Good advice. I didn't have a lot of educational opportunities, but I did have some. I went off to college and majored in History. I was ridiculed for getting a useless major. But, my grandfather said it was good. Because a liberal arts education teaches you how to think. It also gives you the confidence necessary to rely on your own reasoning. One technique that allows one to confidently assess information and act on that information is developing the habit of the mind to always test information.
To best determine the validity and actionability of information, seek out the counter arguments and test those. Find out if there is objectively verifiable support for the premise presented. Don't dismiss counter-arguments based on personal preferences or inherent biases. Accept that you have biases and work to keep them from unduly slanting your reasoning. So, as a sixty-something moderately well-educated and what used to be called a "well-rounded person", I ask are these reasoning skills no longer taught and nurtured in education?
If they are not, then we are sitting ducks for corporate manipulation through algorithms, propaganda and political demagogues. If so, then we are right back to feudal times and are peasants under the lord's thumb with extremely constricted information about the world beyond our fingertips.
love this! yes, I agree. One of my favorite quotes about the value of a liberal arts education is when David Foster Wallace said, “and yet another grand cliché proves to be true…your education really is the job of a lifetime.”
I’ve found it takes a conscious effort, and an ongoing intentionality to seek out and engage with views I don’t instinctively agree with based on my worldview. It’s definitely led me to changing my stance on a few issues after better understanding that perspective. For anyone else who uses Twitter, I’ve found that if you follow (and turn off reposts) a few accounts from “the other side” that argue in good faith, the “following” tab becomes a really good way to organize information and get a broader perspective than is ever possible from the algos.
That's a solid diagnosis, but if we were delve further into the malaise that underlies it (the hyper-complexity of our modern societies and systems, leading to irremediable dysfunction and eventual collapse, as for all large systems and civilizations) we might discover that our echo-chambers are not a cause of our ideological rigidity and intolerance, but rather a consequence of them.
As the wonderful paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi has explained, “Humans are not evolved for modern life... We believe what our tribe believes”. While that was an evolutionarily successful strategy, it cannot hope to cope with the vast realms of information, perspectives, beliefs and worldviews that humans have to absorb and make sense of today, nor with the fact that our knowledge is increasingly second-hand and prone to self-perpetuating mis- and disinformation.
And when there’s a schism between what we’re being told (even if it’s by ‘experts’ and competent, experienced people) and what our ‘tribe’ is telling us, we will seemingly always default to the views of our tribe. Sorry, I know that's too dismal for many to accept (especially on the left), but I'm afraid this is what collapse looks like this time, and there's no stopping it.
Good advice. I didn't have a lot of educational opportunities, but I did have some. I went off to college and majored in History. I was ridiculed for getting a useless major. But, my grandfather said it was good. Because a liberal arts education teaches you how to think. It also gives you the confidence necessary to rely on your own reasoning. One technique that allows one to confidently assess information and act on that information is developing the habit of the mind to always test information.
To best determine the validity and actionability of information, seek out the counter arguments and test those. Find out if there is objectively verifiable support for the premise presented. Don't dismiss counter-arguments based on personal preferences or inherent biases. Accept that you have biases and work to keep them from unduly slanting your reasoning. So, as a sixty-something moderately well-educated and what used to be called a "well-rounded person", I ask are these reasoning skills no longer taught and nurtured in education?
If they are not, then we are sitting ducks for corporate manipulation through algorithms, propaganda and political demagogues. If so, then we are right back to feudal times and are peasants under the lord's thumb with extremely constricted information about the world beyond our fingertips.
love this! yes, I agree. One of my favorite quotes about the value of a liberal arts education is when David Foster Wallace said, “and yet another grand cliché proves to be true…your education really is the job of a lifetime.”
I’ve found it takes a conscious effort, and an ongoing intentionality to seek out and engage with views I don’t instinctively agree with based on my worldview. It’s definitely led me to changing my stance on a few issues after better understanding that perspective. For anyone else who uses Twitter, I’ve found that if you follow (and turn off reposts) a few accounts from “the other side” that argue in good faith, the “following” tab becomes a really good way to organize information and get a broader perspective than is ever possible from the algos.
That's a solid diagnosis, but if we were delve further into the malaise that underlies it (the hyper-complexity of our modern societies and systems, leading to irremediable dysfunction and eventual collapse, as for all large systems and civilizations) we might discover that our echo-chambers are not a cause of our ideological rigidity and intolerance, but rather a consequence of them.
As the wonderful paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi has explained, “Humans are not evolved for modern life... We believe what our tribe believes”. While that was an evolutionarily successful strategy, it cannot hope to cope with the vast realms of information, perspectives, beliefs and worldviews that humans have to absorb and make sense of today, nor with the fact that our knowledge is increasingly second-hand and prone to self-perpetuating mis- and disinformation.
And when there’s a schism between what we’re being told (even if it’s by ‘experts’ and competent, experienced people) and what our ‘tribe’ is telling us, we will seemingly always default to the views of our tribe. Sorry, I know that's too dismal for many to accept (especially on the left), but I'm afraid this is what collapse looks like this time, and there's no stopping it.