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Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
101–110 of 119 posts
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is less about left and right, and more about extreme elements on both sides arguing for actions supported by rhetoric use of factual statements that are easily questioned and where studies are available that would put their view into doubt.
So you feel that the majority of our national media with its treatment of DaMore, Twitter, and Google are extreme elements of the left? Or did you only mean to refer to DaMore and the banned people on various social media outlets are extreme elements? Of course some of the things in Damore's memo are easily questioned. But that's not the problem. The problem is that his memo, which is well within the mainstream of ac…
I think being inclusive of viewpoints is incredibly important, even if they contain something factually incorrect, so I am not advocating some sort of thought police.
There will always be some fringe elements, everyone has a crazy uncle/aunt, but I do not believe for a second that anything close to the majority is crazy so the desired way to advocate an action is through agreement in the democratic process. If you can't convince and compromise maybe your opinion is not the right on balance for society.
What I am suggesting is an effort to protect the democratic process and that we do not let any group use extrajudicial measures to enforce an action. Anyone that treats it as war needs to see that this has consequences and should not be celebrated.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#103I think that using an example of people misinterpreting and then spreading something without having familiarized themselves with the original sources to claim that social media makes us dumber is pretty dumb.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#104It shows how far the US has shifted to the right when the NYT would describe Pinker as a liberal. Twenty years ago his views were considered more center-right (in the US at least). But, I am off-topic ... The biggest problem with social media is that it massively amplifies radical (and, often ignorant or misguided) opinions. This especially disturbs me, because I sort of helped cause it. As a kid, I wanted the more r…
Pinker is a liberal, in almost any sense you could come up with, either by present standards, or the standards of twenty years ago. I don't want to seem harsh, but unfortunately it seems warranted. Perhaps you have a poor familiarity with his work, and with the landscape of political thought, and intellectual culture in general. Or perhaps you are the type of increasingly common individual that this piece is concerne…
Feel free to present your argument, which I welcome. I could be wrong and often am.
However, as an Anthropology major at a top tier university during the 90s, I can say for a fact that Pinker challenged convention (at my university, at least) and pushed the humanities toward a view that a person’s attributes were more the result of biology than social conditions. He also pushed against the prevailing postmodernist and relativist perspectives, among other things. And, although I haven’t read some of his recent work, nor kept up with his public views, I don’t see how you can say that “The better angels” is liberal, given that it promotes markets and a policing forms of strong government.
Unfortunately, lots of internet content pre-2000, including discussion forums, has disappeared. So, I’m struggling to link to evidence of discussions happening at that time.
By the way, your comment is pretty much ad-hominem, and normally I wouldn’t respond to you. But, because your type of behavior is the actual topic of conversation, I figured it was worth it. I find it amusing that you believe me a liberal ...
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#105It shows how far the US has shifted to the right when the NYT would describe Pinker as a liberal. Twenty years ago his views were considered more center-right (in the US at least). But, I am off-topic ... The biggest problem with social media is that it massively amplifies radical (and, often ignorant or misguided) opinions. This especially disturbs me, because I sort of helped cause it. As a kid, I wanted the more r…
Pinker is a liberal, in almost any sense you could come up with, either by present standards, or the standards of twenty years ago. I don't want to seem harsh, but unfortunately it seems warranted. Perhaps you have a poor familiarity with his work, and with the landscape of political thought, and intellectual culture in general. Or perhaps you are the type of increasingly common individual that this piece is concerne…
This is cut and paste from Quora about why Liberals hate Pinker.
>>Pinker has committed an unspeakable sin, at least by Progressive Liberal standards. He believes the Man is born with certain built in modes of operation, particularly mental operation. Call them instincts if you must. In sure Man has a nature. Human Nature.
>>Progressive Liberals and those even further left are committed to the proposition that all of our so-called nature is learned, and that humans are infinitely plastic. Ergo, we can construct a new kind of human who works for the common good, is never "selfish" and never regards the work of his own hands as his property.
>>Naughty Steven. He believes that humans are basic selfish in the sense of being rationally selfish. That will never, never do. Naughty Steven. Shame!
