If only...

"You can't deny science when you have a radio made by science and see all the electronic"
Turns out, once radios are complex enough, you don't see the electronic anymore
- Or completely glued together and you get a cease and desist when you start tinkering with it.
  
  C&Ds make great firestarters.
- We lost something big with the transition to digital, and that's DIY hardware built entirely from discrete components.
  Nowadays, everything uses a microcontroller.
  
  There was a sweet spot when computers were actually made out of transistors.
  Nowadays, they're all made by arcane magic.

Admittedly they probably didn't expect an enormous, sophisticated, and well-coordinated effort to promote ignorance and push so much misinformation so as to effectively muddy the waters of that information either though.
- That's basically the plot of brave new world.
  
  where's the soma?
- well yeah but probably they should have expected it ...

People don't want to be corrected, they want to be validated.
- You are right.
  
  You’re right about them being right.
- People want to be correct.
  For some that means never being questioned. For some, it means always questioning themselves.
- Um, actually, people don't want to be told they're incorrect whether directly or indirectly.
  /s

"You're not just a regular moron, you were DESIGNED to be a moron. " - Portal 2
Probably the darkest truth - modern moronity is generally by design, not by misfortune.

Wrong. It is a lack of access to information. Good luck trying to find something useful on the modern Internet.
Yes, in the mid-late 90s Internet was making people cleverer. Because we didn't have kids, influencers, politicians and activists on the Internet. It was a source of technical information managed by technical specialists. It was a good time. And you destroyed it.
- Internet became bad when it got controlled by engagement seeking corporations.
  
  More specifically, the internet failed because society decided to dedicate an entire generation of the world’s most brilliant minds to the problem of ad optimization. This directly led to the modern clickbait/ragebait disinformation problem.
  If we had just taken those same engineers and said to solve any other problem, it would’ve been done ages ago.
- Wrong. Having been in group chats with people I know are real and have been debunked consistently since 2020, it doesn’t matter. 80% of people pick their reality based on feels, and 30% are straight up fascists.
  In the mid 90s the internet was composed primarily of the 20% of the pop who are capable of reflection.
  
  In the 90s chat rooms/forums were a cesspool, just as they are today. But the web, while rough around the edges in terms of design/organization (hence the need for search engines) was great for information. Vast majority of websites had good intentions. That is not the case today.
  
  How did we determine the percentage based on feels?
- Wrong. It is a lack of access to information. Good luck trying to find something useful on the modern Internet.
  Yes, in the mid-late 90s Internet was making people cleverer. Because we didn’t have kids, influencers, politicians and activists on the Internet. It was a source of technical information managed by technical specialists. It was a good time. And you destroyed it.
  this is a dumb take. the existence of wrong information doesn't negate the existence of good information on the same medium. it's like saying "i can't improve my physical fitness because i can't go to a gym," while ignoring the possibility of bodyweight exercise at home. the access is there, people just don't want to put in any work and want to blame something other than themselves.
  so no, it's not a lack of access to information that's causing widespread stupidity. case in point: maga--how many of us have been outright shouting that trump is a conman, and here's the literal proof--the information, which is good, is right there. and yet people still choose to death threaten dr. fauci because they "don't like" the good information.
  
  the existence of wrong information doesn’t negate the existence of good information on the same medium.
  When there are no proper ways to sift through and structure that information, it kind of does, but your point overall is still not wrong, just this part I think misses part of the picture.
  people just don’t want to put in any work and want to blame something other than themselves.
  Yes, although I dare say that it is not as simple as saying "just do better" and "putting work in" - when there's a massive amount of work and resources put into getting people de-facto addicted to primarily ad-driven engagement with mostly garbage information.
  case in point: maga–how many of us have been outright shouting that trump is a conman, and here’s the literal proof–the information, which is good, is right there. and yet people still choose to death threaten dr. fauci because they “don’t like” the good information.
  That, however, very much stands. The original vision really, really thought that truth and quality would win out in a "marketplace of ideas". However, narcissistic appeasement and a combination of humiliating and then making people feel powerful by proxy wins out, especially considering there is no guiding consensus.
  Availability to information is important, and that includes making it possible to sift through the mountains of nonsense, including teaching how to spot nonsense. But on top of that, it requires a solid foundation for society, and a consensus to direct what is true and what not (science, functioning professional journalism, etc.) Otherwise, when there is no consensus guiding towards (but not setting completely in stone) "truth", it will always be whatever is emotionally convenient from individual to individual - and the dynamics of the system will favour information that both panders to narcissistic self-affirmation (not necessarily positive emotions), as well as beating you down in a way that you crave those from your ego being made fragile to begin with.
  
  Yeah, but it's the equivalent of gyms opening a ficking McDonalds inside so you have to work out in the smell.
  The thing is, while it might be good enough for some people to find information, people on average get distracted and scammed by the efforts to scam and distract people.
  Propaganda works, that's why they do it.
- In a way... Nothing new under the sun
- Yes, in the mid-late 90s Internet was making people cleverer. Because we didn't have kids, influencers, politicians and activists on the Internet.
  As a former child who was on the internet in the mid to late 90s, this is news to me ;p Come on, eternal September was in ‘93!
  Activists on the internet are at least as old as Usenet, as well.
  It kind of sounds like this is a list of people you don’t like using the internet, not people who actually made the internet worse (like business majors and programmers that turned every website into SEO mush).

