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285 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 8 Apr \ on: An Inch Deep and a Mile Wide mostly_harmless
We have a family member coming to visit, who often refers to his knowledge as "a mile wide and an inch deep". It's half self-deprecating half pride at being broadly "informed". I dread getting sucked into conversations with him, because it's either listening to him drone on about something that neither of us is actually interested in or it's something where he's completely misinformed and I have to decide whether it's worth even getting into with him.
In grad school, I would occasionally playfully chastise my peers about this, when they would just repeat talking points. I'd say something like "Yeah, I saw that John Oliver segment too, but if we're going to put ourselves out as experts we should probably dig a little deeper than that."
It's definitely not easy to fix. I try to follow people with a range of political/cultural views who have a track record of getting basic facts right and seeing through propaganda in real time. It's not perfect and most people don't want to bother keeping track of that stuff.
I bet we all have people like this in our lives. I sometimes wonder if this is a recent and western thing. Maybe even a US thing. I think there may just be a culture that encourages an inflated view of the value of each person's opinions.
Think about how the Internet has allowed everyone to share what they "think" about pretty much anything from any location. Even SN is a part of this. I think its created an over-inflated view of the value of opinions. And it seems like it is much more opinion than fact/knowledge being spread.
What also often strikes me is how people will start talking to me about a topic like their thoughts are unique when it is clear they are just repeating some slogan being promoted this week by the elite class. Kinda blows my mind that they can seriously present in this way. Over the years I've gotten much better at smiling and nodding and not engaging with a second-hander. It is rarely worth it.
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What also often strikes me is how people will start talking to me about a topic like their thoughts are unique when it is clear they are just repeating some slogan being promoted this week by the elite class.
Exactly this.
I sometimes wonder if this is a recent and western thing.
I meant to comment on this initially. I think this is a holdover from the Enlightenment era and the idea of the generally educated citizen.
Somewhere I read that up until the late 1700's it was basically possible for a very intelligent scholar to be well-versed on nearly the whole scope of human scholarship. This became the liberal ideal (and it is very cool). Since then, though, the sheer volume of knowledge has expanded to where basically none of us know anything about anything. Even on the small handful of topics that we specialize in, what we don't know greatly outweighs what we do know.
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That's very interesting. Here's something else to think about. I forget the exact dates but I would argue that it is possible for one to be a very intelligent scholar today. I don't think the amount of information that is USEFUL has increased to a point where many people are incapable of human scholarship.
Consider the change in education away from a classical education model to the modern industrial Prussian education model which does not intend to create scholars. The intention is to produce good compliant citizens. In other words, the masses are being dumbed down into submission. That's my thought.
This is why I believe government schooling is one of the most evil systems in US society. Like the most evil systems it pretends to be good.
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I don't think the amount of information that is USEFUL has increased to a point where many people are incapable of human scholarship.
That's an interesting thought. The genesis of my nym is that people are blinded by whichever discipline they're subscribed to and they don't appreciate the insights from beyond it.
There's undoubtedly some version of the 80-20 principle (maybe the second order 64-4), where you can have a very broad general knowledge if you can identify the most valuable insights and not worry about the 96% of less valuable details and esoterica.
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