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Comment by inglor_cz | Hacker News Reader

"That's why education is the most important pillar of democracy. Education is everything. "

The kind of people who get into positions of power - well, my impression is that they think they know better. Even if they are aware of the fact that in 1930 someone fucked up, they will not entertain the fact that they themselves might do the same.

Also, some events are really complex. You can educate people about the 1929 or 2008 economic crises from very different perspectives, from far-left to libertarian, and the lessons will be very different.

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I think that's why an education has to be broad. A selective education can be tantamount to brainwashing/propaganda. Give the students as many perspectives and hope that they will do something sensible as they process the information; knowing that not all will, but most.

I believe that the more perspectives you are aware of, the less likely you are to be dogmatic and extreme in your beliefs and actions. You will be reminded how dissimilar real life is to simple ideas and rhetoric, that it is a shifting ocean of nuances and caveats.

Or society can go the other route, assume you cannot trust the people and create a tyranny of disinformation and control.

Perspectives are important and so is a humble study of history as way to understand human nature. We are so in love with your technological prowess that we forget it all sits on top of wetware that is very close to what it was 10000 years ago. Recognizing we are driven largely by instinct, some of which we can inhibit some we cannot, would help all of understand what works and what does not in a human society.

> Give the students as many perspectives and hope that they will do something sensible as they process the information

I don’t know if you’ve gone to college recently but that was not my impression. It’s a woke monoculture. Discourse is gone.

Discourse is narrower than you'd like; that doesn't mean it's "gone". When someone makes extraordinary claims like "Discourse is gone," that is a red flag that they are not viewing the situation objectively.

So perhaps a better claim would be that the new discourse is unduly confined and the older modes of discourse are gone.

The discourse has always been unduly confined. We never discussed whether it was a good thing to slaughter all the Native Americans, and we're not discussing whether all our stupid wars nowadays are good, either. War is off-topic in the USA "discourse". I'm sure other important things about which I'm less concerned are also "unduly" left out.

That's a better starting point for a productive discussion, but still hyperbolic.

Moreover, do you notice that my comment is being grayed out as people who disagree are downvoting it? A lot of people who claim to value discussion really don't; not on Hacker News, and not elsewhere.

You're being downvoted because discourse should never be narrowed, period.

Ideas should be thrown into the public square, in the full light of day, and judged on their merits.

Hopefully you realize the hypocrisy of graying out my comment in the name of promoting discourse, but I doubt it.

Ideas should absolutely be judged on their merits; here we agree. Too bad that's not how humans work. Instead, they tend to choose whichever truth they like best based on how it makes them feel; politicians know this, which is why they don't bother crafting logically sound arguments backed with evidence. They play on peoples' emotions.

Moreover, the university is not a public square. You attend as a student, which means you are there to learn, not to share your thoughts like it's a real-life HN thread. Don't want to learn the material? That's completely fine. The solution is to not sign up for the class, not to whine about how "discourse is gone" just because the teacher doesn't want to waste time on every edgy kid's opinions. People didn't pay massive sums of money to hear you talk. They paid to learn from experts.

Don't think of your comment as being grayed out, think of your discourse as being narrowed.

It turns out we are both fine with narrowing discourse, just as I suspected.

Precisely demonstrating my point: a hyper-sensitivity and censorious attitude against any advocacy for unmitigated debate.

You are calling my disagreement a "censorious attitude." Sorry, but I am allowed to disagree with you.

The most educated people I know seem the most partisan right now and most likely to parrot main stream media talking points.

It’s making me question my assumptions about education. On the other hand Im just one data point.

Have you considered that maybe the "mainstream media" is right?

I know it seems almost impossible–what with them basically espousing the same values that used to be generally accepted as "good" a decade or so ago: overcoming division, not burning coal just to piss off the libs, not killing vice presidents on Wednesdays and Fridays, international cooperation, arms control, caps lock control, etc...

And that YouTube guy you adore does make a lot of sense when he shouts at the camera. Not just on dietary supplements but also how the loss of traditional gender roles has specifically disadvantaged high-IQ males with STEM affinity.

That pronoun thing might even get someone killed, in a very convoluted way.

But even then it just doesn't seem to have the potential to end the republic quite as easily as, say, musing about having the military re-run the election in states you lost, in such an obvious way every living former SecDef signs a letter asking the military to disregard such orders.

Many people who seem on paper to be highly educated are merely highly indoctrinated.

On the other hand, there appears to be a "skeptical" strain of discourse now that is just as arrogant, but in the other direction. As in, I disagree with the mainstream cultural view on a topic, so I therefore have the correct view on it.

This is best exemplified by someone like Michael Tracy or Glenn Greenwald IMO.