Having access to information doesn't help people who can't read or don't have the ability to comprehend what they're reading.
- it's not just reading skills, it's also ability to cross-correlate information to other information and perform consistency checks.

Assuming all the information on the internet was true, this could have been reevaluated.
But in today’s world unfortunately internet is more fabricated information than real information

It was the lack of access to the right information. Most people won't spend hours researching a topic. Most people don't spend any time on seeking outbinformation. They only absorb whatever information they happen to come across. And liars are especially adept at being loud. So they're the first, and often only, to be heard.
In a world without corruption, a ministry of truth would work wonders. In our world, I don't know what would work.

I don't particularly remember many people saying that. I think they were all up their asses about iq.
- Ah, yes, that all meaning number that represents your ability to exceed at very specific and biased tasks. Love it
  
  I don't think they're too bad, but than again I did score 1st.
- There was a lot of talk about how being able to access any information would drastically increase the average knowledge base, which could possibly increase IQ.
  
  is has increased intelligence, in countries where they didn’t also gut the schools….

tbf the internet is also jam-packed with misinformation which doesn't only counteract people learning the truth, but also makes them confident about their false views
- Who knew stupidity was always the lies of man

Nearly everything I've learned in my life is thanks to the internet but sure. I guess I get the point
- You have to teach people to teach themselves though. Just because someone has access to a book doesn't mean they'll read it.
  
  You can't teach a fish to fly, and you can't teach a republican to think critically.
  I think we just have to accept that reading (critically) isn't for everybody. There's just people who prefer to talk out of their asses.
  And we'll have to find a way to live with that.
  
  Is logical thought teachable though? You can read all the books, but if you can't correlate the information, does it matter? And I should say it that way, but more along the lines of two people can read the same set of literature and come to two different conclusions, and somehow we determine one of those conclusions to be right.

The internet did get rid of ETI theories of UFOs and probably facts. Now we have Wikipedia and ubiquitous cameras.
Instead we have WTF is THAT UFOs called UAP, and singing abandoned buildings, but no ghosts.
Part of the problem now is fake news and we're about to lose video authentication the first time someone makes a convincing AI-generated street incident.
- The fake news honestly frightens me. Lord knows what will happen because of it but there's many truly terrible possibilities
  
  wwii was started with fake news

Not the people's fault, now we disinformation and the firehose of falsehoods 🙃
- And without well-rounded education, which is not perfect like liberal arts we lack the ability to digest information critically. I mean you could tell people about Edward Bernays or say Alan Dulles or the evils of capitalism/imperialism and how the rich objectify us and they'll still sit there eating their ice cream at Disneyland drooling in their hedonistic stupor... Maybe really this is my own personal anxiety and as time progresses the colective subconscious will eventually awaken into a wrathful hurricane of non-discriminative re-Alignment.. As we try to manage these transitions, We become a nihilistic and we lean into it and just allow nature to take its course. For justice is always served, not in my time, not in my interest. Thank gawd, all men die.We are an anti-social society that rewards anti-social behavior. I just think about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. We poison the well we drink from and without self-awareness, curiosity kills the cat.. Superposition can eat my ass. And it could be described as the Imperial Boomerang or in the military communities, like intelligence, it's called blowback. I think we live in the era of the Limp Dick, the self-fulfilling prophecy, the exponential feedback loop on a road to nowhere with tracks coming to an end.. And peoples the likes of Elon Musk, who are high on ketamine or any other chemical., are sitting there, staring at themselves in the mirror. As if it's their world and we're just living in it. As if they are somehow not a part of the collective. The Singularity is just our collective ego focused on just a few ambitious fools and artificial intelligence is our collective efforts mirrored back to ourselves with the wizard of Oz turning the dial. There is no wonder that this "man" edong breeds like a rat he knows what he is doing is wrong, but he just can't help himself.. It makes sense that the population is declining, and that's a good thing. It shows that the people are actually somewhat waking up at least subconsciously. Elon is no overman.. But a reprobate and a rapist.. Relative, none of us have free will. But it doesn't justify not focusing on maintaining ones own individual autonomy. I don't tell my immune system what to do. I don't tell my lungs to breathe. The collective self needs these things to happen in order for me (ego) to exist. It's kind of like a paradox, but a paradox is just... We are blinded to the truths of reality, somewhere down the causational chain, there is still some form of binary. We just can't see it.. I'm not talking about being passive, and I'm not talking about not playing your part in any revolutionary action. I'm just saying, know, your place in the natural hierarchy and exhibit or execute your nature. When I see incredibly anti-social and destructive behavior in our society, I don't cry out to gawd. I know why things happen the way they do. Possibly we've gone past the point of no return. We spit in the face of the natural hierarchy for so long. We cut down trees and wipe our ass. Mark Fisher killed himself because he was anxious and he didn't want to watch the World Burn. But me? I'm okay with it. I'm curious to see what will happen. I do know the piglets, the imperial piglets eventually, either them or their children will face consequences. Justice is always served. I don't want what the rich man has. I think the rich man is lazy, tacky and gross. I like bottom feeders and beneficial parasites. No War but the Class War.
  Chapter 57 of the Tao Te Ching
  Rule a nation with justice. Wage war with surprise moves. Become master of the universe without striving. How do I know that this is so? Because of this!
  The more laws and restrictions there are, The poorer people become. The sharper men's weapons, The more trouble in the land. The more ingenious and clever men are, The more strange things happen. The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers.
  Therefore the sage says: I take no action and people are reformed. I enjoy peace and people become honest. I do nothing and people become rich. I have no desires and people return to the good and simple life.

