Idiocracy has become a documentary.
Masters degree in AI here.
Every day I feel like medical specialist during highest anti-vax craze. No matter what I say, no matter what kinda research and articles I cite social media and advertising simply scream louder and more often.
Maybe if the people in control of AI weren’t quite literally the most evil people currently on the planet, more people would understand. Also the fact that they’re all trying to cram it into every aspect of our lives, despite it being a demonstrable failure doesn’t help.
Says someone on alt right pedo platform Twitter. He’s not wrong, but come on. The irony.
With a blue check. Which means they paid the pedo techno fascist.
Therapist here w/ Masters. Sick of life coaches.
That is one of the most damaging scams in existence. Any jackhole can hang out a sign and call themselves a life coach. They are the homeopaths and chiropractors of psychology.
I feel like pointing at “influencers” and putting the blame on them isn’t really correct. They are probably more of a symptom.
Whose fault is it that some random blogger is being treated the same as people who studied something for decades?
E.g. the media owned by the rich or the governments
bought“lobbied” by the rich.A few crazy people will always exist, but currently the “inmates are running the asylum” and they actively promote this garbage. Just look at RFK.
People so fragile they can’t live with the idea other people might be smarter than they are
Spot on, this is literally how society rotted away.
Nope, that was unfettered capitalism.
People so fragile they can’t live with the idea other people might be smarter than they are
Need to be ridiculed, and their opinions ignored.
The thing is, expertise can manifest as tyranny.
Rather than using education to find our way around this and equalize power, we’ve just made stupid-fascism and expert hegemony because everyone with certification is sick of a guy on Facebook who describes himself as a ‘ball tanning influencer’ telling them their 20 years as senior person at the CDC on the front lines of epidemiology and decade of med school are worth nothing.
We must never improve. Nothing must ever improve.
Even the fucking witches know to trust the virologists
I like the witches who tell people to buy carbon monoxide detectors. One time I told a patient with abusive auditory hallucinations that her nighttime zyprexa was gonna shut the stupid bastard up and she was welcome to ascribe whatever spiritual interpretation she liked to that.
Holy shit yes. Everybody thinks they’re smarter then everybody else. That’s a huge part of the problem. Nobody can just stay in their lane and admit anymore that a person with a PhD in a specific field might know a little more about that field than you. Even the educated now think they’re the smartest person on the planet.
You 100% should not trust:
- An epidemiologist’s opinion on inflation
- A civil engineer’s opinion on viral spread
- An economist’s opinion on traffic flow
They’re just as guilty of this bullshit as everyone else. It’s everybody. The whole fucking planet at this point.
It wasn’t always this way, though — general education standards have been severely eroded. There was a point in time where you could trust that a civil engineer would have the general knowledge required to understand what they don’t know — thus leaving the decision to better educated minds.
There are so many things wrong about how we teach each other in the U.S., and wrong with how we perceive being taught. So many people believe that unwarranted advice is the worst fucking crime imaginable, or that correcting someone’s spelling/grammar is a shitty thing to do. So many people are so innately positioned against learning that it’s no fucking wonder why your anesthesiologist has 0 fucking clue what the nation should do regarding immigration. Totally ignorant of the fact that they should absolutely be intelligent enough to come to the correct answers; at the very least they should be able to listen to those who come backed with facts and verify their veracity at a later point.
I have no idea what should I can do about it beyond being a grammar nazi. /endrant
an economist’s opinion on traffic flow
An economist’s opinion
Ftfy
Economist here. This is pretty much the anti-intellectualism that everyone here is talking about and this is the opinion I’ve seen constantly on Lemmy.
Most people have no idea what it is that I do and think it’s something to do with making billionaires more money. It isn’t and it never has been and it hasn’t been for anyone that I’ve kept in contact with from any of my classes.
You don’t have to be involved in financial matters to be an economist either. We’re more involved in finding out root causes and impacts in certain fields.
There it is though.
An actual “Economist” will have a Masters in Economics at the least or a PhD in Economics at the research level.
So I would and should indeed trust an economist on matters of economics more than anyone should trust, well, you on matters of economics.
You just proved the point of the post. Unless I missed that you are an economist and are poking fun at yourself…
Also people think being smarter means knowing more, which is stupid. A guy who spent thousands of hours studying random topic is obviously going to know more about it, no matter how smart you are it just doesn’t replace time spent learning
I’m sure you can find many people with MDs that aren’t above peddling snake oil.
Yes, but the barrier to entry is much much higher. Also, we should trust licensed MDs, and if they are a public nuisance (eg, “vaccines cause autism!” nonsense), they should lose that license, and thus the trust.
