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I believe it's more the critical thinking piece that's the problem. And, perhaps there has not been a decline there, but we're just witnessing an unprecedented

I believe it's more the critical thinking piece that's the problem. And, perhaps there has not been a decline there, but we're just witnessing an unprecedented cultural and technology-fueled abuse of an existing lack of reasoning ability (expansive reach, bot farms, algorithms, conspiracy theories, etc). I mean, any actor—including state adversaries—can essentially run military-grade psyops on our population. In a "stable" environment, an inability to think critically is somewhat buffered and fallout is limited. But, in a hostile information space—intent on manipulating subjects for the destruction of their society—it's catastrophic.

joquarky 2y ago
Cambridge Analytica
- unclebucknasty 2y ago
  Indeed. https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542?preventIntent=true https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542?preventIntent=true
noirbot 2y ago
Sure, but 100 years ago, most cities barely had more than 1 source of news, which was usually controlled by some reach oligarch in their town/the US at large. Most people weren't "thinking critically" about our involvement in WW1 or the development of nuclear weapons. There's a lot of well-preserved documents, debates, and critical discussions from those periods, but most of those are preserved because they were among elites in the academy or political spheres. I find it hard to believe the average person in 1925 was more informed or even able to think critically about national and international politics than someone today. It certainly wasn't as if there weren't powerful people who controlled most of the news and communications back then either.
- unclebucknasty 2y ago
  My comment was that, irrespective of whether or not our ability to think critically has changed, our infospace is under unprecedented assault from foreign actors and from within. So, the effects of our citizens not being able to reason effectively are more impactful/destructive. You mentioned that 100 years ago, there was one source of news. This underscores my point. Sure, that's not ideal, but even pernicious effects were somewhat self-limiting versus a frequently hostile, 24/7 technology-fueled infospace, featuring hostile actors—known and unknown—who are out to destroy the fabric of our society.

joquarky 2y ago

Cambridge Analytica

unclebucknasty 2y ago
Indeed. https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542?preventIntent=true https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542?preventIntent=true

noirbot 2y ago

Sure, but 100 years ago, most cities barely had more than 1 source of news, which was usually controlled by some reach oligarch in their town/the US at large. Most people weren't "thinking critically" about our involvement in WW1 or the development of nuclear weapons. There's a lot of well-preserved documents, debates, and critical discussions from those periods, but most of those are preserved because they were among elites in the academy or political spheres. I find it hard to believe the average person in 1925 was more informed or even able to think critically about national and international politics than someone today. It certainly wasn't as if there weren't powerful people who controlled most of the news and communications back then either.

unclebucknasty 2y ago
My comment was that, irrespective of whether or not our ability to think critically has changed, our infospace is under unprecedented assault from foreign actors and from within. So, the effects of our citizens not being able to reason effectively are more impactful/destructive. You mentioned that 100 years ago, there was one source of news. This underscores my point. Sure, that's not ideal, but even pernicious effects were somewhat self-limiting versus a frequently hostile, 24/7 technology-fueled infospace, featuring hostile actors—known and unknown—who are out to destroy the fabric of our society.