[evgen]

> An educated and critically thinking populace who can question and analyze information independently and don't always require authoritive sources

This is quite inaccurate, almost delusionally so. It is the sort of thing well-educated people tell themselves as a way of trying to distinguish themselves from the 'common rubes' who fall victim to obvious propaganda and influence. If we have learned anything over the past five to ten years is is that the educated critical thinking population is just as likely to crawl up their own backside in self-assured certainty that they are right and the so-called authoritative sources are wrong when in fact they are nothing more than Dunning-Kruger replicators. I don't have any answers to offer, but the oft-quoted idea that the solution to misinformation and bad speech is more speech is the biggest lie repeated on HN, and one that continues to have tragic consequences.

[mhoad]

From the point of view from the manipulator they are the best kinds of targets because they are so certain that they would never fall victim to it.

There’s a very specific kind of mentality that conflates I’m smart in one particular area (tech for example) therefore I am smart in general and therefore immune to magical thinking which just as a theory has been blown apart more times than I can imagine, it’s a meme at this point.

[Frost1x]

>If we have learned anything over the past five to ten years is is that the educated critical thinking population is just as likely to crawl up their own backside in self-assured certainty that they are right and the so-called authoritative sources are wrong when in fact they are nothing more than Dunning-Kruger replicators.

I too hear this quip often on HN and I see no foundation for it at all. Part of being educated and having an ability to think critically is to question your own assumptions and be willing to change them. To look at evidence and reevaluate, to experiment and test. It's the process science uses to dig through the unknown and uncertainty to find nuggets of truth and separate the mistakes and lies. It's slow and in the absence of analysis you shouldn't rush to conclusions. An often tell tale sign of misinformation/disinformation at play is pushing a false sense of urgency to persuade people to make decisions without thinking and often simply lean or what's beibg projected as an authorative answer.

I'm not speaking about those who think they're informed and ready to combat persuasion but are just entrenched in their own perhaps false viewpoints, say the antivaxers of recent times. Being truly educated in this domain is understanding that you might actually be wrong or are susceptible for persuasion, acknowledging what you do and don't know, figuring out what the information is saying and potential motives of it, and be willing to check to see if you are wrong and change your views if so.

[mistermann]

> I too hear this quip often on HN and I see no foundation for it at all.

Strange, I see large quantities of it on HN on a very regular basis - what could explain this apparent paradox? Is it that you haven't read any of the same threads as me, and all the threads you've read are completely devoid of instances of the phenomenon, or might there be something else going on?

> Part of being educated and having an ability to think critically is to question your own assumptions and be willing to change them.

This is certainly reasonable advice, but I suspect it is much(!) harder than people who advise this approach think.

> To look at evidence and reevaluate, to experiment and test. It's the process science uses to dig through the unknown and uncertainty to find nuggets of truth and separate the mistakes and lies. It's slow and in the absence of analysis you shouldn't rush to conclusions.

Science (the scientific process) is excellent, but I regularly encounter people people who sincerely perceive themselves to be Scientific Thinkers who are....not very good at the process they hold in such high regard. I sometimes wonder if the current fashion of ~worshipping science and scientists might be causing some harm in addition to the good that (I presume) it is doing.

> An often tell tale sign of misinformation/disinformation at play is pushing a false sense of urgency to persuade people to make decisions without thinking and often simply lean or what's being projected as an authoritative answer.

I agree, but this is also a fairly common talking point that you can find in conspiracy forums, do you believe those people are righteous in using this methodology?

> I'm not speaking about those who think they're informed and ready to combat persuasion but are just entrenched in their own perhaps false viewpoints, say the antivaxers of recent times.

Personally, I think this is doing it wrong. Rather than constantly amuse ourselves beating up on strawman caricatures of the (often virtual) members of our outgroups, I think it would be better to focus our critical eyes on those who actually are relatively(!) "informed and ready to combat persuasion", and realize how rare it is even among the best of the best to find thinking that is completely without flaw....maybe then we would learn something new about the true complexity of thinking and perception, and perhaps then have the ability to develop some educational countermeasures to the tricky cognitive phenomenon that plagues each one of us.

> Being truly educated in this domain is understanding that you might actually be wrong or are susceptible for persuasion, acknowledging what you do and don't know, figuring out what the information is saying and potential motives of it, and be willing to check to see if you are wrong and change your views if so.

These are fine ideas, but there is much more to it than this.