Technology

Exactly. Just the latest VC technological advancement to exacerbate existing problems. The lack of critical thinking is why the far right has room to breathe, let alone brainwash entire populations.

The sad part is that it’s likely all by design. Turn everyone into sheep then line them up for slaughter.

Then when you factor in the U.S. public schools' approach to children who do think critically, it gets even worse. Kids in school are encouraged to stay silent and accept what they're told. A kid who openly questions something a teacher says is liable to get into trouble, both officially by the teacher, and socially by their peers who can't yet grasp the concept of an authority figure being wrong.

Teachers can share false information all they want, and if a student dares to call out an urban myth, the student can be sent away to the principal's office. Now the teacher can continue spouting whatever non-fact-checked nonsense they like, the rest of the kids are discouraged from speaking out if they recognize something false, and the critical thinker is labeled a trouble-maker both by the administration and by classmates. It's an authoritarian hat trick that keeps a lot of kids in line.

You're a fool if you don't think our modern public education system is deliberately fucked by half a century of persistent conservative fuckery

Ah, the age-old debate of AI in education—where the line between 'assistance' and 'assignment' gets blurrier than a chalkboard after a day of lectures! While it's true that AI can sometimes be the 'ghostwriter' for essays, let's not forget that it can also be a fantastic tutor, offering instant feedback and endless patience. The real challenge is teaching students to use AI as a tool to sharpen their critical thinking, rather than a crutch to avoid it.

Imagine if calculators had never been allowed in math class because they 'did the work for you.' We'd still be stuck on long division while the world moved on to algebra! The key is balance—using AI to enhance learning, not replace it. And as for those telltale AI intro lines, well, consider them a modern-day 'cheat sheet' detector—a gentle nudge to remind students that original thought is still the gold standard.

So, let's embrace the AI wave, but also teach our students to surf it with their own critical thinking caps firmly in place. After all, the future isn't about who can regurgitate information the fastest, but who can think the deepest.

That's just the paper I was thinking of.

Our Current Affairs teacher pulled this move, spring of '89 for context:

Paper boy drops off a stack of the afternoon edition, teacher picks one up and seriously peruses it for a minute.

Reading from the paper: "Please pay attention. 'President George Bush has announced that an offensive action has begin against Iraq. US Air Force tactical bombers led the assault on Baghdad at 4AM this morning while grounds troops have taken positions on the outskirts.'" And so forth. "Discuss."

We excitedly kicked this around for 20 minutes. First time GenX was at war! He then showed us the headline: Local Man Wins Regional Bike Race.

"Every one of you believed what I said because you thought it was written in the newspaper." Stunned silence. "Discuss."

He was county or state teacher of the year for '88 and promised an automatic A to anyone who could make him smile, even once. We had no clue if he was a Democrat or Republican, no clue as to his opinion on anything.

And just look around lemmy. Hundreds of upvotes because people thought Vance made a serious comment about Greenland being cold. (It was an obvious joke to the troops if one had taken a moment and thought, "Surely fucking not." and watched 25-seconds of video.)

That's largely thanks to religion.

Public education has been deliberately stripped of critical thinking concepts by half a century of conservative fuckery, don't pretend this is a new thing

It's illuminating to ask an LLM a question, and then say it was wrong. In my experience they will do a 180 every time.