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Notes -
I think a big problem is that people are not only not taught to think, but are actually taught to avoid thinking (while being told that they’re being taught to be “critical thinkers”(tm)). Even in schools—especially in schools— you are much more likely to be graded worse for original thinking and skeptical thinking about the common narratives than by simply parroting what you’ve been told is true. And now, watching the way our culture treats those few brave souls who do speak out, they’re well aware that questioning means losing your livelihood for saying the wrong thing.
Given the lack of logic and statistics taught, I dare say that the vast majority of Americans are incapable of noticing the inconsistencies in their ideas. They haven’t been taught to notice that we were against X until we were for it because they never thought through the logic of X. They don’t notice that ideas A and B rely on contradicting ideas and that it’s thus impossible to logically hold both to be true at the same time.
It’s really weird to watch people trust the science when the science tells them two or three mutually exclusive things and they believe them all.
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