How many young people deny the Holocaust? | Hacker News Reader

How many young people deny the Holocaust?

skeptic.org.uk

5 pointszaik11 comments

If you read the article they talk about how Pew research did a study to find out why results like this happen and basically it has to do with people being incentivized to give incorrect information to speed through tests and these results don't actually reflect most of the people who answered in the surveys actual views of the world

  Editor’s note (27th March, 2024): After this article was published, the Pew Research Centre conducted a study on this topic. It found that young respondents in opt-in online polls such as YouGov’s were far more likely to say the Holocaust was a myth than were those surveyed by other methods, and that in general, young and Hispanic participants in such polls are unusually prone to providing “bogus” answers that do not reflect their true views.

Why, are young people aware and know with any historical accuracy other major historical events, for their countries, and globally?

It's easy to deny something you never properly learned about (much less studied) - especially if it goes along with tons of other historical facts and events (some leading to it) that you also never learned about (or worse, never were even taught about, nor expected to know).

Read the article. You are just reacting to a light skimming which is something that this article talks about is the reason why results like this happen in surveys because people don't actually consider what happens when they answer without fully absorbing what that would mean.

I'm reacting to the question. The article goes into a diatribe about the polling methodology which I don't particularly care about.

That young people you wouldn't expect (like, not neo-nazis or something) deny the holocaust, I have empirical evidence of, however, as I do of their ignorance of most, if not all, major historical events.

And for most with any (much rarer) knowledge, usually it's at a very crude level you'd get from a blockbuster, a video game, or a half-seen special on the History channel ("Egypt? I know of it, that's the place with the pyramids where they had cat's as gods and turned dead into mummies!") - and this includes people with university degrees.

Unfortunately, that is not surprising when so many young people receive imagery education via social media.

At the same time it certainly isn’t helpful that current Israel government, military, and social policy is borderline genocidal, or at the very least a strong example of apartheid. For young people whose formal educational background in history is already weak seeing in real life that very same conduct from people whose prior generations were the victims must certainly be examples in conflict.

This is certainly cause for concern.

It's not a cause for concern because if you actually read the article you will see that the conclusion isn't that the data is correct The conclusion is that people just skim through things and then give really quick answers without fully considering. Which is what you just did

With antisemitism on the rise, on one hand, and Israel nearly eradicating a population of 2 million people, on the other hand, I would say this remains a massive cause for concern even if people do not interpret statistics as you would prefer.

->Israel nearly eradicating a population of 2 million people

if all 2m of Gaza population were dead this war would be over but I guess all that aid for 2m people for the remaining 100k is to just to fatten them up right?

There were 2 aids. Only one is fattening. That one is fattening the Israel US military infrastructure.

>Israel government, military, and social policy is borderline genocidal, or at the very least a strong example of apartheid.

By the time it is recognised for being completely genocidal the damage done would be scarily irreversible.

"The Skeptic is the UK’s longest-running publication offering skeptical analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal."

Then goes to claim that a conspiracy theory (young people denying the Holocaust) is not a conspiracy theory.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com