Re: blame electronics

On 27/04/2024 11:56 pm, John Larkin wrote:

 https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/opinions/opinion-the-cause-of-campus-chaos-zakaria/index.html
 TV, and now cell phones.

But that isn't the problem.
The real problem is much the same as the change in the American diet which has made Americans a lot fatter.
People who sell food have tweaked it so that the people who buy it buy more of it - it doesn't matter the the manufacturers that their customers get fatter and die younger.
People who sell opinions make their output more compelling rather than more informative, because that enlarges their audience.
Being able to get stuff published in the New Yorker won't make you all that rich. Becoming a star on Fox News is much more profitable - Tucker Carlson is a depressing example.
John Larkin's enthusiasm for climate change denial reflects his willingness to binge on the intellectual equivalent of junk food.
We need an intellectual equivalent of Ozempic - critical thinking in a pill. Academic education is supposed to instill critical thinking, but it didn't work on John, or Donald Trump.
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Bill Sloman, Sydney