The first problem with web serials is that you write your weakest chapters first and release them into the wild.
The second problem is writing too much. I am reading a popular web serial right now to see what's all the fuss is about and all I want is to edit, edit, edit it into something more concise and refined.
Don't write YA novels that are five times longer than War and Peace, please.
The mass is more than the sum of its parts, and if only a small minority exercise critical thinking they will be overwhelmed by the whole. As the great comic wrote - those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but those who learn from history are doomed to stand by helplessly as everyone else repeats it.
And furthermore, a democracy can not survive if the majority of the voter base is incapable of critical thinking. It needs to be better than even a simple majority. It worked in the Colonies because the citizens were mostly middle class independent farmers, for whom critical thinking was essential. And even after the second industrial revolution, small business continued to be the cornerstone of the economy. The political landscape will mirror the economic one, and our economy is now ruled by petty tyrants.
For someone literate you should probably know better.
First of all the Patriots were not even a simple majority. Turns out you don't need a majority to win what is basically a war of insurgency. There are several modern analogs that reflect this reality.
Second of all the country was founded by elites. It wasn't that farmers could do critical thinking (whatever that really means) it was that the punitive British response aligned economic incentives across class, and across North and South. So a large enough slice of the populace was ready to be sufficiently bought in on the propaganda of a few outstanding men.
Thirdly, your conception of history is wrong. Small elites always rule societies. America was not a democracy at its founding, that is if you take democracy to be the 21st century standard of universal suffrage. Societies are less about some arbitrary standard of critical thinking and more a contingent set of circumstances and incentives.
It's a bit ironic in your rather tired critique of modern culture you reveal another truth - those who complain about the contemporary intelligence of the masses often leave much to be desired in their own supposed superiority.
These remarks about how they'd agree with you if only they'd read more or how they aren't as superior to others as they think, these make your comment worse and emotional. Just make your case like you would in any other comment. If it's persuasive, then you look right and they look misinformed.
This kind of response is why we can't talk about all sorts of hot button topics on HN: people get personal. I'm sometimes guilty of it myself.
I elucidated three facts as to why they were mistaken. If they were more well read these facts would have been obvious to them. It's rather straightforward.
What are you offering? An off topic diagnosis of my mental state? I suggest you take your own advice, and offer a meaningful rejoinder to the facts in question if you have one. If not, I would remind you not commenting is always an option.
holy hell I enjoy an acerbic takedown as much as the next guy but this is beyond the pale.
given that we do now live in a society with a universal right to vote the need for an educated populace esp. regarding matters of civil society is more important than ever.
You've also misinterpreted the parent comment as they wrote nothing about contemporary intelligence. They're instead referring to structural forces that negatively impact critical thinking. See: the glut of commentary from otherwise highly intelligent and accomplished people reporting their own ability to focus being negatively impacted by social media and short-form content.
Furthermore, this is why the old school shared media outlets (the whole "back when everybody watched Walter Cronkite every night" thing) was so valuable. Few of us have the time to consider the issues with any degree of nuance or accuracy. So it's a real problem when the collective "source of truth" is poisoned by a horde of uncertified, often anonymous, charlatans spewing outright lies and incendiary half-truths, distributed at scale via algorithms designed to divide and inflame.
disclaimer: i'm fiercely anti-democracy, esp. with universal suffrage, for the exact reasons you cited.
> See: the glut of commentary from otherwise highly intelligent and accomplished people reporting their own ability to focus being negatively impacted by social media and short-form content.
Many people have long abandoned these platforms. No one is making you engage with them. These are not new problems. Famous example: Zuckerberg keeps his own family off his apps.
Your fourth paragraph is misinformed. Valorizing the Cronkite era is profoundly simplistic and boring. Humans always come up with alternative media. Conspiracies and half truths pervade every age. This entire internet ecosystem came up when the mainstream lied about the rationale for the Iraq War. Manufacturing Consent was written pre internet.