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#106Selection bias? ;-)
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
My interpretation of the original comment isn't that context is key, it's that the internet amplifies the kind of extremist speech that wouldn't reach very many people pre-internet. For example: a suburban white supremacist in 1985 might feel isolated and alone, the same person in 2018 can publish their hatred on Twitter & Medium find like minded bigots on web forums.
exactly that but less so "extremist" more so "common". We've managed to forget about what the "common" sort of opinion is like. An opinion poll about the death penalty or immigration is a quick way of seeing that society at large is somewhat detached from what people assume is the "norm" from the world of edited media circa 1990 - 2010. When the internet exploded that "average" was still glued to the TV and nerdy was…
If anything, we are the extremists: I suspect that 90% of the readership of HN was in the top 10% of their high school class, or above. Everything in our daily lives filters out the voices of the other 90% of the world, because for the most part, our friends and the friends of our friends resemble us. This is the social bubble everyone talks about. I just think we consistently underestimate just how powerful that bubble is at insulating us, until we see dramatic evidence in politics or the mass media, or we stumble out of it somewhere online.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pinker is a liberal, in almost any sense you could come up with, either by present standards, or the standards of twenty years ago. I don't want to seem harsh, but unfortunately it seems warranted. Perhaps you have a poor familiarity with his work, and with the landscape of political thought, and intellectual culture in general. Or perhaps you are the type of increasingly common individual that this piece is concerne…
Feel free to present your argument, which I welcome. I could be wrong and often am. However, as an Anthropology major at a top tier university during the 90s, I can say for a fact that Pinker challenged convention (at my university, at least) and pushed the humanities toward a view that a person’s attributes were more the result of biology than social conditions. He also pushed against the prevailing postmodernist an…
>Feel free to present your argument, which I welcome.
Sure. You could define a liberal in a number of ways. One possible definition is someone who is "center-left", generally votes for democrats, supports public provisioning of education, healthcare, welfare, and so forth.
Pinker posted regularly on Twitter during the elections, generally supporting Hillary Clinton and opposing Trump.
https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/793455008939401216
In a larger context of liberalism, as opposed to fascism or socialism, again he comes out as a liberal with fairly consistent support for individual rights, in both economic and political realms, although regularly modified by a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis... as is typical of liberals going back to Bentham and JS Mill.
None of what you said about human nature is at odds with his political, economic, and social identification as a liberal. It would've been unusual to find anyone of any era, including the present era, who fully denies the concept of a human nature.
Are there any traits that distinguish humans from anything else? If so, there is a human nature.
>I find it amusing that you believe me a liberal ...
I assumed that you were a member of the radical left, and not a liberal. Anthropology, as a discipline, currently has an overwhelming bias towards this leaning, moreso than nearly any other discipline.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think depending on the exercise trying to explore the “good” side of the holocaust would be useful too. The purpose is not to try to list why the holocaust is good, it isn’t obviously, but I can think of at least two exercises where this is useful for a fourth grade class. 1) to use an extreme example, likely the worst in the world’s history, to make it hard or impossible to find positives is harder to think. 2) to…
OK enough people are replying this way that I'm wondering if this is maybe an American-English vs British-English thing. When you say "find a good reason for " ... do you mean "Why does justify doing "? If so then we're all talking at cross purposes and misunderstanding each other - but I'd really suggest phrasing because BOY that original version sounds so bad. We are in agreement re the media angle. This is clearly…
It's a lazy use of language, but yes, "Why does justify doing " is the same as "good reason" in some colloquial uses of US English. Furthermore, in US English, just like in British English, there are plenty of class and education factors that influence how someone would phrase the statement in question.
Most educated coastal folks would not use "3 good reasons" in this case, but at least in my experience, in less educated communities in the South it is more likely to be phrased that way. I implicitly assumed that the teacher did not mean "good" pertaining to slavery, but that may be because I grew up in an environment with different colloquialisms than others. Frankly, if I were a sleep deprived teacher just trying to get something done, I could easily see myself making the same mistake and then seriously regretting that it warped my intention.
This is particularly interesting because I think that the use of language in this case actually reinforces the intent people read into the situation. With some people confused as to how this is "racist" because of a different reading of the language in addition to a different moral interpretation around the assignment.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#110Is it not possible we were always this dumb but more that most of us talked less? This isn't beyond the standard "pub talk" but today that "pub" is the online world and published for all to see. Where previously you'd have reporters and sub-editors and editors to publish; today you can just run your mouth off whenever you want and the crowds can all hear. This sort of thing makes us _look_ dumber compared to the era…
> 'today you can just run your mouth off whenever you want and the crowds can all hear' This sums it up. Also worth taking into account the abuse of anonymity. Some people would not speak in the same way to some people in front of that given person or relatives.
I think distance has as much or more of an effect here. Plenty of people are willing to act like jerks under their real names and profile pictures on Facebook and news site comment sections, and it's likely in part because they know they'll never encounter the people they're attacking or ever have to fear retribution for their comments online.