“We’re taught that, in order to protect ourselves from bad information, we need to deeply engage with the stuff that washes up in front of us,” Mr. Caulfield told me recently. He suggested that the dominant mode of media literacy (if kids get taught any at all) is that “you’ll get imperfect information and then use reasoning to fix that somehow. But in reality, that strategy can completely backfire.” |

The US media machine is starting to damage control for all the Uyghur genocide debunkings ha ha yay

*Mr. Caulfield walked me through the process using an Instagram post from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist, falsely alleging a link between the human papillomavirus vaccine and cancer. “If this is not a claim where I have a depth of understanding, then I want to stop for a second and, before going further, just investigate the source,” Mr. Caulfield said. He copied Mr. Kennedy’s name in the Instagram post and popped it into Google. “Look how fast this is,” he told me as he counted the seconds out loud. In 15 seconds, he navigated to Wikipedia and scrolled through the introductory section of the page, highlighting with his cursor the last sentence, which reads that Mr. Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist and a conspiracy theorist.
“Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the best, unbiased source on information about a vaccine? I’d argue no. And that’s good enough to know we should probably just move on,” he said. He probed deeper into the method to find better coverage by copying the main claim in Mr. Kennedy’s post and pasting that into a Google search. The first two results came from Agence France-Presse’s fact-check website and the National Institutes of Health. His quick searches showed a pattern: Mr. Kennedy’s claims were outside the consensus — a sign they were motivated by something other than science. "|

Aren't immediately sure whether something is true? Spend 15 seconds skimming articles on a website that has never historically been edited by the CIA or FBI. Still not sure? Just believe the consensus :stress:

my least favourite type of person in our current zeitgeist is the "unlike those crazy trump supporters, I completely trust the government, mainstream media and big businesses" lib

This is the catch 22 that we've been in for a while now. Everyone knows they are being lied to and manipulated by the media and the state constantly. Now that something like the pandemic has come along, which necessitates, you know, some basic trust in the media and the state, a big chunk of the population won't believe the info they are getting from theses institutions. Can't really even blame them that much imo. NYT and the rest of the media carries way more of the blame.

So, I think there's a grain of truth that this article approaches that it unfortunately completely throws out the window when it suggests that you replace "critical thinking" with taking 15 seconds to look at someone's wikipedia page.

The truth is that the way we generally imagine "critical thinking" can be incredibly individualist and idealistic. You aren't ever going to be able to have such a well-rounded and simultaneously deep understanding of the world that you'll be able to engage with every subject that you see rationally and figure out the truth that everyone else is distorting. We see the fallout from people who try to do this distorted version of critical thinking every day - a politics example might be an enlightened centrist who erroneously assumes that both the Democrats and the Republicans are right about some things and wrong about others simply because they're being intellectually lazy and assuming that to be the case.

But then this article's solution to that is to essentially to tell the reader that they should be intellectually lazy, by yielding their opinions to Wikipedia and Google. Think about the given example for a few moments and you'll see what I mean - Caulfield instantly assumes when he sees that Robert F Kennedy Jr is listed as an anti-vaccine activist that that is a bad thing and reason to write RFK off as a source, but fucking obviously somebody who is skeptical of vaccines is going to see that exact same information and come to a completely different conclusion. People have different ideas about who is and is not biased, and that's not even considering the fact that people in different camps on these issues are literally getting different Google results because the algorithm learns what you like and gives you that.

:19: :84:

real ignorance is strength vibes

deleted by creator

Libs doing more to convert people into chuds than chuds ever could

STOP THINKING ITS DANGERUS

Article isn't loading for me. If this is about people suddenly becoming experts on immunology and deciding they won't get the vaccine because they did their own research, then it's a good point presented horribly. If it's about anything else :cringe:

deleted by creator

an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded

Mr. Caulfield thinks your a phony. Better check wiki.

:parenti:

So when china just bans harmful speech because even the discourse scarrs the mind you complain. But look where thst left them.

I wish the world would explode already