[mistermann]

How about this: first teach advanced critical thinking skills, so people have the skills (if not the will, that's another problem) necessary to see through propaganda from both sides.

I have a feeling a lot of people would have issues with this approach though.

[moduspol]

How do you teach critical thinking?

[Retra]

By giving people things to think critically about, and ensuring that they respond in an appropriately thoughtful manner.

Of course this doesn't work when politics is taboo.

[verylittlemeat]

I think emotional maturity is more important than critical thinking. People in our culture have this life or death anxiety over being right, especially in social groups. You see it all the time on social media. Person 1 makes a throwaway facebook post which contains some kind of factual error. Person 2 points this out. Person 1 feels personally attacked and becomes emotionally invested in "winning." The more pushback person 1 gets the more stand their ground and will scorch the earth to save face. Where is all this intellectual insecurity coming from?

[jstarfish]

It comes from the fact that when you say anything incorrect online, there's an infinite number of people who will call you out on it. Your intellect is always on trial. You have to convince a jury of the entire planet that your opinion is valid.

Take the same comment or opinion and air it among three friends in person (or a very tight social network). You only need to convince two or three people who likely trust and respect you already, and who are not inclined to want to spend an infinite number of hours debating such trivia across all time zones.

[verylittlemeat]

Why not just engage in conversations on the principle of charity and good faith. There's also the concept of steel manning other peoples arguments to help extend good faith.

Not every conversation has to become a burned bridges and salt the earth affair. If the other person is just trying to "win" then disengage from the argument. If the other person is arguing with you in good faith then maybe you're wrong or have something to learn from a new perspective.

[krapp]

But... an infinite number of people aren't reading every page on the web, all the time. Even on Reddit, you're only really interacting with the limited subset of users who choose to comment, out of the limited subset who read a thread - which is still possibly bigger than a circle of friends, but smaller than any significant fraction of the human population.

There is the perception that "the entire world" is watching you on the web, criticizing your every move, but that's not a fact.

[moduspol]

I guess I'm just not sure what the curriculum would look like. Is there something you could point to as an example of a course doing this well?

[mistermann]

I would start with someone who is skilled in both critical thinking and education, or am I misunderstanding the question?

Logical fallacies would be one place to start, you can see examples of this all day long on reddit for example.

[moduspol]

Well, my understanding is that "critical thinking" is already very commonly considered to be part of various course curricula. If it's not being taught, then we'd need to do something differently.

I've been hearing claims of the need to teach "critical thinking" since I was in high school. To me it always came across as one of those things that can't easily be taught, particularly in a traditional academic setting. Everyone agrees it should be taught, but if there were a clear way of doing it, we would.

[mistermann]

There's plenty of material out there that isn't remotely touched upon in a traditional education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_logic

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/

https://distancelearning.ubc.ca/courses-and-programs/distanc...

> If it's not being taught, then we'd need to do something differently.

When reading the news, forums, or overhearing conversations, do you not regularly encounter people who obviously have no significant skills in critical thinking?

[moduspol]

> There's plenty of material out there that isn't remotely touched upon in a traditional education.

Right. I took a logic class for my undergraduate degree. It's actually the source of the "modus" in my username. I guess to me that's a far cry from what people refer to as "critical thinking." Being able to identify textbook logical fallacies isn't the same thing as rationally and objectively forming a judgment about something.

It's certainly a helpful part, but I doubt most would remember it any better than geometry or 1800s history.

> When reading the news, forums, or overhearing conversations, do you not regularly encounter people who obviously have no significant skills in critical thinking?

I do, but it's rarely a clear-cut example of misunderstanding a logical fallacy. More often than not, it's the blind acceptance of supporting evidence while rejecting opposing evidence. Or assigning way too much value to a poorly-sourced news story. Or approaching the issue with a different worldview / values. Or any number of other biases that affect decision-making.

To be clear, though: I agree it's clearly not being taught. I'm just not convinced you can take a bunch of high schoolers, put them in a room, and after X weeks of doing something, they'll be critical thinkers. I agree you could probably teach them logical fallacies well enough to pass a test on them, but that's not the same thing.

[mistermann]

Do you think we've reached the absolute apex of having a well-informed citizenry?

If not, if critical thinking doesn't work, what could we do to improve this situation?

[rorykoehler]

Philosophy

[dsacco]

You’d think that, but Wittgenstein minted his career on calling philosophers out for not thinking critically enough in debates.