[wldlyinaccurate]

> Here’s an idea... if you don’t like what somebody writes online, don’t read it.

The problem isn't that people "don't like" what elected officials say. It's that people often take what elected officials say as truth without even considering that it might be false (they must be Smart and Good if they're in office, right?)

Fact checking and censoring prominent figures isn't going to affect people who already have strongly held beliefs. But it will make a difference to people who are impressionable or vulnerable or don't know any better.

[raarts]

> is that people often take what elected officials say as truth

Well educate them on that instead of trying to control the information flow. History taught us that will always backfire.

[herenorthere]

that is exactly what Twitter has done. they didn't block Trump's tweet, they added a box basically saying "be weary of this statement you should fact check it"

[dguaraglia]

There's a catch: the people doing most of the lying are the same that have worked for decades to destroy public education.

[ggreer]

Is it true that public education is being destroyed? I'm having trouble finding metrics by which it has declined. In terms of budget, 4.1% of US GDP is government expenditure on education. For comparison: Japan is 2.9%, Canada 4.3%, UK 4.3%. This number hasn't changed much. Over the past 20 years it has fluctuated between 4.1% and 4.7% of GDP.[1] There might be a slight downward trend, but if there is it has followed most of the other developed countries.

The US is a rich country. If anything, using percentage of GDP understates just how much we spend on education. For primary & secondary education (everything before college), there are only four countries in the world that spend more per student than the US: Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, and Norway. For post-secondary education (college and grad school), the US spends more per student than any other country.[2]

If you look at other metrics such as the percentage of adults with college degrees, or the percentage of adults who graduate high school, the US has never done better.[3][4] If you look at PISA scores, we're very close to the OECD average and that number hasn't changed much over time.[5] (Like most developed countries, absolute scores have slowly decreased over time. It's not clear why this is happening.)

If people have been working for decades to destroy public education, they're doing a very bad job of it.

1. https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/public-spending-on-educati...

2. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

3. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-51....

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St...

[raarts]

> Like most developed countries, absolute scores have slowly decreased over time. It's not clear why this is happening.

I teach in college. I was born early sixties. My daughter teaches math in high school. Recently I showed her my math books from my old high school. Her response: No way that my students could follow this.

Where I teach we have to give extra classes in basic math (I'm in STEM).

We're definitely sliding. Reading seems to be sliding worse even.

By the way, I don't think there is much of a correlation between how much a country spends on education and the quality of it.

[matz1]

>It's that people often take what elected officials say as truth without even considering that it might be false

I'll defend their right to be stupid.

[sixstringtheory]

You’d expend effort to prevent people from learning? A democracy requires an educated electorate, so you are anti-democracy?

[matz1]

>You’d expend effort to prevent people from learning?

I won't prevent people from learning rather I won't force them to learn if that what they prefer.

>A democracy requires an educated electorate, so you are anti-democracy?

Democracy doesn't require an educated electorate, it only require majority. If the majority is 'stupid' (stupid is relative) then stupid it is.

[sixstringtheory]

So do you think putting a link to more info next to a presidents tweet is “forcing” people to learn?

A democracy ruled by an ignorant majority winds up as authoritarian, but you already knew what that quote I paraphrased means. Keep deflecting.

[matz1]

>So do you think putting a link to more info next to a presidents tweet is “forcing” people to learn

No, unless you force somebody to put that link.

>A democracy ruled by an ignorant majority winds up as authoritaria

If majority wants authoritarian then authoritarian it is, thats democracy.