I'm pretty sure we're better educated than any time in human history.
EDIT: Thinking about it, I would guess that we don't have as much humanities education as the prior generation (because it's been devalued), and humanities are what address the questions and problems plaguing our society, the big ones that are too complex to yield to scientific method or algorithms.
The Israeli government will pay welfare indefinitely for a man who undertakes religious studies.
During the peak of the pandemic, orthodox jews in NYC were throwing massive wedding and bar mitzvah celebrations, creating superspreader events.
If polio hits the orthodox communities it will make coronavirus look like a field day. Polio is insanely infectious.
The problem is we've had it so good for so long that we don't remember what it was like. Why take a bunch of preventative stuff for something that never happens? Feels like a waste of time.
In reality, those preventative steps are why it doesn't.
Just to give you an example. He repeated common misconception about Library of Alexandria being something unique and it's burning being the break between high civilization and barbarism. But it was nothing of the sort.[1] The very fact that the library has been ransacked, burned or otherwise damaged both before and after the "pivotal event" Sagan describes, is a strong indicator of his ignorance.
And doesn't stop there. Whenever Sagan talked about "Dark ages" or anything remotely related he was wrong. The very term has been considered inaccurate at the time, and it is even more so today.[2]
[1]https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/02/05/carl-sagan-was-... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
In the past public opinion would be created by a minority of affluent people. Most people were basically peasants (even middle class with nice jobs) and had no chance to affect public opinion. Today public opinion is created by the majority (or manipulated by some shadowy figures with unknown agenda -- I can't make up my mind about it). So you could have more educated people today but still responsible for much smaller fraction of actual public message.
Also in the past the information that most people received was nicely prepared, packaged and delivered by more or less mainstream media. Clear signal, low noise. For better or worse.
Today truly educated and wise people have no access to public because the signal to noise ratio is too low for most people to be able to pick up.
What is this based on? And why would the "minority of affluent people" were any more accurate or good-willed than whoever influences public opinion today? I'm sure those affluent people said things that fit their own interests and experiences, but I don't believe for a moment that affluence correlates with good judgement for everyone else.
Not just that, but simple inflammatory talking points are easier for people to understand and get upset about, then get behind.
Disinformation and misinformation may be orders of magnitude worse now, but there was no golden age.
> I'm pretty sure we're better educated than any time in human history.
The problem is, people used to realise when they had zero knowledge on a topic.
Now they listen to some nutbar on YouTube, and think they suddenly have a decade worth of medical knowledge.
The former is shutting down discourse, the latter is pointing out its flaws, and is a correct response.
When I was in high school, pre-Internet, we has an entire class about modern media.
We discussed advertising, profit motives, watched TV commercials and dissected them, it was all about creating awareness in youth, about something they grew up with and took for granted.
This sort of thing had value, it helps people see things through a different viewpoint, including helping people become more critical of the snakenoil salesman.
We should have such things about the Internet, and youtube, as well.
I bet the average Joe doesn't realise how profitable YouTube channels can be, and thus, how profitable lies are.
I fully agree. Both sides can call each other nutbars and both sides should not be censored. One person’s nutbar is another person’s geniusbar.
Profit motives and understanding the finances of the media platforms is useful, but it does not address the search for truth and fact beyond the important detail of monetary motivations of the people behind the opinions. Truth and fact takes hard work. It requires access to all sides of the argument/topic, which censorship denies to people, creating a one-sided view that many times does not represent the most accurate view and in some cases has been manipulated (not always for monetary returns) by the dominant forces interested in the matter.