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>if you were broadcasting news you had to present both sides of controversial issues. Down here in Texas, we have a law where teachers have to teach both sides

>if you were broadcasting news you had to present both sides of controversial issues. Down here in Texas, we have a law where teachers have to teach both sides of controversial subjects. So, of course, someone is teaching both sides of The Holocaust. Because it is controversial. And that is the law.

isoskeles 5y ago
Optimistically, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with a law like this because when engaged with lies, kids should be able to figure this stuff out. It’s not like they’re incapable of critical thinking. They can look up if the claims are true and find that nothing backs them up. But I get that most children won’t do this, so overall, yeah, it seems like a terrible law. Ultimately, it comes down to what TX defines as “controversial.” Is this interpretation (teach Holocaust denial) legal or is it some rogue teacher who decided it means they get to teach whatever they want because all their opinions make their family angry at Thanksgiving dinner?
- hairofadog 5y ago
  My understanding is that it’s a law designed to allow teaching of creationism, since, to their understanding, evolution is “just a theory”.
  - isoskeles 5y ago
    That makes sense. Guess they think Intelligent Design or whatever they call it now is due for another challenge since the SCOTUS leans more conservative.
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  What if they look up the lies and only find more misinformation and articles giving "both sides of the story".
- lovecg 5y ago
  You’re asking a lot of children. Skilled people have been working on improving propaganda techniques for a very long time. It’s rarely just outright lies - there are more effective techniques. For example, it’s easy to find dozens of cherry picked examples and represent them as the thing that was common (instead of say something that happened only 0.001% of the time). Something like this is much harder to refute than an outright lie - you have to do a full blown study figuring out how common the thing really was, and before long you’re demanding everyone to do their own research and verifying everything (in an environment full of bad actors muddying the waters).
webmaven 5y ago
Is the Holocaust controversial? IS IT? I am reasonably certain that in the aftermath of Charlottesville we arrived, as a result of extensive public soul-searching, at the nuanced and bi-partisan conclusion that Nazis are Bad, so I am not sure where the controversy lies.

isoskeles 5y ago

Optimistically, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with a law like this because when engaged with lies, kids should be able to figure this stuff out. It’s not like they’re incapable of critical thinking. They can look up if the claims are true and find that nothing backs them up. But I get that most children won’t do this, so overall, yeah, it seems like a terrible law. Ultimately, it comes down to what TX defines as “controversial.” Is this interpretation (teach Holocaust denial) legal or is it some rogue teacher who decided it means they get to teach whatever they want because all their opinions make their family angry at Thanksgiving dinner?

hairofadog 5y ago
My understanding is that it’s a law designed to allow teaching of creationism, since, to their understanding, evolution is “just a theory”.
- isoskeles 5y ago
  That makes sense. Guess they think Intelligent Design or whatever they call it now is due for another challenge since the SCOTUS leans more conservative.
TchoBeer 5y ago
What if they look up the lies and only find more misinformation and articles giving "both sides of the story".
lovecg 5y ago
You’re asking a lot of children. Skilled people have been working on improving propaganda techniques for a very long time. It’s rarely just outright lies - there are more effective techniques. For example, it’s easy to find dozens of cherry picked examples and represent them as the thing that was common (instead of say something that happened only 0.001% of the time). Something like this is much harder to refute than an outright lie - you have to do a full blown study figuring out how common the thing really was, and before long you’re demanding everyone to do their own research and verifying everything (in an environment full of bad actors muddying the waters).

webmaven 5y ago

Is the Holocaust controversial? IS IT? I am reasonably certain that in the aftermath of Charlottesville we arrived, as a result of extensive public soul-searching, at the nuanced and bi-partisan conclusion that Nazis are Bad, so I am not sure where the controversy lies.