Social media make us JUMP to false conclusions

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“Information, disinformation, and narratives now spread globally between billions of people at the push of a button. Solana observes this did indeed occur, for good or for ill, with the COVID-19 pandemic” - Acton

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From the Archives – Please Don't Believe This Post

From 2011.

I’m dead serious about the title of this little essay. I’ll explain later. The focus of this piece is the need for more and better critical thinking (some of you probably already see the connection to the title).

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What Are We to Make of Cultural Marxism?

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“…some terms (especially if they accrue divisive political overtones) can become what the New Zealand philosopher, Jamie Whyte, has called “boo-hooray words”—words that provoke an almost visceral reaction of either disgust or delight, denunciation or celebration.

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The Madness of Crowds

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G.K. Chesterton once observed that the ‘special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it.’ His point was that moderns have forgotten that they are assuming what they believe to be a given. ‘In short,’ he concludes, “they always have an unconscious dogma; and an unconscious dogma is the definition of a prejudice.” - Breakpoint

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The temptation of propaganda

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“While all ages and people are tempted by what Josef Pieper calls the ‘abuse of language, abuse of power,’ the French social philosopher Jacques Ellul, argues that contemporary technological society makes propaganda more pervasive.” - Acton

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Pew: Most Americans Can’t Tell Fact From Opinion

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“The adults polled were presented with ten news-related statements, five that were demonstrably true or false and five that were opinions. Two ‘borderline’ statements were also presented. Only 26 percent of the adults polled recognized all five of the factual statements as such. About 35 percent recognized all of the opinion statements as opinion.” NReview

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