Dr Oz.
Ugh. I have Medicare so I get notices from Dr. Oz on occasion.
Yes but the percentage would be much lower.
Also, an MD isn’t necessarily a virologist or vaccine expert. I mean, you really shouldn’t ask an ortho bro about anything but bones and joints. So I doubt MD necessarily means “elite”.
That’s not elitism.
I see the point, but I don’t think intellectual elitism is the same as anti-anti-intellectualism. I think intellectual elitism creates a sense of alienation from science that in fact leads to anti-intellectualism. “I have more specialized knowledge than you” is not the same as “I’m better than you,” and acknowledging that is the solution
I see the point, but I don’t think intellectual elitism is the same as anti-anti-intellectualism. I think intellectual elitism creates a sense of alienation from science that in fact leads to anti-intellectualism.
That is just the inferiorily informed trying to justify their lack of knowledge by calling the people more knowledgeable than they are in that field “elitism”.
In the modern day, They could EASILY educate themselves with the actual current and up to date scientific research, the internet exists.
The fact that they would rather “educate” themselves with populist YouTube bullshit videos that simply validate their incorrect beliefs instead of looking up the actual research papers that are 100% **ALSO available on the internet ** is entirely their fault and no one else’s, you can’t blame the fact that they won’t read the research on “elitism”
You can’t blame anyone for being unable to sift through jargon.
In the modern day, They could EASILY educate themselves with the actual current and up to date scientific research, the internet exists.
The people putting out actual scientific information are not rewarded for making their information easy to digest for the uneducated. They’re rewarded for publishing scientific papers in journals that are read by other scientists.
I don’t know about you, but I very rarely read scientific papers, especially in a field that isn’t one I know well. Even if you know the field well there are all kinds of terms and math that mean reading a paper is hard. If you don’t know the field, even understanding the terminology they use is a huge challenge. It’s not realistic to expect someone with only a high school education to read papers.
Making media that appeals to, and is easily digested by regular people is a completely different skill set. Some people doing that actually care about real science. There are heroes who spend their time reading and digesting scientific papers so that they can explain them to regular people. But, there seem to be far more people who just make shit up that they know will go viral. If you’re a product of the Mississippi educational system, you probably can’t tell the difference between a legitimate science communicator and an asshole who’s making shit up to go viral. For every David Attenborough, there are probably a dozen Dr. Mercolas. And, let’s not forget that one of the most well known scientists writing about honesty and ethical behaviour was found to have plagiarized her research. So, even if you were reading scientific papers she’d written you might have been misled.
I think they’re joking about the elitism part. People just need to stop to listen to idiots
completely tangential, but this is actually an interesting grammatical point. I’m guessing you’re German by your username; “stop to listen to idiots” would mean “aufhören, um Idioten zuzuhören.” “aufhören Idioten zuzuhören” would be “stop listening to idiots.” it’s interesting because “to [verb]” and “[verb]ing” are often interchangeable, but in this case they actually mean the opposite
Richtig, danke.
I understood absolutely zero of the German, but for other non native English speakers who didn’t pick up on the issue here:
The usual phrase here would be “stop listening to idiots”. The sentence that was used, “stop to listen to idiots” means the contrary, that you’ll stop what you’re doing so that you can listen to what the idiot has to say.
Which is a valid option, but an ill advised one.
For the non-Germans who want to know the source of the confusion: It’s basically the same sentence structure in German meaning something different than in English.
to has distinct meanings in “I want to listen to them” and “you should stop to listen to them”. In the first sentence, it’s effectively an article for the activity “listen to them”. In the second sentence, it implies an intent, which could be made explicit like “stop in order to listen to me”.
English uses the progressive (“stop listening”) to disambiguate with words like stop. German instead uses an additional preposition “um” for the intent meaning of to.
(In this case, the meaning difference between “interrupting something” and “stop for good” also has different words, “anhalten” and “aufhören”).
Word for word, “Aufhören zuzuhören” would mean “stop to listen”, but actually means “stop listening” while “stop to listen” would be correctly translated as “anhalten, um zuzuhören”.
The issue is that anti-intellectualists think that the very concept of knowing more than them about any given topic is elitism.
My conspiracy theorist mom would go on and on about how her spending an afternoon googling something put her ideas at a higher level than someone who got a degree studying it, and if I agreed with the person with the degree, then I was an idiot for not following her. She thought that right up until she died trying to treat her cancer with quack therapies.
