alt Hacker NewsPeople aren't going to learn to be skeptical or think critically because we've been literally removing that from the curriculum in schools. How can someone be skeptical of something if they don't even know how to be skeptical?
Social media runs rampant with a form of skepticism, but I would call that closer to paranoia than critical thinking, and I don't think it's really being helpful in the same way.
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I see this as directly correlated with the gradual denigration of liberal arts education, a core tenet of which is critical thinking.
The system will never tell you how to escape from the system. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
"Critical thinking" was never really taught in schools. It was always just training in how to dismiss any proposition by "criticizing" it selectively, with a heavy bias towards criticizing anything outside the system, and a token zone of approved disagreement to convince yourself that you really are free to disagree with things.
I think contemporary events force people to be skeptical. For one generation it was the Vietnam War, the dissonance between what generals were saying and what was happening on the ground. Another generation had that happen with WMDs in Iraq. I think many in this generation had it happen with "2 weeks to flatten the curve" and the dissonance between promises made about COVID, the efficacy of lockdowns or the efficacy of vaccines.
> because we've been literally removing that from the curriculum in schools
Do you have any actual evidence of this or is this just more parroting of vibes based history?
Most of the people I know who say things like "School didn't teach me X" were just not paying attention. Turns out, if your society doesn't care about or value education, kids aren't going to pay attention.
Like, some states definitely have mediocre education in a lot of ways, but people will say shit like "Why didn't school teach me how to balance a checkbook" as if school didn't teach them basic arithmetic and the ability to read a single paper of instructions included in your checkbook by middle school.
Or you have people saying "Why didn't school teach me how to understand a loan" as if they didn't learn algebra and how to plug a couple numbers into a calculator right next to me in class.
>> Social media runs rampant with a form of skepticism, but I would call that closer to paranoia than critical thinking
For my generation this was always refered to as a "healthy skepticism", but lately I've noticed many don't necessarily see this as a good trait - an example: any sort of measured, full-picture response to the impact of AI on software development.