7 ms·

Teaching your children about absolute truth, rhetoric, logic, propaganda, and so on. Don't farm it out to schools. The schools in the United States have unilate

by all2 5y ago

Teaching your children about absolute truth, rhetoric, logic, propaganda, and so on. Don't farm it out to schools. The schools in the United States have unilaterally failed to preserve any kind of rational thought. Feelings prevail, the math doesn't have to be "right", only social justice has to be served [0]. [edit] I should expand this. Critical thinking isn't enough. Public debate is the second part. The ability to haul out an idea and flog it mercilessly until there is nothing left of it is how the US wound up with the Constitution it has. Men got together and debated until they all agreed. We have a distinct lack of debate in the US, and free speech (especially "hate speech") is sequestered to the backwaters of the internet where it festers, grows, and gets increasingly radical. If we had public debate (not the name-calling propaganda you see in national cable news) many of those ideas would fizzle and die, people would abandon them and move on to other things. Expose ugly ideas and they die. Conceal them and hide them away and they grow. [0] https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/04/15/california-weighs-equitable-math-goal-obtaining-correct-answer-racist/ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/04/15/california-wei...

panarky 5y ago
The editor of Breitbart admitted their coverage was intentionally dishonest in order to achieve their political objectives. This is the very definition of misinformation. Naturally we'll get a Breitbart citation to "prove" that black is white and up is down in a thread about misinformation. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-ongoing-mistreatment-of-right-leaning-news-consumers/549335/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-ong...
- all2 5y ago
  I'd like to know more. That link is from 2017, and the article I posted is from 2021. Do you have a link to the retraction?
  - panarky 5y ago
    Retractions are generally published by news outlets that make mistakes while honestly trying to get it right. Purveyors of intentional misinformation rarely publish retractions. So when you're searching for reliable sources of information, the ones with the most retractions are generally the most trustworthy.
    - clairity 5y ago
      > "So when you're searching for reliable sources of information, the ones with the most retractions are generally the most trustworthy." you imply a gradient of trustworthiness that correlates directly with the number of retractions, but that's highly unlikely given the large number of other variables affecting trustworthiness and retractions (confounders). also, such perspectives promote deceit, giving papers an incentive to increase retractions to enhance perceptions of trustworthiness without actually doing the hard work of being trustworthy. see how easy it is to misinform?
mistermann 5y ago
> [edit] I should expand this. Critical thinking isn't enough. Public debate is the second part. The ability to haul out an idea and flog it mercilessly until there is nothing left of it is how the US wound up with the Constitution it has. Men got together and debated until they all agreed. > We have a distinct lack of debate in the US, and free speech (especially "hate speech") is sequestered to the backwaters of the internet where it festers, grows, and gets increasingly radical. If we had public debate (not the name-calling propaganda you see in national cable news) many of those ideas would fizzle and die, people would abandon them and move on to other things. To me, this is THE elephant in the room, that no one can see (naturally, because it isn't there to be seen, like the dog that didn't bark). Problems that I see (there are surely many more): - 95%++ of the public would/may need some substantial training in multiple domains (logic, epistemology, psychology/mindfulness, etc) - although, 100% participation is not required, even 5% would be fantastic - no platform exists for conducting high quality, adequately complex debate (and if one was created, the odds of the founders being "pure" and uncompromisable seem not good) - this may be not to the advantage of various people in positions of power, so it may not be ~allowed to happen

by all2 5y ago

panarky 5y ago

The editor of Breitbart admitted their coverage was intentionally dishonest in order to achieve their political objectives. This is the very definition of misinformation. Naturally we'll get a Breitbart citation to "prove" that black is white and up is down in a thread about misinformation. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-ongoing-mistreatment-of-right-leaning-news-consumers/549335/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-ong...

all2 5y ago
I'd like to know more. That link is from 2017, and the article I posted is from 2021. Do you have a link to the retraction?
- panarky 5y ago
  Retractions are generally published by news outlets that make mistakes while honestly trying to get it right. Purveyors of intentional misinformation rarely publish retractions. So when you're searching for reliable sources of information, the ones with the most retractions are generally the most trustworthy.
  - clairity 5y ago
    > "So when you're searching for reliable sources of information, the ones with the most retractions are generally the most trustworthy." you imply a gradient of trustworthiness that correlates directly with the number of retractions, but that's highly unlikely given the large number of other variables affecting trustworthiness and retractions (confounders). also, such perspectives promote deceit, giving papers an incentive to increase retractions to enhance perceptions of trustworthiness without actually doing the hard work of being trustworthy. see how easy it is to misinform?

mistermann 5y ago

> [edit] I should expand this. Critical thinking isn't enough. Public debate is the second part. The ability to haul out an idea and flog it mercilessly until there is nothing left of it is how the US wound up with the Constitution it has. Men got together and debated until they all agreed. > We have a distinct lack of debate in the US, and free speech (especially "hate speech") is sequestered to the backwaters of the internet where it festers, grows, and gets increasingly radical. If we had public debate (not the name-calling propaganda you see in national cable news) many of those ideas would fizzle and die, people would abandon them and move on to other things. To me, this is THE elephant in the room, that no one can see (naturally, because it isn't there to be seen, like the dog that didn't bark). Problems that I see (there are surely many more): - 95%++ of the public would/may need some substantial training in multiple domains (logic, epistemology, psychology/mindfulness, etc) - although, 100% participation is not required, even 5% would be fantastic - no platform exists for conducting high quality, adequately complex debate (and if one was created, the odds of the founders being "pure" and uncompromisable seem not good) - this may be not to the advantage of various people in positions of power, so it may not be ~allowed to happen