Regardless of whether we frame it as “I’m better than you because I know more than you,” the anti-intellectualists will still be framing it as “I’m better than you because my ‘gut feeling’ knows more than you.” It’s a competition to them, not because someone told them they were lesser, but because they already believed they were greater.
My mom is on that path, but still alive. She won’t drink regular tap water because she’s scared of fluoride. She no longer believes germs exist. She won’t get vaccinated or get flu shots (and won’t vaccinate her dog either). Her “doctor” is an hour’s drive away because she had to search far and wide for one who wasn’t part of the “big medicine” conspiracy.
It’s all so exhausting.
Well at least your anti vaccine mom is dead
There are way too many people like her who exist
They are better than them, at that thing, and if you don’t defer, then they have every right to scoff at the stupidity before them.
They want this same elitism. They want to have their own special secret knowledge only they (and a small handful of internet people “in the know”) have access to. This makes them feel special and superior.
Humans feeling a need to impose a hierarchy where they sit at the very top is why we can’t have nice things
Well then they should just join a mystery cult or practice alchemy
Right, but people will call nearly anything elitism these days. The reason schools don’t offer accelerated learning programs for students who aren’t challenged by the average coursework is because people were calling that type of thing elitist.
Instead, now we put the upper quartile in the same classes as the lower quartile so that nobody receives the particular level and kind of attention that they need, and everyone is held to “average” whether they’re predisposed to be above that expectation or below it.
If someone is talented at a sport, people shower them with praise and give them full rides to college. If someone is talented at math or writing, people tell them to be a team player and stop surpassing their peers by so far. Merit-based scholarships are rare nowadays too, so good luck going to a top university just because you excel at your subjects…
Merit-based scholarships are rare nowadays too, so good luck going to a top university just because you excel at your subjects…
At least that is not true.
'The rest of it is, highschools are an enforcer of conformity and woe be to anyone that bends the curve.When I was applying for financial aid I kept being told “We don’t offer merit-based scholarships. Everything is need-based and you’re considered for it automatically. No need to apply for one.”
There might be some for STEM fields, but rarely a full ride. More like a $1000 discount on your tuition each semester, which leaves you with only about several dozen thousand of debt by the time you graduate…
Except these programs are literally known to be abused by the elite for their benefit. It’s not elitist to want evidenced-based support for low income high achieving kids, and for that support not to be diverted to upper-middle class kids who don’t need it.
Merit based and sports scholarships are well-known to be specifically designed to attract upper middle class kids because of the benefit they have of tutors, coaches, and extensive personalized guidance through their entire schooling. Actually this is the exact reason top universities prefer need-based financial aid; they don’t need the extra money merit-based scholarships are known to bring. Low income kids tend to struggle navigating admissions systems and financial aid on their own in general, and these particular programs, especially the sports scholarships, don’t make themselves very accessible to prospective applicants.
I haven’t seen whatever studies have been done on accelerated learning programs, so I don’t know if they help/hurt anyone conclusively, but I will say from personal experience being both included and excluded from them, I absolutely hated them from both angles. If you test into them, you’re doing extra work and being segregated (with a target on your back for bullies) from your classmates. If you don’t test into them, but you learn at a faster pace than the average, you’re literally gatekept from the advanced material even if you want to learn it. I think what would do worlds of difference is bringing respect back to teaching by hiring more teachers and paying them more which would allow for more individualized learning, so each child gets their educational needs met without unnecessary segregation.
If you want to do further reading, there’s a lot of very passionate people who have dedicated themselves to this topic for decades. This is a slightly outdated, but seemingly comprehensive report I just found online, section 5 is specifically on systemic admissions hurdles for low income kids: https://www.jkcf.org/research/true-merit-ensuring-our-brightest-students-have-access-to-our-best-colleges-and-universities/
Just because merit-based scholarships are abused in the current system to disproportionally benefit the privileged doesn’t mean the concept of merit-based scholarships is flawed as a whole. Our system is caste-based and everything is designed to give the advantage to the oligarchy and their offspring. Pointing out that that includes how financial aid is divvied out isn’t much of an argument against financial aid, in my opinion.
Also, arguing that merit-based scholarships can’t benefit the students from low-income families is kinda fallacious, and very patronizing. Bright minds can come from low-income households. And those minds should receive merit-based scholarships, even if the way “merit” is determined needs to change.
And I never said we should get rid of need-based scholarships. I think those should be available for everyone who can’t afford tuition and fees (including dorm, books, meal plan, etc.) as long as they meet the minimum requirements for attendance (sorry, but if you can’t even write complete sentences then that needs to be remediated before you attend college. That’s not elitist (although I have seen people say that it is), it’s just a basic standard).
