how we did it in the past. I'm more a believer in primarily changing/repairing the SHAPE of the network, and deemphasizing focus on the content flowing through it. Of course, neglecting either is ignorant. I just think we've leaned in recent history quite hard on hand-tuning information flowing in the network, and the world is changing in ways that weaken that
- finiteseries 6y ago
  US government is a required class in high school.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Logic is hopelessly useless in dealing with the kinds of BS you encounter in most discussions. It's trivial to construct logical arguments that are utterly false or misleading. A lot of the disagreements you'll see people complain about aren't even about logic - they are about the very premises. Let's take just one simple example: is the Earth actually warmer than it was 50 years ago? Of course, the real answer is yes. But to actually believe this in the middle of a very cold winter, you would have to either become a climate scientist yourself, or trust in the scientific community - a classic appeal to authority fallacy if I ever saw one!
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    Another example: Is the earth warmer 100 years ago than it was 10,000 years ago. Yes, but obviously not because of anything humans did. So another logical fallacy: climate change theory is based on cherry-picked data.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    That's as simple as explaining to someone the difference between 'climate' and 'weather'. You don't need to be a climate scientist and you don't need to trust the scientific community, you could simply look at the recorded average temperatures for the last 100 years or so and then you could make up your own mind about this. There aren't many problems of that magnitude that would require so little in terms of evidence and understanding as that one. Once you agree on the basic terminology.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      What are these average temperatures? Why should I trust they are accurately computed? Why should I trust they are meaningful? Why should I trust that the model will hold and it's not just a bump? How do I know estimates of historical temperatures are accurate? These are all questions for which the only two answers are to trust the scientific community or to essentially become a climate scientist yourself. Just to be clear, please note that my intention is not in any way to call man made global warming into question - I fully believe that it is the most pressing concern for the global economic system. I'm only trying to point out that logic is not enough to accept even basic facts - you need a good deal of understanding of natural (climate vs weather, greenhouse effects) and human processes (the scientific community and its workings).
- 29083011397778 6y ago
  If it's not practiced constantly, it will not work. People will forget how it's done [1], and it will be a lost skill within a few years of completing high school. Couple that with the fact that most people would rather take the easy way out instead of thinking harder about problems and information, and we're back to square one: a population that struggles to think critically. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/let-s-get-digital-from-bitcoin-to-stocktok-plus-what-low-literacy-means-for-canada-s-economy-1.5873703/nearly-half-of-adult-canadians-struggle-with-literacy-and-that-s-bad-for-the-economy-1.5873757 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/let-s-get-digital-from...

jl6 6y ago

Beware of logic alone, because it works just as well with false axioms and gives no tools for navigating the map between the precise discrete objects of pure abstract logic and the fuzzy constructs of reality.