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Comment by runawaybottle | Hacker News Reader

And so you believe web developers are like the paragon of critical thinkers this country really needs a massive influx of?

You know a vast majority of us can’t critically think our way out of using cookie cutter bleeding edge stacks right? Frontend development alone is chock full of people that use flavor of the month tech without critically thinking about why. We are not this elite group of critical thinkers just because we do a perceived ancillary “science” related profession (as in it’s not related to science at all, it’s just technical).

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Plus, a depressingly huge amount of the industry's product seems to depend on mindless consumption.

I do not believe web developers are the paragon of critical thinking. The state of web dev tech stacks is a total shit show, and I'm glad to be no part of it.

I think Leslie Lamport is a good person to listen to regarding why and how to think. Here is a good video for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw3gsBms-f8

Don't hate on frontend development; people lacking critical thinking skills exist in almost every domain of software engineering.

That’s sort of my point. I am of the web developer tribe, and I am suggesting we are no better at this critical thinking stuff than any other group. We have tons of our own idiosyncrasies. Creating more of us isn’t the solution (just go make more of those computer people, they are pretty smart! - not exactly :p)

This whole thing is interesting to me because denial is inherently a form of critical thought. Whereas to simply agree with whatever authorities are around you don't need to think critically at all.

Any group of "deniers" is naturally going to have more critical thinkers than a group that would use the term "denier" for those who disagree.

That's lacking in critical thought. A denier isn't necessarily a denier because they contest common wisdom. They may easily be deniers simply because they have other authorities they adhere to more.

Man, let me introduce you to Roswell truthers, 911 conspiracy theorist, racists, cryptonazis, biblical biologists/geogrpahists, phrenologists, freudians, climate-change-is fake theorists, anti-vax activists, and flat earthers.

All of them have deniers, and that is the core function. When your core critical thought relies on denial of all evidence or outside data 'my falsehood is as good as your truth' then it isn't critical anymore.

But it looks like critical thinking. Often with an elaborate scientific pantomime built around it.

One of the hardest of modern things is separating the mimes from practicioners. You cannot have sufficient knowledge or reasoning in most domains, the language is tricky, and there are liars, unknowing mimes, and bad actors everywhere. And our brains are actively working against us much of the time.

The underlying issue with those people is the unhealthy focus on cultivating a personal identity. You’re right, this stops all critical thinking. This can be true for say, I don’t know, a self built ‘modern developer’ identity, one who fashions herself a meetup-attending, tensorflow hacking, data science following, kubernetes using, graphql building, etc.

Once you commit to these identities, you’re fucked. The conspiracy theorist will never think critically, and neither will this developer as they are too invested in keeping up the image. The conspiracy theorist is just gonna deny everything and apply some theory to it, and the developer will suffer similar patterns.

Anyway, back to my original point. Don’t think technical people are not susceptible to the same shit most of the society is susceptible to. Our profession doesn’t better create critical thinkers.

"History is written by the victors" is not merely for the physical but for memes as well. The only alternative histories that remain must be the ones most open to ridicule for our enjoyment _and_ initiation. Initiation is much easier when the only alternative narrative is literally insane.

In many 'conspiracy theories' there are often curiosities, contradictions, or straight up open questions.

Roswell was an actual conspiracy to hide Project Mogul. [1] The US government conspired and lied to convince the public it was just a 'weather balloon', when it was very obviously something else to witnesses. This truth was only revealed to the public (relatively) recently.

Your other examples are very current and are politically difficult if not dangerous to address with an open mind. Would you allow someone to challenge any of your _beliefs_ on racism, nazism, climate-change, vaccines, etc?

I'll give some examples of wrongthink questions: "What other pogroms did Zionists instigate? [2][3][4]", "Was Stalin the real 'Hitler'?", "Other than Katyn, what else did USSR try to pin on Hitler?". "How could there have been _no_ atrocity propaganda during WW2? [5]". These questions (and more!) might make you a racist anti-semitic nazi sympathizer.

Does anyone remember vaccine enhanced RSV? Nope, lol crazy anti-vaxers with crazy theories of government mind-control or something.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul#Roswell_incident [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%9351_Baghdad_bombin... [4] https://www.motl.org/yad-vashem-interview-with-miriam-ron-wi... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda#World_War_...

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