Has anyone else noticed - thinking for yourself is being disregarded for what's popular.

I think what you're describing, Darklblade, is just how familiar attitudes (familiar to me anyway) are adjusting now to the Internet. People long revered the TV and newspaper for their answers to: A. What is reality? and B. What matters? Now it's the Internet. The same attitude of 'thinking for yourself is weird' existed when I was a kid, 20 years ago.

You are probably right that it is getting worse, though. I've noticed a growing attitude online that seems to expect 'credible' (mainstream) sources to back up every claim. That's funny...and here I thought a scientist starts with a hypothesis and then tests that theory? So, even if we were all scientists and were expected to behave as such, it would be fine to share thoughts and ideas to begin with. Besides which, of course, science is only one method for getting to the truth. What kind of jackass enters a room and measures it and calculates his findings until he's determined it to be a room? He KNOWS it's a room, just as he knows when his wife is upset, he knows when his kids are being disrespectful, he knows cheating on his wife is wrong and he knows his mother is ill when she calls by the tone of her voice. We all know many things, by our God-given gift of intuition (not to mention life experience, deductive reasoning, etc.)

Yet, to some, everything should be backed with sources and/or support the mainstream view. I could agree to sources when it comes to political or scientific issues, but not with opinions. I can prove 9/11 was an inside job to a 10 year old child by explaining the pancake theory: that one layer after another falls until it piles up. If I asked them, "Would it be possible for it to fall without slowing down as it piles up?" they'd of course respond: "No!" Why? They're not physicists. They have common sense! Therefore, if I were to show them video footage of the Twin Towers (and Tower 7) collapsing at near-freefall speed, they'd say it's impossible. So simple a child could understand it! Yet there are plenty of adults online who would scoff at this, refusing to even consider it, instead writing you off as a "conspiracy nut," as the mainstream encourages them to. People are intelligent, they just choose to 'play the game.'

Why? Because people: A. Like playing the game. B. Are afraid to turn against it. C. Were broken down by parents, teachers and other authority figures in their lives into blindly respecting and obeying authority without question.


Teacher says: "1+1=2." Everyone writes it down.

I say: "I can put two balls of clay together and prove 1+1=1. I can put a male and female cat together and prove 1+1=7. So, your whole system of mathematics is based on an assumption."

Everyone stares at me blankly.

"You must learn what we teach," the teacher asserts, after a moment of pause in private confusion, rather than embracing a revelation, for sake of playing the game (she values her job.) "You will need to know it so you can graduate and go to college and start a career."


So, the only viable argument is that you must 'play along' because it's built to work a certain way. Don't rock the boat. Most people learn this at an early age and never, ever seem to question it. They learn to gang up on and make fun of 'weirdos' who question it. Cult mentality. It's all just a game to them, as if reality is multiple choice. This is what separates an outsider (independent thinker) from a normal person (player.)

reply to post by darkbake


Oh yes, it's a problem. What's even scarier is that online opinions are becoming real life "facts". And if you don't agree with this opinion, you're labeled or ridiculed because everyone else believes it and you must be some kind of idiot for not accepting it and trying to form your own opinion instead of just accepting someone else's that they pass off as a "fact".

why think for yourself when Facebook can do it for you?

I hear a criticism of the " Common Core " curriculum being forwarded in western countries, is that it promotes the herd mentality and rewards memorization and regurgitation as opposed to encourage and training critical independent thinking.

I see more subtle things in social media that nudge people towards herd behavior. Reddit for example, people get points and rewards by having others approve of their posts. This almost certainly has an impact on the posters. Even the Star system here on ATS might tend to make some people think twice about posting a controversial opinion

reply to post by darkbake


The internet has had a polarizing effect on social debate. Do a web search and you can find countless like minded opinions to your own. No need to go the the library and do a search that might turn up much broader information and opinions on a subject. You can search until you find the exact mindset you agree with. The problem is, with most people their search for the truth ends there. People no longer try to get both sides of an argument. The internet focuses information like a laser, and since that information is being put up by individuals instead of being the type of information you might read in books, the information can be sculpted and controlled. Its certain that in many cases, especially in politics, there is a lot of propaganda posing as factual information. That is why people now sling insults instead of just choosing to respectfully disagree. I am hoping people will come back to more traditional ways of finding out things.

Logic and Critical Thinking should be taught in schools.

When I teach something, like driving a manual trans car, I start by explaining how the gears and clutch work, rather than just providing a checklist and flowchart....if this-do that. My way, people can "think" for themselves and understand the system, never being "lost" for what to do and further refining their skills.

