Something no one mentions is that people went from not even reading books or sharing their thoughts in journals to…. Smartphones. Unrivaled information in their palms.
Tough-Ad-3255 on
The right wing have always wanted an uneducated and easily manipulated populace but how do you convince average people education is bad? You say it’s liberal indoctrination. It’s sad how successful it is.
Zecellomaster on
The problem with this argument is that it acts as if there’s no critical thinking in STEM, which is absurd. The real reason is that there’s been an across the board movement to vilify learning/higher education, which is one of the reasons we are in this current information environment.
Infamous-GoatThief on
My mother is a high school English teacher and it’s *bad*, man. I don’t even wanna get specific on the extreme off-chance some kid sees this comment and knows they’re the idiot in question lol, but she comes home every day talking about how she had to go over something with her students that I’d already been fully comfortable with by the time I was around 12
There’s also the AI problem. End of last year she got a ‘thank you’ email from one of her students that had asked her for a rec letter; kid forgot to remove the ChatGPT prompt at the beginning that said “sure, here’s a polite, appreciative message for your English teacher expressing your gratitude for the last school year!” And that was just a fucking e-mail lol, forget about the actual assignments. These kids don’t even know how to cheat anymore, if I had ChatGPT in high school I’d be using it but I wouldn’t just copy / paste into a google doc; not only is it insultingly easy to tell the difference between the writing of a 16yo and a LLM, google doc edit history is viewable and teachers know when kids just do a whole copy / paste, but they still do it anyway. It’s actually so sad to me man, I’ve definitely let myself slip in terms of how much I read and whatnot, but I grew up w books in my hands, and I did not realize how lucky I was for that until recent years.
PuzzyFussy on
Remember when we used to pick on dumb kids in class? It weirdly worked to keep us from slacking. Now being seen as an idiot is endearing… dafuq.
1984isAMidlifeCrisis on
All the Pythagoreans I know are saying this is what happens if you don’t keep the secrets of the dodecahedrons.
BeautifulTear8121 on
Teachers and librarians were literally prophets.
hybridjones on
Ms.Miller warned us in 8th grade know your rights and protect them because history repeats itself and someone will always try to take them away.
BmacIL on
The American “system” simply wants to create obedient worker slaves just smart enough to do all the jobs but just ignorant enough to not question anything. George Carlin called it out decades ago and his messages still ring true.
lovbelow on
When people talk to me about what’s happening on social media, I dead all that convo and ask them what books they’ve read recently. If it’s not the bible (I’m in the festering crotch of the bible belt) usually 0. A lot of people *do not* like to read anymore and that goes beyond just cracking open a novel.
People take a lot of info from SM and don’t really question the ‘why’. The days of wiki deepdives may be behind us now, sadly 😞
Icy-Whale-2253 on
I’ve been considering going back to college for Comparative Literature.
I started out wanting to be a journalist and got to second year in a top tier South African university.
I hated the western centric curriculum and viewpoint and rage quit (went into IT instead) but am still an avid writer, reader and follower of the humanities.
I worry about those who do not engage the humanities at all and believe they are the ones who are cannon fodder for misinformation campaigns…
ChibiSailorMercury on
I’m not American and I don’t live in the U.S.
I did note however a strong push against intellectualism (perceived as elitism) since decades ago. Remember how we used to make fun of nerds, teacher’s pets, book worms, etc. in school? Even to the grown ups, it was normal.
And we’ve been having for a while people around, bragging that they havent a read a book in their life that wasn’t a mandatory school reading?
It doesn’t only come from the forces that be. It comes from us too. It seems that we decided that clear and informed thought, culture, awareness, the arts, etc. is for a higher strata of people, that it’s not necessary for regular Joe’s and Jane’s, and that aiming at it is hoity-toity(sp?).
Celestial_Unicorn_ on
As a librarian, it’s always nice to see these posts. The validation feels nice lol
Seaborn63 on
White Guy here, and from my view its the older whites who struggle with lack of original opinion and critical thinking. I don’t know many school-age children so my view is definitely not super well rounded, but I know my Dad and Mom both struggle with original thoughts as well as almost all of their friends. Its just regurgitated slop from whatever their poisoned-information watering hole is spilling out. It seems to be the norm these days that either FoxNews or Facebook have just eroded any critical thinking skills they had. Also most of it is rooted in fear, I know that. Always some mega super awful conspiracy “the other side” is enacting and “their side” is the only real noble cause.
