As I watch another flat earth debunking video suggested by youtube to have a laugh I'm wondering ... Am I the part of the problem?
How popular stupidity would be without people pointing fingers at stupidity and laughing?
I feel it is quite insidious and not many have a defense against it.
The way outlier theories and polarized content can now reach a crowd that was hitherto undreamed of. And people get swept up in it.
We must learn from this, but we as technologists should also put the cat back into bag, to make our algorithms not promote “stupidity” , and to educate people to discern information.
The real question is how to do we stop everyone else from piling on top of these people and turning them into high visibility punching bags (which in turn propagates the bad information further and actually makes some folks more sympathetic to the people who now appear to be bullying victims). And that's not a question of intelligence, but one of morals and ethics.
I do believe our best bet is to let science speak louder and put more weight into that. Both in our algorithms and into our debates. If people see some dude on a talkshow with an opinion vs an expert in a field, some equate that with both having equally valid and valuable opinions. Same if that happens on social. The presentation makes it seem both opinions have equal and valid weight.
That said, it’s a valuable discussion and a good incentive to really work harder and to do our research as technologists so we can be better at curbing the trend.
I feel the same way. It seems sites like reddit have taken a sharp turn towards pointing out "stupidity" to briefly secure some fleeting sense of mental superiority. I find it mean spirited. It's strange how the zeitgeist of CURRENT_YEAR is fighting both for hyper political correctness and lambasting the mentally unfortunate. I find Gen Z very hypocritical.
For instance, hyper political correctness always has ment a double speak word to me for “I want to be racist / misogynistic, but they don’t let me”
It’s not about mental superiority, imo it is about turning around polarization and hyperbole.
If you’re happen to be “mentally unfortunate” as you put it, I don’t see any lambasting going on. Feel free to give examples.
Edit : for clarity