I went for an end of term dinner in an Elementary School in the USA for some relations who were probably about ages 910  at the time. I don’t recall the menu but I will always remember the notice at the front entrance over the flowerbeds. It read “No firearms beyond this point”.

The most common reply I get from ChatGPT is “Great catch”. Then I wait for the next reply and check it too……..

Anyone tied to an ideology cannot think critically by definition. The rise of extreme right and left ideologies is why critical thinking is almost dead.

These extreme right billionaires like Musk and Bezos have given up on the Earth’s future and want to fortress the US and switch to crypto-gold while they devise their tech-bro extraplanetary…[Read more]

@strega – isn’t there a difference between individuality, and individualism?  Individualism can be a social situation, the opposite of communitarianism.  People rely on themselves and a small circle of people, while in communal societies, people rely on the whole community.  Community societies are “shame” cultures where the community governs th…[Read more]

Strega, i don’t see a path either. Just trying to be creative. AI is an unknown and we see growing reliance and connectedness between humans and AI so who knows. And being creative widespread dissilusionment with both political parties after a disastrous Trump presidency with existential crises might foster a receptiveness to critical thinking for…[Read more]

An American friend once told me a story.
She was in a classroom around age twelve, and the class was required to  write the one word they felt typified Americans.  Everyone else wrote “Individuality”, and she wrote “Conformity” 🙂

This isn’t a country that celebrates individualism. We would be looking at the conformists to introduce new educati…[Read more]

“My question is whether our present compulsory state schooling and teachers with tenured, union-secured positions further our mass lack of criical thinking.

And related to that, how do we get to a society of critical thinkers from where we are now? So much rides on that, indeed everything good.”

loaded question number one. Not gonna address the…[Read more]

Reg and Jake,

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr.

Hey, Rein-y. Democracy only has anything to do with justice if a majority wants justice–or injustice for that matter, which a majority too often does if unchecked. Socrates was forced…[Read more]

What’s the difference between critical thinking skills and conspiracy theorising?  I guess it’s the quality of the evidence, and a willingness to have an open mind.  If you get all your evidence from Youtube, and won’t change your mind no matter what, that’s not critical thinking.

People can use their critical thinking skills to support their unconscious prejudices. Greyhound racing, for example, is quite wisely banned almost everywhere in America and yet horse racing, which is exactly the same thing applied to a different species, persists.

Go figure.