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Comment by elorant | Hacker News Reader

Ignorance is killing democracy. And that’s not Facebook’s problem. It’s an educational problem. Our education system is failing to instill critical thinking into young people. So they go out in the world and become adults who are easily duped into this idea or that because they lack the skills and the mindset to evaluate opposing viewpoints. Sure the Internet has made things worse, and that’s a bit shocking for those of us who a couple of decades ago hoped that free information would help the world move forward, but it’s hardly the root of the problem.

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I hear you on the lack of critical thinking, instead it's being replaced by a defaulting to a conformist view of surrounding peers. In harder sciences this is easier to combat because of objective data but personal viewpoints have jack-diddly to do with logic/reason.

I was 'attending' a 400 level course on contemporary arts at my local university and the groupthink exhibited by the students was insane. With only 7 students in the class it was intimate and dialogue based. Just for the sake of provoking actual defences and backing to viewpoints I took up a contrarian stance on damn near every topic.

Sure I was labelled a racist, bigoted close minded hoser. But the conversations were integral to proper development of critical skills. The professor told me at the end of the year that the only reason she let me remain in her class (as opposed to booting me out as I wasn't a student or qualified) was because of this generated dialogue.

> Ignorance is killing democracy.

No it is worse. Misinformation is killing democracy. And that's exactly where Facebook is a problem.

Basically you might as well say that's why the internet is a "problem".

Yes, but internet is still decentralised and a pretty NEUTRAL technology. Facebook has a board of directors.

Not Internet, the Web. And not the web, but the way we have started using it.

We sell analytics and data about people. This data is more valuable the more people there are to sell. This popularity metric will thus foster popularity contests, where inane content and disinformation is put forward. This is the problem.

> Our education system is failing to instill critical thinking into young people.

I'm convinced this is the key.

However, media outlets (social or otherwise) also have a responsibility of, at the very least, not spreading stories that are demonstrably, factually inaccurate, even if it impacts their "bottom line". Naive and hopeful, I know, but there are two sides to it.

Shocking and ironic. I still remember spending my high school years reading philosophy and other topics of interest in the internet of the 90s. I had the sentiment that people will be so knowledgeable--they'll learn everything. The reverse is clearly true and now all tech breeds is greed.

Ignorance has always been a problem. But today it gets much more exposure, and is being manipulated along with anger to screw up democracy.

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