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> For most of my life I had assumed that all the people that had lived before our modern times were dumb. Really dumb. Borderline braindead. What education ins

by mdmglr 4y ago

> For most of my life I had assumed that all the people that had lived before our modern times were dumb. Really dumb. Borderline braindead. What education institution is responsible for this?

Dalewyn 4y ago
Society at large. When you paint faithful people as morons, primitive people as stupid, old fashioned people as out of touch, etc., kids and even younger adults are going to come to the logical conclusion. We aren't even getting into the recent nonsense of declaring our histories as shameful pieces of shit to be revised and forgotten. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
pbazarnik 4y ago
Not teaching history of mathematics, science. Teaching STEM with total disconnect to the historical developments of these disciplines. Perfect theories out of the blue. (Not teaching the dead ends: phlogiston, ether etc)
- Leo_Germond 4y ago
  I believe we are slowly but surely getting out of this. Positivism as a strict adherence to the dogma of "the scientific fact" (with a conveniently moving definition, backed-up by Sagan quotes for TV viewers, or Popper for book readers) is as nefarious as any totalitarian idea. Yes scientific papers are great, no I don't put too much weight on someone's take on hapiness, truth, or the fundamental nature of our universe just because they're wearing a lab coat, that would quite literally be thinking that the cowl makes the monk.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    >Yes scientific papers are great, no I don't put too much weight on someone's take on hapiness, truth, or the fundamental nature of our universe just because they're wearing a lab coat, that would quite literally be thinking that the cowl makes the monk Sounds a bit like a straw man to me. "Scientific fact" by definition is subject to change. The "scientific facts" we have right now are the best explanation for reality that we have. Nobody who isn't a researcher in a particular field has the required context to judge whether some fringe theories have the potential to displace the current consensus, so it's prudent to just accept the consensus as a layperson.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      "Trust the science." is about as unscientific as someone could get; might as well be just another religion.
      - adrianN 4y ago
        Apparently acknowledging that one is unqualified to judge the veracity of almost all scientific claims is now unscientific. TIL.
        Dalewyn 4y ago
        Blindly trusting someone because they're "experts" is no different from worship. Healthy skepticism is the root of all things science, if you forfeit that for any reason you are anything but being scientific.
        amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        I'm guessing that you don't spend your entire life personally checking that all Previous science was done properly. At some point you have to trust your fellow human beings.
        adamrezich 4y ago
        not the guy you were replying to, but sure, but I don't recite ritualistic dogmatic incantations reaffirming my deference to renowned experts. surely it is possible to naturally, organically defer to experts on things while still perceiving the societal harm of institutionalizing ritualistic reaffirmations of deference?
        Leo_Germond 4y ago
        I am 100% behind this affirmation, we have been historically bitten times and times again by blind trust in "renowed experts", and while I trust most of them om their fields of expertise, saying we should ritualistically let them be up and front on any societal issue by "trusting the science" is very naive. Case in point: no more public debate on energy policies, because experts have made it a battlefield.
ulizzle 4y ago
That line got to me too. So apparently, according to the new world order, calculus was invented just last Thursday :eyeroll:
janmarsal 4y ago
whig history
fhd2 4y ago
That's the key question here. I've personally not been exposed to such a sense of superiority over people of the past. I grew up in Germany, and I remember history class showing lots of examples of ingenuity and at worst mistakes that ought not to be repeated now that we supposedly know better (arguing we have more knowledge now, not intelligence). Is this maybe a local thing related to where the author grew up?
- WA 4y ago
  Author is actually German lol.
  - fhd2 4y ago
    From some quick research, it at least says that he's based in Denmark - but I couldn't figure out where he actually grew up. That said, from what I know, education in Denmark and Germany is sufficiently similar for my hypothesis to not really hold. Another interesting data point is that he is in marketing (advises people on how to cold email potential customers from what I've read) - maybe that's a more meaningful cohort. Not education per se, more socialisation in the work life. But I suppose correlation does not imply causation anyway.
    - WA 4y ago
      https://twitter.com/jakobgreenfeld/status/1466761795092287504 https://twitter.com/jakobgreenfeld/status/146676179509228750...
adrianmsmith 4y ago
Isn't there an analogy with software projects there? I regularly hear that some code needs to be replaced because it's "old" or "written by X, who is no longer here". The underlying assumption seems to be that people in the past were stupid and incapable of writing the great code that we today are capable of writing. I mean obviously old code can be written badly (just as modern code can be written badly). And sometimes there are newer techniques or libraries which weren't available at the time the original code was written. But more than a few times I've seen old code rewritten by modern code where the modern code is worse than the old code, and the justification is nothing more than the code was "old". Or the way desktop UIs change and evolve and throw away old paradigms - but the people who developed Windows 95 weren't fools just because they lived in the past. (e.g. all icons are monochromatic now whereas it was a design guideline in the past to use colours to aid memory of which icon was which.)
WA 4y ago
I found it funny. It’s a tongue in cheek opener and imho, you guys take it way too literal. I can relate to the feeling that people in the past (at least the vast majority) were kinda stupid, because they were uneducated in many things. Of course, stupidity and education are different things. People in 500 years will probably say the same about us. "Look at these morons from the year 2023. Most of them were dumb and wasted their lives."

by mdmglr 4y ago

> For most of my life I had assumed that all the people that had lived before our modern times were dumb. Really dumb. Borderline braindead. What education institution is responsible for this?