But in addition to need-based, there should be full rides available to the brightest minds in each field. And I don’t care if they have to take scholarships away from athletes in order to make it possible. College is about education, ffs, they should prioritize academics. They shouldn’t be profiting off of the exertions and injuries of their unpaid student athletes anyway.
Maybe the top 5% of every major, not based on standardized testing but maybe grades and a written essay, or each department could offer an entry test catered to their subject to determine internally who the top 5% first-years are. If someone receiving one drops below the top 10% at any point in their studies, they lose the scholarship and it goes to the next best in that subject for their year.
Like, there’s a way to do it without just subsidizing the tuition for the already-wealthy. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
And no, lumping the highest achievers and the lowest achievers into the same class does not benefit anybody, the teachers included. And it only further advantages the wealthy who can afford to send their children to private schools where they actually receive the particular kind of attention they need. Forcing everyone else into gen pop at public schools is a disadvantage, both for the higher quartiles and the lower quartiles.
Q2 and Q3 can be considered average and take up the largest part of the bell curve. They can all be in the standard classes and receive the basic level of attention and education. Q1 and Q4 both need smaller class sizes with different kinds of attention in order to thrive and achieve their fullest potential.
The top quartile needs more challenging coursework and a faster pace where they can cover more ground each year and be more advanced subjects by year 12. They also need closer mentorship where they can be encouraged to ask deeper questions and investigate answers and a level that would be unnecessary and cumbersome to the average student.
The bottom quartile need a slower pace, simpler subjects, and a teacher who can take the time to ELI5 everything, often multiple times. The rest of the students shouldn’t be held back to the level these students can achieve, and it’s unfair to these students to expect them to keep up with the pace of the average student.
And expecting teachers to juggle all three types of student in one class with 30-40 students in it is unfair as well. You don’t have to convince me that society needs more respect for teachers, needs to pay them better and hire more, or even needs to fund higher education so that more people can afford master’s degrees in teaching (thus expanding the pool of available teachers). I already believe all that, and pretending that that somehow contradicts my arguments for merit-based scholarships and accelerated learning programs, is kinda disingenuous.
But:
I think what would do worlds of difference is bringing respect back to teaching by hiring more teachers and paying them more which would allow for more individualized learning, so each child gets their educational needs met without unnecessary segregation.
No, I disagree with that. Those are necessary steps, yes, and should absolutely be taken. But that alone won’t “allow for more individualized learning” if you still lump every student into the same classes. Teachers need to be able to cater their lesson plans to the abilities of their students, and that becomes impossible when you lump all four quartiles into the same classes. Part of “respecting teachers” means giving them the freedom to do that by placing students according to their abilities. Also, by hiring more teachers you make it possible to have smaller class sizes, particularly for the upper and lower quartiles which need specialized attention.
I was one of those “gifted children” according to every assessment I was subject to.
In my shitty crab bucket of an ex-mining town, “no child was left behind”. Meaning, every “top set” class has two or three knuckle dragging cunts whose every waking thought appeared to be “How can I be as much of a disruptive prick as possible?”
This led to 90% of our lessons being taken up by the poor teacher having to basically babysit three animals intent on destroying equipment and furnishings while we taught ourselves.
These dickhead should have all been in a remedial class together, where they could be taught at a level they all understood, with a length of 2"x2" as far as I give a fuck.
Edit: Those of us that didn’t give a shit about fucking football, or in fact were different in any way, shape, or form, had a huge bullseye already painted on us. Having the bullies in all of our classes just made it worse, there was no escape.
Intellectual elitism is absolutely not what we’re missing, we’re missing respect for expertise
Could just say we need to get rid of anti-intellectualism but has to be phrased in the most provocative way possible because it’s on social media 🙄
No, we need to reform the education system and make studying affordable. So Joe Schmo, your weird uncle and all the Yoga Mommy’s can go to university and find out exactly how they measure up to the rest of the country. And maybe in the process they can make some good friends and learn something about themselves.
That sounds like “getting rid of anti-intellectualism,” and the literal opposite of “intellectual elitism.”
The big problem is that we’re not just up against plain stupidity, we’re also up against organised and weaponised stupidity that is being enabled and fanned by those in power and the media, and also their billionaire backer donors, who want to drag us all the way back to the medieval ages.
That’s much more sadistic and worse than plain stupidity which we are all guilty of from time to time until we learn better. With organised and weaponised stupidity, they don’t want us to learn better, because our ignorance benefits their wallets.
This.
If they revert us to the Dark Ages with mobile phones, the working class will never learn anything other than service to the upper class.
