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Critical Thinking vs. Rehashing

I’m impressed with how fast conclusions spread–both good and bad. In fact, it’s a bit concerning that ideas can spread so quickly, often without much due diligence.  It’s also a potential problem because people are trained to trust authority or certain sources and they are overconfident about half-baked conclusions.

I think the root issue is that people aren’t motivated enough to determine the truth because it involves reviewing source/raw data. Instead, the majority of people believe a headline or some clickbait without doing sufficient due diligence.  Sometimes issues are rather complex and involve hours of study to determine fact from fiction (eg. nutritional recommendations, global warming, vaccine safety, etc). Sometimes, ideas that are stated as “absolute truths” are not that.

It’s quite refreshing to hear new ideas because many social interactions involve someone repeating, almost verbatim, a common news headline.  In fact, it’s gotten to a stage where Gmail and Skype have begun predicting your response to someone’s email/messages.

This may seem off-topic but one clear symptom of this is that people tend to repeat the hottest buzz words of the week, or month. For example, as of December 2018, I’ve heard the word “Millenial” so many times it’s quite ridiculous.  A millenial is a wide age range so people casting a large group as acting in a similar fashion is quite ridiculous and almost meaningless.

By Leon Apel

Leon Apel works virtually with talented team members from North America, Europe and Asia on projects designed to improve life on earth.

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