Anyway, high fives all around and keep on keepin’ on.
16 Comments
Something no one mentions is that people went from not even reading books or sharing their thoughts in journals to…. Smartphones. Unrivaled information in their palms.
The right wing have always wanted an uneducated and easily manipulated populace but how do you convince average people education is bad? You say it’s liberal indoctrination. It’s sad how successful it is.
The problem with this argument is that it acts as if there’s no critical thinking in STEM, which is absurd. The real reason is that there’s been an across the board movement to vilify learning/higher education, which is one of the reasons we are in this current information environment.
My mother is a high school English teacher and it’s *bad*, man. I don’t even wanna get specific on the extreme off-chance some kid sees this comment and knows they’re the idiot in question lol, but she comes home every day talking about how she had to go over something with her students that I’d already been fully comfortable with by the time I was around 12
There’s also the AI problem. End of last year she got a ‘thank you’ email from one of her students that had asked her for a rec letter; kid forgot to remove the ChatGPT prompt at the beginning that said “sure, here’s a polite, appreciative message for your English teacher expressing your gratitude for the last school year!” And that was just a fucking e-mail lol, forget about the actual assignments. These kids don’t even know how to cheat anymore, if I had ChatGPT in high school I’d be using it but I wouldn’t just copy / paste into a google doc; not only is it insultingly easy to tell the difference between the writing of a 16yo and a LLM, google doc edit history is viewable and teachers know when kids just do a whole copy / paste, but they still do it anyway. It’s actually so sad to me man, I’ve definitely let myself slip in terms of how much I read and whatnot, but I grew up w books in my hands, and I did not realize how lucky I was for that until recent years.
Remember when we used to pick on dumb kids in class? It weirdly worked to keep us from slacking. Now being seen as an idiot is endearing… dafuq.
All the Pythagoreans I know are saying this is what happens if you don’t keep the secrets of the dodecahedrons.
Teachers and librarians were literally prophets.
Ms.Miller warned us in 8th grade know your rights and protect them because history repeats itself and someone will always try to take them away.
The American “system” simply wants to create obedient worker slaves just smart enough to do all the jobs but just ignorant enough to not question anything. George Carlin called it out decades ago and his messages still ring true.
When people talk to me about what’s happening on social media, I dead all that convo and ask them what books they’ve read recently. If it’s not the bible (I’m in the festering crotch of the bible belt) usually 0. A lot of people *do not* like to read anymore and that goes beyond just cracking open a novel.
People take a lot of info from SM and don’t really question the ‘why’. The days of wiki deepdives may be behind us now, sadly 😞
I’ve been considering going back to college for Comparative Literature.
The U.S. has become an [Idiocracy](https://youtu.be/6lai9QhBibk?si=RRgR9u5JjD_tXOZo)
I started out wanting to be a journalist and got to second year in a top tier South African university.
I hated the western centric curriculum and viewpoint and rage quit (went into IT instead) but am still an avid writer, reader and follower of the humanities.
I worry about those who do not engage the humanities at all and believe they are the ones who are cannon fodder for misinformation campaigns…
I’m not American and I don’t live in the U.S.
I did note however a strong push against intellectualism (perceived as elitism) since decades ago. Remember how we used to make fun of nerds, teacher’s pets, book worms, etc. in school? Even to the grown ups, it was normal.
And we’ve been having for a while people around, bragging that they havent a read a book in their life that wasn’t a mandatory school reading?
It doesn’t only come from the forces that be. It comes from us too. It seems that we decided that clear and informed thought, culture, awareness, the arts, etc. is for a higher strata of people, that it’s not necessary for regular Joe’s and Jane’s, and that aiming at it is hoity-toity(sp?).
As a librarian, it’s always nice to see these posts. The validation feels nice lol
White Guy here, and from my view its the older whites who struggle with lack of original opinion and critical thinking. I don’t know many school-age children so my view is definitely not super well rounded, but I know my Dad and Mom both struggle with original thoughts as well as almost all of their friends. Its just regurgitated slop from whatever their poisoned-information watering hole is spilling out. It seems to be the norm these days that either FoxNews or Facebook have just eroded any critical thinking skills they had. Also most of it is rooted in fear, I know that. Always some mega super awful conspiracy “the other side” is enacting and “their side” is the only real noble cause.
Anyway, high fives all around and keep on keepin’ on.