Google making you dumb

[surviva316]

As an example of the above, I think grade school math tests should maybe place less and less emphasis on deriving perfectly-accurate-right-down-to-the-ones-digit when it comes to arithmetic, and place more and more emphasis on the ability to make quick and intuitive guesstimates. If you need the perfect answer upon which the water supply of the East Bay area will rely, then you best break out the calculator. If you're at a retail shop and trying to figure out in your head if you can afford a T-shirt once you account for the sale price and your coupon, then you just need a quick and reliable ballpark figure.

I'm sure my fellow poker players can really get the above point: when do you ever actually break out the pencil and paper and do long division right down to the final decimal place? When you're at the table, you need quick mnemonics to make vague apple-to-kinda-apply comparisons; when you're studying and want to get the numbers just right, you have like 5 tabs open with different tools that instantaneously spit out perfectly derived data.

[MadMojoMonkey]

When conservatists speak of things[...]

It is dehumanizing to devalue a person's opinion based on other people's opinions (even if the other people have similar opinions on similar topics).

When you do this you assume that an actual person's opinions have no nuance from the larger group.
Also, you inject an adversarial tone into the dialogue.

Was that your goal? To me, it shuts off the possibility of honest, open exchange of ideas, and characterizes the conversation as a debate.

I find debate to be the least useful form of disseminating information. Neither side of the debate is allowed to change their stance, all arguments are premeditated, and balance means that all opinions have equal factual footing.


I'm generally in agreement with your analysis beyond the introduction.

***
Too much? Just a monkey getting his diaper in a bind?

[surviva316]

It is dehumanizing to devalue a person's opinion based on other people's opinions (even if the other people have similar opinions on similar topics).

FWIW, I meant to say conservativist. I meant nothing political by what I said, so if that's what got your diaper bound, then I'm sorry for the mixup.

Also FWIW, I did include the qualifier "tend to." It maybe woulda been slightly better to say "There's a strong tendency among conservatists ... ", but I don't know and it doesn't seem important enough to dwell.

I don't really wish to qualify it any more than that because I really do mean to make a massive, general statement in this case. There is an extremely prevalent approach to a wide range of conversations where simply pointing out one downside to a new technology/solution/policy is enough to convince a large segment of people that the world would be better off without it, and this effect kills so much discussion on the spot.

This article makes a value statement on the effect of Google on our intelligence,[1] and it seems pretty fucking silly for any value assessment to be made without considering an entire half of the equation (ie: the good). It annoys me that this article (and many arguments of its kind) would convince anyone, and I'm lumping anyone that it might convince into the group of conservatists--this due to the fact that they're all too easily convinced of the badness of some new thing.


[1]Or at least its title purports that; if they changed the title to, "Our Relationship with Technology is Maybe Not Quite As Positive As We Might Think," then we likely wouldn't be having this conversation, due in no small part to the fact that no one would care to read it.

[MadMojoMonkey]

if they changed the title to, "Our Relationship with Technology is Maybe Not Quite As Positive As We Might Think," then we likely wouldn't be having this conversation, due in no small part to the fact that no one would care to read it.

That hits the nail on the head.

The problem is that having asked a question, the author seems compelled to state an answer, when an "I don't know, here's what I find confusing:" would be more honest, but less controversial.

If the focus is plainly feeding a controversy, then it bothers me.


***
I can be overly sensitive to political distinctions, I agree with your comment to that end.

The reason is that I am sensitive to prejudice and bigotry, and I find rhetoric which is dehumanizing should be called out. To me, this kind of rhetoric is the fuel of all international wars. I don't pretend to be saving the world in this conversation; I don't remotely believe that you are a capable warmonger.

So I, too, experience emotional displacement sometimes.
Mistakes are made.


Which brings me to this:

this due to the fact that they're all too easily convinced of the badness of some new thing

"They" are different from you, and you are implicitly "better" than them because you are NOT "all too easily confused".

This is textbook bigotry. You judge a group as inferior to yourself categorically.

Which is also feeding a controversy, so I'm not sure how ingenuous you are being in your critique.

[kingnat]

As an example of the above, I think grade school math tests should maybe place less and less emphasis on deriving perfectly-accurate-right-down-to-the-ones-digit when it comes to arithmetic, and place more and more emphasis on the ability to make quick and intuitive guesstimates. If you need the perfect answer upon which the water supply of the East Bay area will rely, then you best break out the calculator. If you're at a retail shop and trying to figure out in your head if you can afford a T-shirt once you account for the sale price and your coupon, then you just need a quick and reliable ballpark figure.

I think i may have posted this before long ago on some other thread, but whatever...

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathemati...uary-iap-2008/