I don’t know that critical thinking can be taught. However, you may be right that schools aren’t creating circumstances for children to learn it. I don’t know.

What I do know is that most of the information that has ever existed (or will ever exist) is false. Because information can only be true to an extent, from a perspective, and for a purpose. If you change the scope and purpose of a discussion and look at it from a different perspective the truth will appear completely different.

In this way I welcome our adversaries on our social networks. Even if they have the worst intentions we will end up better off (and so will they). We’re just that damned good.

> Even if they have the worst intentions we will end up better off (and so will they). We’re just that damned good.

This reads like sarcasm and flies in the face of what’s been going on in the world for the last few years.

You’re making predictions very confidently as if they’re a done deal, but it’s all based on what you think should happen. It’s been several years since social media use has spread to a good chunk of the world’s population. We should be able to see the start of our post truth world’s effects and they’re not trending in a positive direction. Like, have you seen what’s happening? Here’s one recent example off the top of my head https://apnews.com/article/germany-extremism-far-right-russi...

It flies in the face of what the corporate media (e.g. AP) and government have been telling us for the last few years.

However, I for one do not believe that antisemitism is a new thing in Germany. It seems far more likely that social media has merely allowed those individuals to share their (bad) ideas. So what is better? For them to think that and for us to be aware of it, or for them to think that and for us to be blissfully unaware?

I think it is better to be exposed to those terrible ideas, because it allows us to address the issue.

> Because information can only be true to an extent, from a perspective, and for a purpose. If you change the scope and purpose of a discussion and look at it from a different perspective the truth will appear completely different.

This is the worst type of pomo garbage. This is true only in the case of relatively unimportant 'he-said-she-said' type of situations. In most cases, there's a canonical flow of events that can be represented objectively regardless of the 'scope and purpose' of the discussion or the 'perspective'.

There are not 'multiple truths' and there are not 'alternative facts.' There may be differing interpretations of why people did the things they did and it may be hard to determine what actually did happen but, at the end of the day, things either occurred or they did not occur.

We cannot accept weird split realities.

> Because information can only be true to an extent, from a perspective, and for a purpose. If you change the scope and purpose of a discussion and look at it from a different perspective the truth will appear completely different.

I can't speak to how universal it is, but there is absolutely an effort to teach these skills in American public schools, especially through history classes and analysis of primary sources. As an example, here's the paraphrased techniques from a Library of Congress quarterly for Teachers about "Teaching with Primary Sources":

> Think about a document’s author and its creation. Situate the document and its events in time and place. Carefully consider what the document says and the language used to say it. Using Background Knowledge: Use historical information and knowledge to read and understand the document. Identify what has been left out or is missing from the document by asking questions of its account. Ask questions about important details across multiple sources to determine points of agreement and disagreement.

[1] https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/teachers/about-this-prog...

If we have to go through a holocaust or a genocide to get to that utopia where people can sift through this flood of information with well-honed critical thinking skills, will it be worth it?

Because, in the extremes, that’s what we’re talking about. Genocides often come as the result of a long disinformation and dehumanization campaign.

I think you’re viewing this completely backwards. With a more free and efficient public discourse the opportunity for disinformation and dehumanization is reduced.

Sure, some idiots on the internet will be saying x, y, and z, but that’s not very effective. It’ll only be roughly as effective as their claims are true. Historically these campaigns would be waged by groups with overwhelming culture-making powers, who could get away with campaigns that were much more divorced from reality: the church, the state, corpora media, etc. For those groups, the truth didn’t matter because they controlled society… they controlled the “Truth.”

> It’ll only be roughly as effective as their claims are true.

Boy, do I wish I had your faith. That hasn't been my experience with how claims are evaluated on the internet, nor with how they spread.

It certainly seems to me that claims that are more interesting or emotive spread further, regardless of their truth value. It certainly seems to me that corrections to false claims don't spread nearly as far as the original false claims. And it seems to me that false claims are much easier to produce than true claims, so are produced in greater volumes.

I just don't see it being "as effective as their claims are true", I see it being "as effective as their claims are *desirable*". That seems (again, to me) to be the much more important factor in how a claim spreads. And...well...humans have a very strong tendency to blame their problems on outside groups and factions. It's very desirable for groups to blame our problems on others.

I really have seen very little evidence that an idea/meme's effectiveness at spreading has a strong correlation to its truth value.

I hope you're right. I want to live in a world where you're right. But I also am terrified that we live in a world where you're wrong. I don't think the world you want to live in happens automatically. I think it takes a tremendous amount of work to achieve, and if we just assume it's natural, I don't think we will realize that world.

> critical thinking hasn't been taught effectively in public schools for at least 10 years now.

I'm not well versed in education, what are you basing this on?

I left a public high school ~10 years ago, it was definitely the case for my school back then. We were maybe given a little booklet on critical thinking at some point and that was about it. Can't speak to other public schools or more recent than that, but I can't imagine the schools worse than where I went putting in a bigger effort. You can argue it's taught all over the curriculum, but most of my teachers didn't really want to challenge us in that way (e.g. English class where you had to have the right themes for a book just because, science/math/history classes where there wasn't really something to question).

Yes, exactly. Also, in any subject where there isn't a clear "wrong" answer, you as a student are free to take up any position as long as you can "back it up".

In theory, that sounds like a decent policy. But in practice, it creates an environment where students just learn to write thoughtful-sounding BS and know they don't really need to work hard to engage with the material or even understand it.

Schools ATTEMPT to teach "critical thinking" and things like media literacy but little timmy's dad says liberals are trying to indoctrinate him and little timmy sits in class bitching about "I'll never use any of this"