I grew up before the Internet was mainstream and I don't remember this. We all had access to basically the same information and some of us still had worse or better ideas than our peers. Access was always only one part of the equation; beyond that, you need the information to be useful and accurate (big problem on the Internet), you need the desire to engage with that information, the ability to process and understand it correctly, the ability to discern when factual information is being cherry-picked or otherwise used in misleading ways ...
If you trip over on any of those points or whatever else I've forgotten to mention, you come out the other end with bad information, access be damned.
- this is why republicans fight tooth and nail to eliminate critical thinking from the curriculum--so much easier to control people when they believe what they're told without question, instead of choosing a stance based on broad daylight evidence and facts. so now we have a wannabe con man in the white house surrounded by sheep cultist followers who would literally take all the bullets for him
- The information was harder to access because it wasn't available on demand. If you had a question about how something works in the evening it's not as if you could go to the library to get the answer...
- It is not information but the fact the collective don't own the means of information. The collective will and free thought is restrained. The collective will manifest a violent subconscious rage they will need to briedle but eventually they will get bucked as they lose the reins. Nature always wins! A non discriminate hurricane of a long time coming will reset and aligne what was once askew. Justice is coming the meek shall inherit the world. No war but the class war. The rich will hide in their bunkers, breed with and eat their children. We think tactical nukes will prevent the escalation ladder but even at the top they fight amongst themselves. Celebrate their failures.

This assumes that the accessible information serves the truth

Lack of education and critical thinking. Which people thought was because of the lack of available access to information. Yup, turns out even with access to knowledge people still wont bother to educate themselves.
Now they are blaming educators because they are voluntarily ignorant, we lead the horse to water but we cant make them drink....doesn't help when they want to call educators racists for trying to encourage a postive self image or dare I utter the taboo phrase, social awareness...

I see you, ifunny watermark.

Information has always been controlled, obscured, and distorted by capital, hegemony., etc. Not to mention nonstop brainwashing from birth.
For example... Where I live, kids still grow up worshiping flags, enslavers, enslaver pacts, capitalism, etc... And the state is increasingly denying them access to the internet/phones, alternative information, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
- now I am curious where you live

Bro's saying this as if written and spoken language didn't count as information before LMAO.
The only difference now is the bandwidth but the information was there

No I'm in my 20s.

I always knew that it was due to christianity

I hate how young American leftists like to alienate people by calling anyone without a university degree “uneducated”. I’ve met plenty of morons with degrees and lots of janitors with more brains.
Edit: this is why the American left is so toxic, can’t even call out your elitism without getting downvoted. The rest of us leftists around the world are face palming at the moronic American leftists who want to hate everyone
- Maybe I’m just in the wrong circles but I have literally never met anyone who thought this way. It doesn’t seem to me she is saying it here, either.
- Because they are very likely to be uneducated (at that level), this doesn't mean that they are stupid.
  
  A lot of people here use them as interchangeable
  
  What is educated? As the all degrees the same? I'm one of these morons with no degree over here, so obviously I can't understand how one degree is maybe different than another. Some of the stupidest people I've known have degrees. I know some incredibly intelligent people, but they put all their points in math and they're tough to have conversations with. So what is educated, and honestly, what importance does it have?
- Being a moron and not being smart isn't the same btw
- Totally agree and I've got a degree and post grads.
- Not just that, but that somehow MAGAts aren't educated. Like it's not the same distribution of morons amongst those with post-high school education as it is amongst those of us who didn't go to college. I just don't understand what education has to do with anything. There are very educated people, moderately educated, and uneducated (like me) on both sides of the aisle. But you know what the left is good at? Alienating each other.
- In a plain sense, 'uneducated' seems the right word here - with a degree you have more education; ergo without a degree you are less educated. (Okay, maybe 'uneducated' is inappropriate.) But I agree with you and others that people shouldn't be looked down on for not having studied at university level. Human value is not in your education; and neither, often enough, is good sense! Education is (can be) useful and beneficial at all levels, and a good university degree certainly teaches you useful skills, knowledge and perspective that you'd likely lack without, but it is just that - a benefit, which we can use in love for the good of all, not a gatekeeper of the value of your thoughts.
- I've studied economics, the bar was very low omg. Psychology students had so much more work it's crazy