I say this about traveling in Manhattan. Sure, you could have directions and follow them...but what if you miss a turn and get lost? Well, I feel you actually HAVE to get lost in order to "be found", and actually KNOW your way around.

Just rambling. Good topic.

I notice the method in school is how every kid rushes to raise their hand, to be the FIRST to answer. Never is it encouraged to wait to hear and fully understand the question. Also, people say the first thing that pops into their head.

I don't really share the perception that this has grown lately - conforming to accepted ideas and thinking seems to have always been the most common habit of societies.

On one hand, we must recognize that this is what makes solidarity in a culture- shared values, ideas, morals, world views....
This facilitates communication and exchange between the members of the community.

I am so intensely aware of this everyday, living in a foreign country, where people will use one word or gesture, and the other understands a whole lot from it- while I am clueless. That is how I became aware my own culture has similar things, like, for example, when we americans say "whatever!" there is a message we get behind that and a foreigner might not. Especially with the subtilities included (we could explain it means "I don't care", but it includes a certain de-valuation of the other persons care, as if they shouldn't either; or they are being petty, stupid...)

If we have common values and ideas, we can have "shortcuts" like that, that enable us to easier guess at what others want and what they are thinking.

Perhaps, now that I am examining the question, I have seen a rise in value upon standardization and collective thought happen in the US- and that was expected by many sociologists (at least that I read years ago) as a response to the extreme break down of shared culture in the last hundred years or so as individuality became the only shared value. We have been in "culture wars" within our country, as everyone fought to "do their own thing" and we had no solidarity. We became vulnerable to outside attacks. Young people could only find a sense of uniformity and social glue in the military.

Humans are social animals, and seek the company of others, and the protection of a herd. That is instinctive, even if we devalue it and claim it is "bad"... it will just manifest in subconscious ways instead. (taboo does that).

For the long life of a society though, there has to be some balance between the speed of change and flexibility, and the stability- you need to have a few who step out of the conformity and force progressive change. In some cultures those people are simply considered artists. (I've noticed that is true in Europe- traditionally artists exist to challenge and provoke the common ideas and values of the collective).

But I think also that not everyone is made for that role!
I think that some people want to be their own thinkers, they want to be innovative, they want to be individualistic, and that just ends up being a catastrophy. They would be much more valuable to their society, and ultimately more happy if they became a part of the machinery instead. I don't want to get too much into why I consider this so, but it is an opinion based on life observations.


In any case....

If you are meant to be one that challenges the collective, steps out of the box, then you won't find it surprising or a problem that the herd puts opposing pressure on you. That is part of the job description. That is part of the fun and fulfilment, of being your own free thinker- that it comes at a price of some discomfort, and that your own tendancies to follow the herd and search for acceptance are challenged and overcome!

..let's be frank- what other part of you could actually be whining about the society not encouraging your path of action and thought????

reply to post by darkbake


I remember having a conversation about aliens with my friend, the funny thing is, is that I was wondering about how strange they would look like, expanding upon possibilities, and at the same time I was also being critical about what he was explaining to me, due to lack of evidence.

The key is, to be absolutley critical, because, only with real and convincing evidence can disclosure be possible, however, don't stop wondering about them and all the possibilities there are.

I can't say I've ever heard the term jank used in this context. I've had plenty of hobbies where jank has been used, usually meaning junk, trash, worthless, and so on. This is a slightly different context though. In reality I'm not so sure the word is important, words themselves have no value. It's all about the meaning behind the word and the meaning is nothing new.

This isn't something new either, I remember going to high school in the mid-late 90's and the craze at the time was to be seen as stupid, not smart. Being a stupid teenager in search of social acceptance I took this path and always got bad grades in my classes in order to fit in, while in reality I was well beyond how I performed. That's what everyone at my school did though (we were all quite smart... it was a private HS and required an academic test to enter and stay in, hell our cutoff for a D- was a 93%). Now, I'm a little smarter than that.

Really, this has little to do with the internet, one thing that I've always tried to make a point of in my life is understanding how something works. The reason for this is that when I see people use a piece of technology they just expect it to work as if it's magic. They don't really understand the physical and mechanical forces at work. This doesn't mean I could build an iPhone from scratch but I do understand the concepts behind reception, touch screens, power consumption, flash memory, and so on. How this relates to the internet is that while I believe the internet is a modern day Great Library of Alexandria, we weren't exactly in the dark ages before it existed. Thanks to the printing press (my vote as the most important invention in all of human history) books have been available in mass quantities for 600 years and public libraries have been around for 300 years. Before we had Google we could go to a public library and get books on the subject we wanted, and if the library didn't have it we could request it from other libraries.

