Digit

I was thinking of his noodliness

Wow.

Total sidetrack and total missing the point.

I didn’t say “taxes are good” or “current education is good”.

The problem I posed is that knowledge transfer is an essential skill and people who are bad at it are–I would suppose–both oblivious to it and easier to take advantage of.

Edit: TBH your comment is so whacky and on your own terms I didn’t even read to the end section. It’s not even left field, it’s 2 counties over.

Edit 2: Now I read it in full and, bro, that’s a bunch of potentially well meaning conspiratorial retardation. Just no.

You are unfortunately, literally pictured in the OP meme with a veneer of “I’m 14 and this is deep”.

Fun to see such a retort, on same day as I posted a re-creation of the extended version of Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement.

Starts with a non-sequitor, follows with an apparent strawman argument refuting an accusation not made, then a “not even wrong”, then arguing tone coupled with a celebration of ignorance and unwitting mischaracterisation, ending on two ad-hominems. XD See? Epistemology’s fun.

How do you determine they are “nonsensical conspiracies”?

Could it be media induces in us a belief that we think ourselves “media competent”, such that we begin to presume to know, without scrutiny?

… Certainly used to be my job, when I worked in advertising. Easier to induce in people, than to undo.

Few seem of a Socratic bent, such as “All I know is I know nothing. And sometimes I forget even that much.”, preferring instead the feels of believing themselves smart and wise, not confronting the horror of how readily manipulated they are. … Sorry for my part, doing that to everybody who saw the adverts and corporate branding I made when I was “just doing my job”. Had I stayed in the industry, I dread to think what I’d be doing now with the power at the advertiser’s/marketer’s/propagandist’s disposal, able to cold read smart phone users, 24/7.

I used to do it. And I’m not self deluded enough to think even my level of media awareness is in any way adequate a protection against it.

But having said that… Yes, better media awareness(/“competence”), than “a doctors degree”. Having a doctorate makes sure you were obedient enough to get through the system, and makes you a special influencer target for such manipulations. Always seek another “2nd opinion”.

And epistemology to help build the firewall’s list?

“It is the mark of an educated mind, to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting nor rejecting it” --Whoever said that.

Wouldn’t a better thing to teach be innovating upon technology and social structure, such that we no longer even need taxes? Nor any other rents designed to keep us down and impoverished. Imagine where we’d be now if not for the suppression of all the emancipatory technologies. All those patents being sat on, or secreted[1]. All those inventors usurped or disappeared. We have so much more headroom.

If education were not so corrupted and riddled with nonsense and slave conditioning, perhaps there’d be fewer rejecting it; fewer throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We can all be polymaths in the making, not slaves in training.

[1: According to patent office whistle blower Tom Valone, (iirc) there were already over 3000 free energy device patents secreted by the year 2000. Seriously. We have so much headroom without the corruption. Even the rich parasites would be better off, with the release and proliferation of the emancipatory technologies. …Buuuuuut, that’s not in most people’s world view to which they’re attached, and so, they tend to go on attack upon encountering mention of such, as if this new information is a threat to their life.]

Because there’s no valid nor sound singular-pecking-order, and typically those “smart people” respected as “so smart” are “smart” in other aptitudes than the social aptitude and ruthlessness to so social climb and manipulate to be “in charge”.

I very often say: we can all be polymaths in the making, not slaves in training. If/when we do so proceed that way, we’d catch more of these follies, and seek better protections and implementations and systems, than just leaving it to the most ruthless social climber, the most effective liar, getting in charge.

A person is smart. People are dumb.

Well between the anti-vaxxers and any-vaxxers, the any-vaxxers won, by measure of how many took the jabs, believing “follow the science” without detecting an oxymoron.

Beware the power of advertising and ignorance of epistemology.