I agree with this, and of course we should be able to say true things-- even if it's uncomfortable. But, I've noticed that in pockets of the right, people seem to delight in saying uncomfortable things. I suppose the best example is marriage and family when I can feel the smirk from "Well you know fertility dramatically decreases after age 30." Yes, Joel, we know. And being honest is important, but we needn't delight in being jerks either.
This is true, but you carry some of the beliefs yourself! You constantly claim that Wikipedia is untrustworthy and should be deleted, that the university system is indoctrinating students into progressive ideas, etc.
You need to read this article again and really examine some of those beliefs. No matter how much evidence we've shown you, those beliefs persist.
I appreciate your commentary Sean, one throwaway Tweet (I think that's what you're referencing) isn't representative, I write longer thoughts on all this which have more context and includes plenty of links, examples and evidence. They punish our links there or I'd always include.
Anyway, I really think there's nothing that's unreasonable I've published, note I'm perfectly willing to talk about any of it with you. But maybe an analogy will work with how I see both of those topics: I wouldn't eat a sandwich even with only a small amount of poison somewhere. I'd demand a new sandwich, or at least the poison part cut out. And that's about what's happening here.
The first graphic here describes a lot of what universities have ignored, and 1,000s of people have documented. Even you agree education quality has suffered in recent times, I know you want better quality education for everyone and you're passionate about this topic. I think it's a civic good for both professors and people outside the system to point out problems (1,000s of professors do online). It's really the only form of market pressure a lot of these institutions have.
To be clear, this is how these dogmatic ideas work:
1. They have anecdotes instead of data. There are cherry picked incidents and facts that follow the preferred narrative, but they don't match the overall data.
2. They have different standards. You promote Twitter (which is objectively problematic) but condemn Wikipedia, which is textbook shifting standards.
3. They claim it's mainstream. When challenged, the answer is that "everyone knows this".
My point is that on these topics you're showing the same behavior that you're calling out in this piece. At a time where temperatures are high and it's easy to fall into filter bubbles and confirmation bias, it's important to step back and recognize when we're falling into to the same trap.
Your metaphor about the sandwich is funny because most sandwiches do have poison (pesticides) in them. Still, a better way to think about it is whether something needs to be perfectly flawless to be good? If the bar for something to be good is to be perfect then fine, but you need to apply that same bar everywhere - not just on things where you have a personal opinion. From my perspective nothing is perfect and many things are great even with flaws.
We should debate this on a podcast sometime I feel like it would be fun. Not going to go through all this or re-hash previous points, but just two things to say here:
1) This wasn't a story about specific data, but I've done analysis work for my entire career, for tech and life science firms where the bar is very high - and include links to data in my stories that I think are perfectly valid. One thing here that is for sure true is we look at it differently. That's totally fine! People publish thesis' of stocks all the time saying different things looking at the same charts. Eventually, the market (or reality) proves one side was right at what it meant.
2) Twitter does not claim to be an authoritative source, it's so different. And if Wikipedia wants to be taken seriously it shouldn't be beyond reproach. If it's so weak it can't stand to scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve to persist. If they are worthy of persisting and being trusted, they will.
Why can’t we struggle to make things even better instead of struggle to tear things apart?
Well, most of human collaboration under freedom (read: capitalism) actually does make things better. This annoys some people to no end
I agree with this, and of course we should be able to say true things-- even if it's uncomfortable. But, I've noticed that in pockets of the right, people seem to delight in saying uncomfortable things. I suppose the best example is marriage and family when I can feel the smirk from "Well you know fertility dramatically decreases after age 30." Yes, Joel, we know. And being honest is important, but we needn't delight in being jerks either.
This is true, but you carry some of the beliefs yourself! You constantly claim that Wikipedia is untrustworthy and should be deleted, that the university system is indoctrinating students into progressive ideas, etc.
You need to read this article again and really examine some of those beliefs. No matter how much evidence we've shown you, those beliefs persist.
I appreciate your commentary Sean, one throwaway Tweet (I think that's what you're referencing) isn't representative, I write longer thoughts on all this which have more context and includes plenty of links, examples and evidence. They punish our links there or I'd always include.
Anyway, I really think there's nothing that's unreasonable I've published, note I'm perfectly willing to talk about any of it with you. But maybe an analogy will work with how I see both of those topics: I wouldn't eat a sandwich even with only a small amount of poison somewhere. I'd demand a new sandwich, or at least the poison part cut out. And that's about what's happening here.
The first graphic here describes a lot of what universities have ignored, and 1,000s of people have documented. Even you agree education quality has suffered in recent times, I know you want better quality education for everyone and you're passionate about this topic. I think it's a civic good for both professors and people outside the system to point out problems (1,000s of professors do online). It's really the only form of market pressure a lot of these institutions have.
To be clear, this is how these dogmatic ideas work:
1. They have anecdotes instead of data. There are cherry picked incidents and facts that follow the preferred narrative, but they don't match the overall data.
2. They have different standards. You promote Twitter (which is objectively problematic) but condemn Wikipedia, which is textbook shifting standards.
3. They claim it's mainstream. When challenged, the answer is that "everyone knows this".
My point is that on these topics you're showing the same behavior that you're calling out in this piece. At a time where temperatures are high and it's easy to fall into filter bubbles and confirmation bias, it's important to step back and recognize when we're falling into to the same trap.
Your metaphor about the sandwich is funny because most sandwiches do have poison (pesticides) in them. Still, a better way to think about it is whether something needs to be perfectly flawless to be good? If the bar for something to be good is to be perfect then fine, but you need to apply that same bar everywhere - not just on things where you have a personal opinion. From my perspective nothing is perfect and many things are great even with flaws.
We should debate this on a podcast sometime I feel like it would be fun. Not going to go through all this or re-hash previous points, but just two things to say here:
1) This wasn't a story about specific data, but I've done analysis work for my entire career, for tech and life science firms where the bar is very high - and include links to data in my stories that I think are perfectly valid. One thing here that is for sure true is we look at it differently. That's totally fine! People publish thesis' of stocks all the time saying different things looking at the same charts. Eventually, the market (or reality) proves one side was right at what it meant.
2) Twitter does not claim to be an authoritative source, it's so different. And if Wikipedia wants to be taken seriously it shouldn't be beyond reproach. If it's so weak it can't stand to scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve to persist. If they are worthy of persisting and being trusted, they will.