The difference between now and 50 years ago is that while the access to information is relatively comparable, I now have access to 700 authors on a subject rather than 7 and that I can find the answer in 5 minutes rather than 5 hours.

The reduction in peoples ability to critically think is a reflection of societal values and failure in schooling. Our media is full of the idea that we should simply trust the authority on a subject. When this idea is pushed it causes people to always look to those above them for an answer, and it makes a person feel as though they have more worth than the person below them when they're providing the answer.

There's a couple of inherent flaws in this system however:
The first is that by definition most of us cannot be above average, the majority of us are the average to below average individuals in the world which means we cannot be an authority. Yet the world where people are assigned a job 100% by talent/ability doesn't exist. Which means we have to accept that if we are capable of becoming an authority on something, those currently above us cannot also be that authority.

The second is that every authority on every subject since the dawn of time has been wrong. What I mean here is that every single idea we have about the world today is a replacement of a previous idea that is now seen to be incorrect. While it cannot conclusively be proven until more information comes along which revises our thinking the safe bet is that everything we currently hold to be true is also wrong.

This is why it's important to develop critical thinking in schools. Critical thinking is what brought us nuclear power, the internet, and the space program. The sheer memorization route is what gets you a bunch of compliant yes men. The answer to a problem isn't nearly as important as knowing how to get that answer. If you know how to solve a problem, you also know the answer. If you only know the answer, you know nothing of the process and cannot apply it to other areas.

DISRAELI
reply to post by darkbake

 

One phenomenon which I've noticed for a long time- not quite the same thing, but in the same line of territory- is something I call "lifestyle intolerance".

Intolerance of different lifestyle choices, intolerance of independent thinking. They come from the same source in human nature and predate the internet.

edit on 15-3-2014 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)

Oh I had thought you were talking about the once intolerated now becoming the intolerant. That's what it looks like these days....a simply shift in positions of what was once tolerated and what now is tolerated. In effect the norm has never been an acceptance of wide range of ideas but rather when one idea gets out of the closet all contrary ideas get shoved back into same. Its about the struggle for dominance among ideas.

Thanks everyone - I'm reading the thread, everyone is writing really good stuff here.

I won't sell myself out just to keep friendships that obviously aren't.

ATS is fast becoming the most interaction I have with people outside of my home.

Yeah... I like the kind of conversations I have on here, it is very interesting and nice to be able to discuss topics and even breaking news - there is a lot of critical thinking that goes on on ATS. I agree that ATS includes a lot of my social interactions. I've thought about that before.

reply to post by Bluesma


That was a very cool and well-rounded response. I used to be a lot more adept at going against the grain than I am at the moment, for a few reasons, not all of which I have a grasp on. One of which is that I'm getting older, another is that it can get risky. I need to be a bit more individualistic though - but it takes energy.

There is definitely some life experience in that post.

One thing that really bugs me is that I get asked why I don't have cable (not even basic channels) on the telly or why I've so many books (sometimes several on the same subject) and so much of what meine frau calls " useless knowledge " and people look at me sideways when I answer that I think television is a bunch useless drivel and I've all the books and "useless knowledge" because I like providing my own answers and thinking for myself.

This is nothing new. I grew up as a punk, and still consider myself one for I still hold onto the beliefs of non-conformity.
There will always be people out there judging you for not following whatever trend. Has been though out human history.

Logarock

DISRAELI
reply to post by darkbake

 

One phenomenon which I've noticed for a long time- not quite the same thing, but in the same line of territory- is something I call "lifestyle intolerance".

Intolerance of different lifestyle choices, intolerance of independent thinking. They come from the same source in human nature and predate the internet.

edit on 15-3-2014 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)

Oh I had thought you were talking about the once intolerated now becoming the intolerant. That's what it looks like these days....a simply shift in positions of what was once tolerated and what now is tolerated. In effect the norm has never been an acceptance of wide range of ideas but rather when one idea gets out of the closet all contrary ideas get shoved back into same. Its about the struggle for dominance among ideas.

great point....much like the jesters of yesteryear are now one of the most highly paid people on the planet....entertainers used to be fools now they are loved and copied by the masses

Zombies controled by the government :3