4 ms·

> The people for whom this stuff isn't glaringly obvious, relatively early in life, will never get it How do you know this?

AdamN 9mo ago
Yeah I hard disagree with their statement. I've come to observe with having kids (and also moving to Germany and seeing other kids shaped) that so so much is taught. There is a ton born into a kid but so many things like the ability to think critically about a problem is actually taught in primary school and early years education (kindergarten/kita/preschool). There might be some raw horsepower that some people have more or less of with regards to certain problem spaces but for the most part - how to tackle a problem and think critically is very much a learned skill that some may get on their own but it can certainly also be given to them.
- RankingMember 9mo ago
  I concur with regard to critical thinking being a taught skill. My read is that parent's comment is possibly more of a vent about the type of person many of us have become more familiar with than we ever wanted to in the past decade or so of "post-truth" discourse- the virulent, intentional ignoramus. (We could write reams about what leads people to be this way, but in the interests of keeping short-form commentary short-form, I'll say that I think there are a confluence of causes :P).
  - projektfu 9mo ago
    People who can assert both "Fauci was wrong about masks" and "Nobody really died from COVID" come to mind.
kgwxd 9mo ago
I spoke in absolutes. Guess I'll say I've never observed it happening in anyone after maybe late teens. Some learn to keep quiet about whatever they're bought into, because they've learned it will scare a lot of people off. Or they end up pseudo intellectuals with a podcast. Or scamming their way into huge money and political positions. So they can be pretty good at "winning". But most of them are just sad and lonely, living mostly to prop up those "winners". I've fallen for it enough to see it almost instantly now. So much time wasted, thinking some people just needed to figure things out, or maybe they figured out something I couldn't see. But, little by little, they just keep getting worse, more unreasonable, dangerous even. Unfortunately, I wasted my youth on that idea. Now the people that warned me not to, moved on to much better things, far outside the environment I've been hanging out in. Guess I'm just passing along the warning.
- philipallstar 9mo ago
  What I'm getting at is you also don't seem to be applying the balony detection kit to what you're saying. I could be wrong, but you seem to be describing people with center or right wing views. That seems like tribalism rather than anything reasoned, as while the right has people like that, the left does too, and perhaps currently with more fundamental reasoning issues.

AdamN 9mo ago

Yeah I hard disagree with their statement. I've come to observe with having kids (and also moving to Germany and seeing other kids shaped) that so so much is taught. There is a ton born into a kid but so many things like the ability to think critically about a problem is actually taught in primary school and early years education (kindergarten/kita/preschool). There might be some raw horsepower that some people have more or less of with regards to certain problem spaces but for the most part - how to tackle a problem and think critically is very much a learned skill that some may get on their own but it can certainly also be given to them.

RankingMember 9mo ago
I concur with regard to critical thinking being a taught skill. My read is that parent's comment is possibly more of a vent about the type of person many of us have become more familiar with than we ever wanted to in the past decade or so of "post-truth" discourse- the virulent, intentional ignoramus. (We could write reams about what leads people to be this way, but in the interests of keeping short-form commentary short-form, I'll say that I think there are a confluence of causes :P).
- projektfu 9mo ago
  People who can assert both "Fauci was wrong about masks" and "Nobody really died from COVID" come to mind.

kgwxd 9mo ago

I spoke in absolutes. Guess I'll say I've never observed it happening in anyone after maybe late teens. Some learn to keep quiet about whatever they're bought into, because they've learned it will scare a lot of people off. Or they end up pseudo intellectuals with a podcast. Or scamming their way into huge money and political positions. So they can be pretty good at "winning". But most of them are just sad and lonely, living mostly to prop up those "winners". I've fallen for it enough to see it almost instantly now. So much time wasted, thinking some people just needed to figure things out, or maybe they figured out something I couldn't see. But, little by little, they just keep getting worse, more unreasonable, dangerous even. Unfortunately, I wasted my youth on that idea. Now the people that warned me not to, moved on to much better things, far outside the environment I've been hanging out in. Guess I'm just passing along the warning.

philipallstar 9mo ago
What I'm getting at is you also don't seem to be applying the balony detection kit to what you're saying. I could be wrong, but you seem to be describing people with center or right wing views. That seems like tribalism rather than anything reasoned, as while the right has people like that, the left does too, and perhaps currently with more fundamental reasoning issues.