This paragraph also contains a contradiction with a statement you raise in your second paragraph as self-evident, given you offer no justification:
> given that we do now live in a society with a universal right to vote the need for an educated populace esp. regarding matters of civil society is more important than ever.
But in the fourth paragraph:
> Few of us have the time to consider the issues with any degree of nuance or accuracy.
So the populace must be educated but we need someone to tell us what to think because we have no time? Why is it so obvious that a society with universal suffrage requires an educated populace, vs say a populace simply capable of comprehending the instructions of an educated Cronkite?
Disclaimer: these are the contradictions raised by your own manner of framing the debate. The fact you missed this tension among neighboring paragraphs is something you have to account for. This is not the only such contradiction in your response fwiw, but hopefully you will grasp the nature of my point.
Do you not hear in your own arguments the same echoes of the uncritical pablum - the "glut" you also describe in contradictory terms - that passes for social commentary on "social media and short-form content" these days?
I merely suggest that you are just not thinking about these problems hard enough. Sorry, I'm not trying to cross some line, it just reads as obvious to me, on a critical evaluation of your statements. Why holding your statements to a high standard would be "beyond the pale" I'm not sure. You should spend less time online and reading more history. You would know better.
Here is something that may encourage you along these lines:
"I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus & Thucydides, for Newton & Euclid; & I find myself much the happier."
> They had access to the school just like everyone else
They literally did not. They had access to the school from a different entrance than everybody else. Specifically, one intended for cargo before people.
I'm emotionally aligned with you, but the dehumanisation is the default state (e.g. the able are standing and the wheelchair user is below eye level), and all accommodations are a result of society dedicating resources to moving the needle away from that.
It may not be sufficient, and we should criticise when it isn't sufficient, but we must in practical terms also accept tradeoffs in a scarcity economy. In the worst case, some of those tradeoffs accommodate one disability over another disability.
If the dean had a swanky office and the wheelchair kid must roll past the bins, then the school made the wrong choice. But if it's a ramp at the front or textbooks, then we must think a bit harder.
No problem at all, thanks for asking! Two from this year both from the UK.
I really wish I had kept all the others from the US, Europe, Aus/NZ etc. It is a very common theme but they are largely kept quiet and only typically (partially) released through freedom of information requests.
This one from Actuaries UK was one that set off alarm bells. As they advise the insurance industry, they are structured to be politically neutral. The key takeaway is the impacts of 3c temperature rise by 2050 on page 9. The reason this is an issue, we are currently on target to hit that with us likely to pass 2c mid next decade with the rate of warming increasing.
This one from the UK government is all about addressing national security regarding this issue. Typically they are advising that they secure their food supplies and hardened up boarders in the next 5 years. Funnily enough Brexit may have given them the power to enforce this much more than they would have otherwise had. But that just means they have built a unique flavor of oppression.
I recommend the Energy Skeptic blog, they often provide sources and links to papers: https://energyskeptic.com/
They also pass my personal test of not advocating for dumb feel-good ideas. Recently they published a well-sourced article on why the US rail system isn’t a good candidate for electrification.
Was all about just doing the math on energy transitions. He wasn't anti renewable technology but did want to point out how scale is a problem that few understand.
My favorite number of his is, that at 3% growth year over year, we would need all the energy of the Milky way galaxy by the year 13,000. As the galaxy is 100,000 light years across, this would defy physics itself.
Seconded, that’s a good one too. I also recommend Jem Bendell as a palate cleanser, his work is fluffier but it’s all about finding ways to thrive during decline rather than succumbing to doom and gloom.
Ridiculous example that does nothing to argue the original, fair point. Obviously health interventions demand more finely tuned solutions than information technology
FWIW, maintaining at least a moderate degree of empathy even in systemically frustrating situations is good for the empathizer and thus in one’s interest
That's how chapter 11 type bankruptcy works. The business continues to run but the debtors are now the owners. There's also chapter 7 where the business shuts down and stripped for parts to pay the debts.
