Doug Casey: Technology is a double-edged sword when it comes to critical thinking. It’s paradoxical that something so associated with knowledge and research is often at odds with wisdom. I think that’s partly because today’s technology offers instant answers—no thought required. You can go to Google, and an answer is at your fingertips. It doesn’t require research or thought—the answer just appears. It subtly obviates the need for contemplation.
Let’s first define what critical thinking is. I’d say it’s the process of questioning the validity of the assumptions and the accuracy of the data for everything. A critical thinker never assumes or takes anything for granted.
We can’t always be sure what the quality of a googled answer is, but most people assume it’s honest and correct. However, considering the nature of the people who run Google, Wikipedia, and websites of that nature, I prefer to assume that the quality of many answers is low.
In fact, the volume of data available through computer technology is so great that there’s a tendency to confuse all that quantity with quality. When the world, and the data stream, is moving very quickly, it seems you have less time to contemplate its meaning. You can get lost in it and lose perspective.
We’re almost in a situation where everything comes from one source—basically Google—rather than researching books, getting answers from a dozen points of view, and thinking critically about their meaning. Sure, Google gives you many references. But how many others have been “cancelled?” How many considered politically incorrect are buried as deep as the 13th century in Rollerball?
As the amount and complexity of data grows, it’s natural to want an expert to sort it out for you. But experts are known for knowing a lot about a little, not for having broad, integrated knowledge. People understandably look to them to make decisions for them. That’s foolish. Better that you go to a philosopher than a technician when the time comes to decide on something important. But philosophers are in short supply today, so people listen to celebrities.
People trust a celebrity who endorses something he knows nothing about because they think they know him. It’s another consequence of mass media. The average person is much more likely to accept Google’s, or Wikipedia’s, or some celebrity’s opinion than to research something themselves.
Critical thinking is hard work, and questioning authority doesn’t usually make you any friends.
I see it in the newsletter business all the time. Somebody who’s glib and can present well can be transformed into an instant expert, even though he knows very little—as long as he’s good at presenting and gaining people’s confidence. We see that with the talking heads on TV as well. They’re really just actors who don’t know anything, but they’re good-looking, well-promoted, and have a nice social veneer, so people trust them.
The media and the Establishment have selected a set of credentialed health experts, promoted them, and told the public that they know what they’re talking about. Take Anthony Fauci—he has lots of credentials. Like everyone high up in government agencies, whether or not he was ever a competent scientist, you can be sure he’s a very competent political operator. And apparently quite wealthy, with positions in companies under his purview.
In any event, he’s a life-long government employee. A professional bureaucrat, previously invisible but now elevated from nowhere to near-dictatorial control.
Meanwhile, there are people that have written numerous peer-reviewed papers, done serious lab work, and are currently dealing with patients with boots on the ground whose views are cancelled because they disagree with Czar Fauci.
The average person never hears about them, and when they do, they’re cancelled by the mass media. The perfect example of this is the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in countering the COVID virus—apart from the fact the supposed pandemic itself is greatly overrated.
Anyone who’s “vaccine hesitant” or—God forbid—a COVID denier is painted as anti-science, a conspiracy theorist. My view is that there are legitimate reasons not to take any experimental vaccine. Especially when there’s a possibility the supposed cure is much more dangerousthan the disease itself.
1 comment:
Great Article!!
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