In my view they're more wrong than right, but they do have the occasional nugget where they do see through the BS. However, the mainstream view is correct more often than not. Additionally, a significant proportion of their takes are in bad faith.

I think you have something there. There’s certainly a phase when you stop trusting the mainstream where you overdo it and think everything is wrong.

The goal should probably be a balance. And probably realizing that nobody including the government or media deserves your blind trust.

I agree. They certainly have a valuable role to play. But if you play with fire like that, you can't get mad when twitter viciously dunks on you for being stupid.

The behavior that helped the most educated succeed was being informed. It’s not surprising that they maintain that pattern and in so doing, parrot mainstream media.

Most people have limited experience in managing information that they consider authoritative which turns out to be wrong.

I think the best example of authoritative misinformation for 2020 is Anthony Fauci’s guidance that masks don’t help until they do. I’m looking forward to watching people’s reactions when he inevitably asserts they don’t again.

2020 was a good year for skeptic production, boy howdy.

You raise a great point. Trust in authorities is a very powerful mental shortcut. You don’t have to research anything. Go with the mainstream and you’ll always be right.

Until that shortcut goes horribly wrong.

It's not a shortcut. It's the only way to form opinions outside of your expertise fields, because you simply don't have the time to personally research everything.

That's why it's very important to have a healthy dose of skepticism when receiving info from people who we trust, because we chose the gatekeepers based on our opinions which implicitly selects for our own biases.

For example I don't actually know that the election wasn't stolen. It's an opinion that I hold due to choosing to trust a specific gatekeeper (main stream media) and a lack of hard evidence from the other side. If hard evidence were to be presented, the I would have to reexamine my beliefs even if they go against everything I believed in previously.

If you are an expert in a topic that is covered by the media, I cannot understand how you would have faith in the media’s coverage of topics you don’t understand.

So I suppose in your eyes science can never correct itself? I find the constant example of fauci’s “about face” on masks as an example of why not to listen to experts to be very concerning, especially by people who profess to believe in science. There is a wide gulf between deliberate misinformation and the scientific method refining the best advice known at the time for a novel virus. It’s disingenuous to equate the two.

In the beginning there was a real question of how this virus transmitted as well as acute supply shortages of n95 masks for first responders.

If you expect scientists to be correct the first time, every time, I guess you’ll set yourself up for disappointment. I suppose when you sit down to code, especially using a new language or framework, you get it right the first time with no bugs? If so, congratulations and let us know how you did it.

Why slap a narrative on me? I said nothing you’ve talked about and don’t believe what you ascribe you me. Why waste the time of both of us?

“As Fauci told the Washington Post here , at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, masks were not recommended for the general public, as authorities were trying to prevent a mask shortage for health workers and the extent of asymptomatic spread was unknown.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-fauci-outdated-...

The man was in a no-win situation, and he had to make a shitty call, but integrity doesn’t mean occasional honesty. He and many others walked through a one-way door and the best move for him is to resign so we can have someone with a clean ethical slate.

Let’s make this simpler. How do you feel about General Alexander’s testimony to Congress about surveillance of the American people?

Mainstream media talking points vary from Trump and his family are breaking norms and traditions in a very dangerous way to our country, all the way to the Biden crime family is going to ruin this country. With major undertones of a lot of hurt, anger, and feeling like there is no hope among minorities or rural whites depending on which sources you choose to consume. Both are true, both need addressed. And it’s likely not a coincidence that both groups think the other’s movement is their enemy.

I get routinely modded down on this site for pointing out issues that are ostensibly too political, like workplace discrimination.

But on this same site, somoene can literally carry on a discussion echoing the (proven false) propaganda points ("biden crime family"? dear lord) and it stays up without downvote for (checks watch) an hour and counting.

Everything this past week has been a chest x-ray of our collective spirit, and it came back solid white.

This is vastly smaller in degree but not in kind.

Time for some introspection, dear readers.

This is a bit of a meta discussion, but there does seem to be a marked difference between what the moderators do (most recently, pruning entire threads) and what users using the "flag" button and down voting does.

The last couple of days have been particularly hellish, with many threads that descended into flame wars which drifted far away from whatever the original post was about.

I agree that there have been many threads that were far from being good faith discussions and turned into shouting matches with too many posts made in bad faith (such as citing bad sources that did not contain anything directly relevant to the point being argued, or links to sources that just repeated the original unsubstantiated allegation without presenting any evidence). Actions taken by users in these threads seemed to reflect preexisting biases rather than anything resembling a good faith debate.

With that I want to express my appreciation for the moderators who's job I do not envy but who are very necessary to keeping this site functioning in any way.

I’ve noticed that too. Seems that no matter what I post I get downvotes. Typically without any explanation or response.

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