Jimmy Lats
MostlyHarmlessY'all remember, before the internet, when people thought the source of stupidity was lack of access to information? Yeah. It wasn't that.
Adrienne LaCava@MostlyHarmless Discernment requires better developed reading/listening abilities. What’s the buzz phrase—critical thinking skills?
jcristovao@adriennelacava @MostlyHarmless This right here.
We have a natural bias to 'believe stuff'. If school doesn't teach us to apply critical thinking and to not take all our input from the same 'political group' it has failed us, no matter what skills we might have memorized.
There are of course others that know what they are doing and are just cynical and manipulative, but I believe those to be a very vocal minority (but happy to be shown a study proving otherwise ;) )
Watchcat 🐈@MostlyHarmless
Words so true have rarely been spoken.
Words so true have rarely been spoken.
Kasey Smith 
@MostlyHarmless We were so sure of it at the time 😭
Whiskers 🇦🇺@MostlyHarmless #Iodine deficiency
Arthur Dent@MostlyHarmless
My fear is that it is very simple: the reason for stupidity is stupidity.
My fear is that it is very simple: the reason for stupidity is stupidity.
Doug@adamsfan @MostlyHarmless
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from “After Ten Years” :
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.
Against stupidity we are defenseless.
https://nsjonline.com/article/2021/12/bonhoeffer-on-stupidity/
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from “After Ten Years” :
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.
Against stupidity we are defenseless.
https://nsjonline.com/article/2021/12/bonhoeffer-on-stupidity/
BONHOEFFER: On stupidity | The North State Journal
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against st
Urban Hermit@adamsfan @MostlyHarmless
My definition of stupidity is any two of three things:
ignorance+arrogance,
ignorance+apathy,
arrogance+apathy.
Any one can be forgiven in the right circumstance, but in combination they lock up to protect the ego from accepting change, and that is unforgivable.
synlogic@MostlyHarmless related phenom: Trump got more American votes in 2020 than in 2016
really think about what that implies for about 50% of the country. 50% of voters, sure but still
2020 voters had MUCH more data and observational evidence about Trump and what hed be like as a US President by 2020 than they did in 2016
more voters said "yeah gimme 4 more years of Donald rather than having to risk... *checks notes* ... Joe Biden!"
frightening insanity and imbecility in huge % of USA
Gordon J Holtslander@MostlyHarmless The willfully ignorant have a near infinite supply of ignorance to choose from. It’s limited only by the suspicion and uncertainty that surrounds everyone and everything. Ignorance is effortless, knowledge and understanding is difficult challenging work.
Artemisia Vulgaris@MostlyHarmless I still think it is, to some extent. Lack of access to good information, anyway. Not because verifiable facts aren’t out there, but because there’s so much showy garbage in the way.
The omnivore’s dilemma of data.
The omnivore’s dilemma of data.
mav 
*bone-deep sigh*
Yeah 
Blotreport: YES@MostlyHarmless The information was always there (in libraries), it is just that the dummies were too thick to find it. Now the information is a few keystrokes away and the dummies are still too thick to find it.
James Russell@MostlyHarmless Hahaha yeah the Internet just gave stupidity a bullhorn.
Ren@MostlyHarmless at the time it possibly was, at least in part. Nowadays it's more about access to correct information and understanding... and possibly the interest to work out the difference.
𖢉𖥣ꛚ𖢉𖠢𖦪𖦪𖥣ꛘ
Paul-Gabriel Wiener@MostlyHarmless Ignorance is the root of many problems. But it's not just a matter of lack of access to information. What you need is reliable information, and the skills to sift it from the noise and falsehoods.
Xerz 💗@WearsHats @MostlyHarmless ......and the will to value truth over the ideology of your environment, and doing the work needed to learn what's true or not
so basically ignorance is only solved with people who give a shit
so basically ignorance is only solved with people who give a shit
Phil Thane ✅@MostlyHarmless I was a teacher 1974-97 and soon noticed that some people are just stupid. And then I went out of the staff room and meet the kids.
Jose GarciaThere was plenty of information available before the internet. We had great library systems and lots of investigative journalism.
Ibly 🏳️⚧️ 
@MostlyHarmless honestly i think the presence of an abundance of information has made people stupider
because people have the impression that because they can look up anything they want, they're inherently smarter. and then they proceed to look up information that confirms their biases, and nothing else.
Ricki Yasha Tarr@MostlyHarmless Turns out they weren't just ignorant...
Jeff Shaffer CBET, ret@RickiTarr @MostlyHarmless I’ve found them to be intentionally obtuse.
🅱🅻🆄🅴🅱️
Amanda Hugankiss@MostlyHarmless too many are more interested in discovering what kind of donut they are
@MostlyHarmless Ignorance is effortless, it’s the choice many make. How long does the easier path go before it’s too narrow and steep to turn around, and too deep to see another?
Crazy Pony@MostlyHarmless
hmmmmmmmmmm
Maybe it IS right
I remember the early internet and it WAS a great source of informations and people found the resources to teach themself
Its lore like, i feel that todays we non langer have this <internet> full of <information> but instead a colelction of walled gardens with echo chambers, information disappeared unserachable, and people spent time addicted to entertainment videoclips
Maybe it would have killed stupidity if we still have a serious internet
Alakest@MostlyHarmless The first thing to grapple with is the imprecision and abused connotations of the word "information" when it used without careful context.
I'd be tempted to use a term like "wisdom" or "knowledge", but those terms have been also colonized to the brink of uselessness too.
No intended disrespect to drunk uncles or Thanksgiving, but the quip reminds me of the folksy "wisdom" that most of us recognize.
Perhaps as an inquiry-terminating, hierarchy-friendly trope.
James Widman@MostlyHarmless to be fair though, google search doesn't work anymore, so in effect we've gradually lost access to information over the past decade-ish
Miakoda 
Andreas K@MostlyHarmless Ah, but does the Internet provide access to information?
You'll find that information, valuable, validated information, happens to be on the Internet quite often behind a paywall.
That starts with quality journalism, but especially is bothersome when you click around and want to check some, and Elsevier or one of its brothers in spirit want €40 for a single scientific article.
@MostlyHarmless
So what has the Internet changed? The speed you could access good information, if you have the money. Or if you have the skills and the time to filter through the gigantic heap of not so tasty s%!t to figure out what is correct and what is fake.
Especially the creation of bullshit and biased (at best) or totally wrong and misleading (at worst) information has actually sped up with the Internet.
Daniel Burke@MostlyHarmless It's so good that we are actively killing the humanities at universities now too. Why understand things when you can just manipulate them to make numbers go up.
BrandonN@MostlyHarmless This is speculation but I think the issue is while there is so much good information easily accessible now, there is also so much bad, and too many people are not good at separating the two and identifying when information is bad. It doesn't matter the medium they get the information. They believe it all anyway. And then end up in an echo chamber after looking at enough bad information as it becomes automatically tailored to them.