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Comment by maze-le | Hacker News Reader

Its a structural problem, not necessary facebooks -- if it werent for facebook, the idiots would congregate somewhere else to spread their lies. What is missing is an education in epistemology for a broad audience regardless of education level -- the ability to categorize and weight the value of knowledge and sources.

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Facebook is definitely an enabler for this trash. While they can indeed congregate elsewhere (like their own website or forum), people would have to explicitly seek out that “elsewhere”, where as Facebook would promote them for free thanks to their ranking algorithm.

> if it werent for facebook, the idiots would congregate somewhere else

I don't think that's really true. To congregate, people must first find each other. That takes a certain amount of pre-existing interest plus a certain amount of ability to find something matching that interest. Not much, but some. Now, even the most passive and stupid people - a significant demographic, unfortunately - can basically sit back and let the other crazies come to them. The same filtering/targeting tools that have been such a boon for small businesses advertising their products have also been great for every fringe group that used to rely on old fashioned street-pounding evangelism.

No, this sentiment is very wrong. 10% of the population is functionally illiterate. Another 10% can't do basic arithmetic. Another 10% has more important things to worry about than vetting all their sources. Another 10% just can't be bothered. There are many more reasons why expecting everyone to just be able to develop the ability to critically gather and evaluate information is clearly a fantasy that can only be entertained when you don't realize how incredibly challenged people are, probably because they don't interact with any.

To the contrary, I think the average joe is generally more reasonable and able to develop critical thinking skills than most people think. They just don't ever get the opportunity to learn it properly. There might be a subset of the population that is actually incapable of proper reason due to cognitive deficits, but that is definitly not the majority.

This sentiment is one of the reasons anti-intellectualism is thriving at this very moment.

> This sentiment is one of the reasons anti-intellectualism is thriving at this very moment.

One hell of a feedback loop that is...

  I think the average joe is generally more reasonable and 
  able to develop critical thinking skills than most people 
  think

You think wrong. You would like this to be the case and you let the desire cloud your judgment. It's simply not the case. The research is squarely against you.

  They just don't ever get the opportunity to learn it properly.

That's irrelevant. The point is that they never learned and cannot be expected to learn anym ore. We have to care for these people, instead of expecting them to take care of it themselves, telling them they are capable of it. Because they aren't and they don't.

  This sentiment is one of the reasons anti-intellectualism is thriving at this very moment.

This is not a sentiment: these are facts.

At least 10% of people are functionally illiterate. How are you going to teach them critical thinking skills? How are you going to get them to see the truth about e.g. vaccination? Answer: you don't. This is where we need a government, to take care of those that do not, for whatever reason, take care of themselves.

One problem is that financing the use of the Internet has been equated with "lets put ads everywhere".

I meet so few people who are willing to pay for most Internet sites and services. They have to deliver some great value to be able to live on paid subscriptions.

Would you pay for Facebook if all ads were gone? Or Twitter? I can barely find a use case for these services anymore. Strip it to Messenger and the event pages and that's 95% of all use cases that go beyond narcissism.

Also, I am not sure if Facebook is responsible for the observed stupidity and idiocy or if it simply reveals them...

More/better education is always good. But there will always be idiots. Look at flat earth believers (although i have hard time believing they are not just trolls).

They used to be small groups of them all over the world, and they didn't do too much damage. What social media has done is amplified their voice, giving them look of legitimacy.

Flat Earthers used to be a joke/insult, now it’s a serious example of how the internet has developed not necessarily to our advantage.

Not only social media I might add. Traditional media also has a role to play here. They are generally more critical of these types of groups, but they also seek ever more ridiculous stories to tell, in order to get an audience -- so even a story that questions the theories of these groups but reports them as "one view among others" is problematic.

It is the structure of our media/advertising landscape that keeps nuanced but true views below the average interest and and amplifies outrageous crap, since it generates clicks and eyeballs.

Flat earthers are trolls, but they are very useful trolls.

They give kids great examples of things like falsifiability and scientific method.

It may be difficult to believe but while there may be a lot of FE trolls, there are also a significant number of true believers.

It's trolling taken to its logical extreme: you literally cannot tell whether someone posting flat-earth 'facts' is a troll or not online. The behaviour of the acolyte and the troll is identical.

Only when you meet these people in real life is there a fair chance of sounding them out to discover if they are just playing along or are actually convinced of whatever conspiracy is being peddled. I would expect most trolls keep their flat-earth proselytizing strictly as an online activity.

But they do seem to exist (the true believers that is).

Ah, ye goode olde Poe's law:

without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views... that cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views.

Too many forces will oppose this at every turn. The various religions and political ideologies come to mind.

The fact that you'll face resistance along the path should not stop you from setting the foot in front of the door. And its not an unreasonable thing to strife for. Certainly more realistic than some political demands, for which there will never be a majority consent...

Combating critical thinking is as old as critical thinking. Let them fight.

Facebook brought these posts a stamp of legitimacy and concentrated all the idiocy under one URL. Pre facebook, no one trusted flatearth.com or vaccinesarebadmkay.net, because we still believed the old addage "never trust anything you read on the internet." It was a lot easier to ignore faceless people with random usernames spamming on random websites than a post from uncle Kevin, on a platform all your friends and family are using religiously.

I think you mean epidemiology.

Nope, but this would also be a good idea in this context.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

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