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Will the world ever stop being anti-intellectual?
(discuss.online)
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this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
469 points (91.9% liked)
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“In 1976, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: Stupidity.
Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.”
https://qz.com/967554/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupidity
This is why I am 100% in favor of normalizing regularly having things like computer/internet literacy tests msybe every half decade to ensure you are actually smart enough to use the internet in a responsible manner. Don't pass? No internet access for you outside of things educational material, cooking recipes, or sending messages to people. No access to your social media or conspiracy theory groups or anything else that'll harm your brain.
It'll either encourage people to get better at cheating, give up on using the internet entirely, or they might actually try to learn something and better their lives.
Some will definitely complain that they're having their rights violated (USA), but if it keeps the Internet safe from stupidity even by a small margin, I'll gladly take it.
I am so sick of reading proposals like this from probably-white non-US Westerners who have probably never actually had to engage with the idea that racism exists. This might get some fascist groups off the internet, sure, but it would also likely push oppressed minority groups who do not necessarily have access to quality education out. That's the history of minimum IQ requirements for voting, mind you.
Put this proposal in front of a Proud Boy and they'll likely be in favor of it, because they believe whites are the only people smart enough to pass it. They'll stop being in favor once it goes into effect and they're included along with groups they hate in the "not allowed online" crowd, but the groups they hate, some of whom's situations may be made direly worse by the lack of unrestricted internet access, will most likely be pushed out too.