I hear lots of libertarian types say things like “we've become a society wholly dependent on “experts” for everything”.
I really wish that were true, but the reality is quite the opposite. The internet has made everyone an armchair expert and this is bringing western democracy to a rather dangerous place. Carl Sagan said... "The dumbing down … is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
The invention of the printing press revolutionized information by making knowledge available to just about everyone (once they’d learned to read), but for a century or two the printed word could only come from voices of authority. Churches, universities, journalists, and publishers were the ones who distributed the information. If you read something printed on a page, you knew that it had been vetted or verified in some way by an institution of some kind.
The internet has turned this on its head.
Now, @milf_gremlin387 can churn out content and distribute it much more effectively than the Oxford Press, the Washington Post, or the New England Journal of Medicine. We can pick and choose our facts and live in completely separate information bubbles to each other. People choose whichever reality they like best, and lies are rewarded if they’re more entertaining or convenient, while there’s no reward for sticking to the truth. Joe Rogan attracts an audience of 11 million each and every episode.
By far the most susceptible to this stupidification are the baby boomers, who have no natural defense against BS. This is most evident when we look at America’s Trump supporters. Baby boomers, and even many gen Xers’ brains simply weren’t ready for Facebook.
Millennials and Gen Z don’t have this problem, having grown up with the internet, they’re less likely to fall for nonsense and I believe they’re the ones who’ll save us the great dumbening.
When I say we are dependant on experts for everything, it's a little tongue in cheek since most people don't actually take advice anyway. But we like to think we're following experts because that makes it seem like we know what we're doing.
Of course Sagan is right. In spite of the wealth of information available to every one of us, it still takes work to sort through it all and most people don't want to do that work. This is kind of my point: we don't want to responsibility of figuring things out properly so we just take whatever comes along as gospel truth so long as it has a stamp that we recognize and like.
I really hope you're right about the millenials and gen Z.
You say 'most people don't actually take the advice [of experts] anyway.'
But then you say '...it still takes work to sort through it all and most people don't want to do that work....we don't want to responsibility of figuring things out properly so we just take whatever comes along as gospel truth so long as it has a stamp that we recognize and like.'
So this means we DO default to the experts, or we DON"T ? You appear to be saying both.
My question to you is, when you take a flight on a passenger plane, do you insist on flying the plane yourself, or do you leave it to experts? Surely the 'stamp we recognize and like' has value to you in that situation, so why not in all situations?
I think that that we should always default to the experts, that's how mankind moved from being hunter gatherers to to having modern civilization; we have highly specialized fields of expertise.
People do what they want. All the time. It's a law of nature. If what they want happens to coincide with what some expert is saying, they'll do that. If it doesn't, they won't. How many people quit smoking simply because the doctor says it's bad for them? We usually need a bit more motivation than that. The "stamp" is usually someone we respect and when there's a lack of respect, that stamp is pretty hard to come by.
If I want to sit on my back deck and drink beer in the evening, I'm not going to care much about what the experts think of that, but if I'm going to argue the benefits of it, I'm sure I'll find at least a couple experts that say it's a good idea.
I'm trying to engage with the crux here, the title reads ‘Canadians Are Abdicating Their Independence to the State’, and ‘we've become a society wholly dependent on “experts” for everything, as if we need them to hold our hands as we navigate life. What used to be common sense now requires at least two citations of peer reviewed literature to be considered valid - or at least a blessing from the government.’
You’re saying that we’ve become more dependent on experts, I would say the opposite is true, thanks largely to the internet. And you’re also saying that ‘common sense’ trumps (or should trump) expertise? Yet you’re now saying simply that ‘people do what they want’. So, are they abdicating their independence? Or are they doing what they want, (regardless of useless experts) ?
I hear lots of libertarian types say things like “we've become a society wholly dependent on “experts” for everything”.
I really wish that were true, but the reality is quite the opposite. The internet has made everyone an armchair expert and this is bringing western democracy to a rather dangerous place. Carl Sagan said... "The dumbing down … is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
The invention of the printing press revolutionized information by making knowledge available to just about everyone (once they’d learned to read), but for a century or two the printed word could only come from voices of authority. Churches, universities, journalists, and publishers were the ones who distributed the information. If you read something printed on a page, you knew that it had been vetted or verified in some way by an institution of some kind.
The internet has turned this on its head.
Now, @milf_gremlin387 can churn out content and distribute it much more effectively than the Oxford Press, the Washington Post, or the New England Journal of Medicine. We can pick and choose our facts and live in completely separate information bubbles to each other. People choose whichever reality they like best, and lies are rewarded if they’re more entertaining or convenient, while there’s no reward for sticking to the truth. Joe Rogan attracts an audience of 11 million each and every episode.
By far the most susceptible to this stupidification are the baby boomers, who have no natural defense against BS. This is most evident when we look at America’s Trump supporters. Baby boomers, and even many gen Xers’ brains simply weren’t ready for Facebook.
Millennials and Gen Z don’t have this problem, having grown up with the internet, they’re less likely to fall for nonsense and I believe they’re the ones who’ll save us the great dumbening.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/a-new-study-reveals-surprising-reason-why-every-generation-complains-about-kids-these-days.html
When I say we are dependant on experts for everything, it's a little tongue in cheek since most people don't actually take advice anyway. But we like to think we're following experts because that makes it seem like we know what we're doing.
Of course Sagan is right. In spite of the wealth of information available to every one of us, it still takes work to sort through it all and most people don't want to do that work. This is kind of my point: we don't want to responsibility of figuring things out properly so we just take whatever comes along as gospel truth so long as it has a stamp that we recognize and like.
I really hope you're right about the millenials and gen Z.
You say 'most people don't actually take the advice [of experts] anyway.'
But then you say '...it still takes work to sort through it all and most people don't want to do that work....we don't want to responsibility of figuring things out properly so we just take whatever comes along as gospel truth so long as it has a stamp that we recognize and like.'
So this means we DO default to the experts, or we DON"T ? You appear to be saying both.
My question to you is, when you take a flight on a passenger plane, do you insist on flying the plane yourself, or do you leave it to experts? Surely the 'stamp we recognize and like' has value to you in that situation, so why not in all situations?
I think that that we should always default to the experts, that's how mankind moved from being hunter gatherers to to having modern civilization; we have highly specialized fields of expertise.
People do what they want. All the time. It's a law of nature. If what they want happens to coincide with what some expert is saying, they'll do that. If it doesn't, they won't. How many people quit smoking simply because the doctor says it's bad for them? We usually need a bit more motivation than that. The "stamp" is usually someone we respect and when there's a lack of respect, that stamp is pretty hard to come by.
If I want to sit on my back deck and drink beer in the evening, I'm not going to care much about what the experts think of that, but if I'm going to argue the benefits of it, I'm sure I'll find at least a couple experts that say it's a good idea.
I'm trying to engage with the crux here, the title reads ‘Canadians Are Abdicating Their Independence to the State’, and ‘we've become a society wholly dependent on “experts” for everything, as if we need them to hold our hands as we navigate life. What used to be common sense now requires at least two citations of peer reviewed literature to be considered valid - or at least a blessing from the government.’
You’re saying that we’ve become more dependent on experts, I would say the opposite is true, thanks largely to the internet. And you’re also saying that ‘common sense’ trumps (or should trump) expertise? Yet you’re now saying simply that ‘people do what they want’. So, are they abdicating their independence? Or are they doing what they want, (regardless of useless experts) ?