Dalewyn 4y ago

Society at large. When you paint faithful people as morons, primitive people as stupid, old fashioned people as out of touch, etc., kids and even younger adults are going to come to the logical conclusion. We aren't even getting into the recent nonsense of declaring our histories as shameful pieces of shit to be revised and forgotten. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

pbazarnik 4y ago

Not teaching history of mathematics, science. Teaching STEM with total disconnect to the historical developments of these disciplines. Perfect theories out of the blue. (Not teaching the dead ends: phlogiston, ether etc)

Leo_Germond 4y ago
I believe we are slowly but surely getting out of this. Positivism as a strict adherence to the dogma of "the scientific fact" (with a conveniently moving definition, backed-up by Sagan quotes for TV viewers, or Popper for book readers) is as nefarious as any totalitarian idea. Yes scientific papers are great, no I don't put too much weight on someone's take on hapiness, truth, or the fundamental nature of our universe just because they're wearing a lab coat, that would quite literally be thinking that the cowl makes the monk.
- adrianN 4y ago
  >Yes scientific papers are great, no I don't put too much weight on someone's take on hapiness, truth, or the fundamental nature of our universe just because they're wearing a lab coat, that would quite literally be thinking that the cowl makes the monk Sounds a bit like a straw man to me. "Scientific fact" by definition is subject to change. The "scientific facts" we have right now are the best explanation for reality that we have. Nobody who isn't a researcher in a particular field has the required context to judge whether some fringe theories have the potential to displace the current consensus, so it's prudent to just accept the consensus as a layperson.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    "Trust the science." is about as unscientific as someone could get; might as well be just another religion.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      Apparently acknowledging that one is unqualified to judge the veracity of almost all scientific claims is now unscientific. TIL.
      - Dalewyn 4y ago
        Blindly trusting someone because they're "experts" is no different from worship. Healthy skepticism is the root of all things science, if you forfeit that for any reason you are anything but being scientific.
        amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        I'm guessing that you don't spend your entire life personally checking that all Previous science was done properly. At some point you have to trust your fellow human beings.
        adamrezich 4y ago
        not the guy you were replying to, but sure, but I don't recite ritualistic dogmatic incantations reaffirming my deference to renowned experts. surely it is possible to naturally, organically defer to experts on things while still perceiving the societal harm of institutionalizing ritualistic reaffirmations of deference?
        Leo_Germond 4y ago
        I am 100% behind this affirmation, we have been historically bitten times and times again by blind trust in "renowed experts", and while I trust most of them om their fields of expertise, saying we should ritualistically let them be up and front on any societal issue by "trusting the science" is very naive. Case in point: no more public debate on energy policies, because experts have made it a battlefield.

ulizzle 4y ago

That line got to me too. So apparently, according to the new world order, calculus was invented just last Thursday :eyeroll:

janmarsal 4y ago

whig history

fhd2 4y ago

That's the key question here. I've personally not been exposed to such a sense of superiority over people of the past. I grew up in Germany, and I remember history class showing lots of examples of ingenuity and at worst mistakes that ought not to be repeated now that we supposedly know better (arguing we have more knowledge now, not intelligence). Is this maybe a local thing related to where the author grew up?

WA 4y ago
Author is actually German lol.
- fhd2 4y ago
  From some quick research, it at least says that he's based in Denmark - but I couldn't figure out where he actually grew up. That said, from what I know, education in Denmark and Germany is sufficiently similar for my hypothesis to not really hold. Another interesting data point is that he is in marketing (advises people on how to cold email potential customers from what I've read) - maybe that's a more meaningful cohort. Not education per se, more socialisation in the work life. But I suppose correlation does not imply causation anyway.
  - WA 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/jakobgreenfeld/status/1466761795092287504 https://twitter.com/jakobgreenfeld/status/146676179509228750...

adrianmsmith 4y ago

Isn't there an analogy with software projects there? I regularly hear that some code needs to be replaced because it's "old" or "written by X, who is no longer here". The underlying assumption seems to be that people in the past were stupid and incapable of writing the great code that we today are capable of writing. I mean obviously old code can be written badly (just as modern code can be written badly). And sometimes there are newer techniques or libraries which weren't available at the time the original code was written. But more than a few times I've seen old code rewritten by modern code where the modern code is worse than the old code, and the justification is nothing more than the code was "old". Or the way desktop UIs change and evolve and throw away old paradigms - but the people who developed Windows 95 weren't fools just because they lived in the past. (e.g. all icons are monochromatic now whereas it was a design guideline in the past to use colours to aid memory of which icon was which.)

WA 4y ago

I found it funny. It’s a tongue in cheek opener and imho, you guys take it way too literal. I can relate to the feeling that people in the past (at least the vast majority) were kinda stupid, because they were uneducated in many things. Of course, stupidity and education are different things. People in 500 years will probably say the same about us. "Look at these morons from the year 2023. Most of them were dumb and wasted their lives."