this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Thought for the day
I saw this interesting article on intellectual humility; but there is a nice section on a single trait is not sufficient to be a good thinker.
My thought for the day is: is it important to you to be a "good thinker".
I mainly don't want to end up like I've so often seen with older relatives getting stuck in one way of thinking and falling for misinformation easily.
The world/universe/society/whatever is always going to change whether we like it or not and it's up to us to remain adaptable and work with what we have rather than always pining for the "good old days"
Those older relations I've seen thrive in old age are mainly the ones who kept on being interested in the world, because that interest promotes engagement and learning. Like, using email at 100.
Yeah that's my aim too, try to keep up with the times and keep learning.
I think learning new things is also good for brain health, so it's win-win. This conversation is making me think I need to get back into trying to have linux (after, like, a 20 year hiatus - I bet it has improved). :-)
It really commendable that you don't want to fall for the misinformation; some (or a lot) of the "good old days" are imagined / misremembered.
I see this with my contemporaries as well as the older generation. I think "social" media has a lot to answer for; the volume of misinformation has gone from a trickle in the 80's and 90's when I grew up; to a torrent of; at the low end lies, to the upper end active manipulation of elections.
Algorithmic information feeds constantly steering people to confirmation bias bubbles is something that seems to be happening more and more.
I'm an optimist; I especially think that education is the answer to a lot of societies ills. But some days, it is hard to be an optimist.
I recall that it's been studied that social media has a lot of detrimental mental effects on people. I've stopped using most of it outside of lemmy/reddit.
I feel as we get older life sort of falls into a routine and we stop learning and testing ourselves which makes us less able to handle the inevitable shifts in society. I have to remind myself that eventually my kids will be teaching me things and I have to be open to that, rather than the culturally ingrained idea that older generations always know more.
I agree, education is important and helps to fight so much misinformation. And so is being able to learn from unconventional people and situations. Often we dismiss people who we don't deem as smart/successful/insightful enough or we let personal prejudices decide that there is nothing they can offer. This can be a hard one to overcome too I find.
I am the same; I stopped all social media for a while, then added in some Reddit for the technical stuff. I have moved to around 95% Lemmy now as my only social media.
I like the people here; discussions are generally quite good and thoughtful. I really hope it stays this way as Lemmy grows.
Interesting indeed. Article pitches the need to be a good thinker as a generic need, which I think misses the point. The need to be a good thinker is, I think, essential but highly situational - but I expect it's a practised skill, so there's no harm in applying it in 'non essential' areas. Maybe that then runs the risk of overthinking everything. But then maybe I'm overthinking that.
I'm convinced that a lot of overthinking is just practice.
I mean, so what if I have a plan for the zombie invasion? I also have a plan for a gas explosion in the kitchen, and the one informs the other!
That is an interesting article thanks! I think it's right, but also there's an aspect of humility that the author doesn't really touch on, and that's people who are quite disenfranchised. It's not so much "whatever, man" as "I am probably wrong because I am dumb/people like me don't know things like that/can't do that".
I used to see it a fair bit in nontraditional students. So, I'd suggest another fundamental component that has to be nurtured sometimes is sapere aude ("dare to know"). Having the courage to not only accept humility, but to try for more knowledge anyway.
Nicely put