No, it's around the world. Dumb sticks out while people with a brain keep low and stay out of the way.

I do think some sort of divide is happening between the intelligent and dumb.

>>2018407
I thik the problem is reasonably smart people accepting information from 'authorised' third parties.

Lots of people I know will eat up analogies and opinions from the paper or the tellevision. But will reject the same from people around them.

I wanted to make a joke like

>implying a AA+ rated country is a first world country

But I won't, except that I just did, I guess.

Anyway, here in Canada, people demean you publicly for having off-the-cuff opinions, rather than well-researched thoughts. But it's hard for a non-expert to have truly well-researched thoughts, so there is a bit of hypocrisy to the whole thing. Maybe it's a class issue too, I don't know enough about the subject.

I suspect that this whole issue has something to do with the difference between specialists and generalists, because anyone who tries to be a generalist in today's workforce will pretty much suck at whatever job they try to do. I don't know, it's all very complicated, and I don't have enough data. I don't even know where to try to find the right data, to be honest.

>implying liberal bias isn't the single most poisonous aspect of our intellectual environment
Places like Germany and France are thriving just fine. They recognize that certain folk actually are more intelligent and well-suited to any given task and don't drop millions of funding into feminist theory

>>2018414
>I thik the problem is reasonably smart people accepting information from 'authorised' third parties.
But that's how science works now. I realize I'm not actually addressing the point you were trying to make, but think about it. For a person living in a contemporary society, believing in science is little more than an appeal to authority. The issue then becomes which authority do you appeal to, which is much more an issue of sociology than rationality. You're already committing a basic fallacy anyway, it just becomes a fight about "which group of experts should we trust".

I'm not really qualified to take part in that fight, to be honest, when it comes to issues like global warming and whatever, so I can't really blame the people who appeal to religious authority rather than scientific authority, like I do. Epistemically, it's pretty much identical, from a regular dude's point of view.

>>2018407
>Dumb sticks out
Like your post?

In France, the intellectuals are treated like rock-stars.

>>2018433
Based on my very limited knowledge of France's current intellectual life, I don't think your post is totally correct. I mean, people like Bernard Henry Levy are treated like rock stars, but he really only seems like an intellectual to the average idiot. He doesn't usually know what he's talking about.

>>2018395
I blame reality TV shows and the social media. It was more poetic to toll for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts rather than give them their own soapbox and find out they have nothing good to say.

Most of the developed world doesn't have a giant "news" corporation full of hypocrites, racists, sociopaths and morons yelling OBAMA BAD WAR GOOD GO TEA PARTY LIBRUL BIAS REPUBLICAN CONGRESS GOOD, JOB CREATORS 24 hours a day. And the lack of organized religion helps too

>>2018423

Nigga you best be trollin.

>>2018414
>the paper or the tellevision
You must understand that the way information from each of these sources is processed in completely different ways.

The television is finally dying. Good riddance. It's a shame to see something with so much potential be so horribly misused.

>But will reject the same from people around them.
This isn't necessarily true, the sharpest minds tend to engage in rhetoric just to test the other with whom they are speaking.
Either way, discussions will tend to influence one's opinion.
Just because it is not outwardly apparent doesn't mean it's not happening.

>>2018441
If you think Fox News is even relevant to this discussion, you're part of the problem. (Probably not really, you'll never have any opportunity to affect the intellectual environment in our country, thank God)

>>2018442
Maybe you are, but no; I was completely serious.

>>2018448

>thank God

trollradar.jpeg

>>2018448

How is Fox News not relevant to this discussion?

A multinational media empire, run by a sociopath, ruthless baron who pretty much controlled England's politics (if you weren't on his good side, good luck with your career in politics after his newspapers "magically" found some of your dirty laundry), running his newspapers like they are his personal diary, and who pretty much allowed Glenn Beck to use his channels and exposure to assemble a party of nutjobs and idiots whom after being elected into Congress almost bankrupted the biggest economy on Earth....

now tell me again, why aren't Fox news relevant?

>>2018441
No, that's not the case. Many countries have em; but the question is the citizens were brought up.
It is compulsory for some schools to teach the kids how to look through representation and bianes, depending on the location. Australia for example, in exchange for fundamental english skills, they teach them about how current affairs, newspapers and news manipulates information.
Furthermore, the smart peeps doesn't speak up, so there's the other side of your problem.

Because OP asked about the intellectual environment. They run popular media and mess with politics. Cool. They're not stripping Harvard of its endowment or anything like that. Your hard-on for evil newspeople!2011 is nice but nobody cares.

Also, more of Murdoch's money actually goes to thinktanks who fund academic research than other news corporations', so your point is stupid anyways.

Here in the UK you may think at first glance we are anti-intellectual with reality tv shows making idiots famous and so forth. But if you look closer it is actually snobbery towards people towards certain backgrounds and an attitude that some classes are stupid and others not.

>>2018472
>>2018468

>>2018471

I was refering to privately owned, for-profit news channels. AFAIK, a lot of European countries' main source of news are govt' funded news (hence the lack of obvious bias) where as the private companis make up for a much smaller section of the news

Correct me if I am wrong

>Also, more of Murdoch's money actually goes to thinktanks who fund academic research than other news corporations', so your point is stupid anyways.

Wow, thanks a lot, I mean, I sleep soundly at night knowing that Fox News are poisoning the US with that diarrhea they call "news" and inciting a bunch of rednecks to RAISE YER GUNS FOR 'MURIKA PEOPLE, OBAMA IS A NIG-TARBAB-TRAITOR, but hey, its OK, they spent money on "research". And may I as, what kind of research?

>>2018472

If you think NewsCorp's influence only reaches the "intellectual environment", then you've been living under a rock for the past 2 months

>>2018472
>>2018468
It's relevant, but only in this way:

Rupert Murdoch is, more than anything else, a businessman.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that what sells the most is almost never what is best for society.

You can be mad at Murdoch, or you can look at the system and find the flaws.

When you combine capitalism with television (a medium that is a one-way transmission of images and audio) you get information that is filtered for the lowest common denominator of society.

Plato pointed out that one-way oral dissemination of information minimizes disagreement and promotes uniformity of thought.

not knowing things = being young. Everyone wants to be young, because that means you're cool. Old people are smart, they are not cool and they are jerks FIGHT THE SYSTEM BRO PARTY ALL DAY AND NIGHT

or

Not knowing shit means you're rich. I don't need to know how to drive/do taxes/change a flat tire/wash clothes/cook/etc beause I have people (or should have them amirite?) to do that for me. People want to pretend they are rich and don't need to know anything since it will be taken care of for them.

I also heard somewhere, and I wish I could remember the source, about this study that indicated people are more likely to remember information if they think they won't be able to access it again easily when needed. With the internet being everywhere and the idea that information is readily available, there's no incentive to collect it in your brain since it's been collected to external sources that you can get to when needed.

Just a few ideas.

>>2018496

He's talking about shit like the Cato Institute and other libertarian/republican think tanks that try to influence academia. They give grants to schools and generate 'reports' that are designed to support their preconceived notions of society, economics, and so on.

It's a very brilliant strategy it's just also an evil one.

>>2018423
>trying to make the thread into a sexist neck beard virgin circle-jerk

>>2018472
>thinktanks
>myface when thinktanks are just a bunch of average intelligence faggots that get nothing done
We need more geniuses like Einstein, they get shit done.

What's up with lit trying to be so edgy and 70's countercultural lately? Is it having to go back to high school and seeing all the jocks banging that girl you liked in fifth grade?

>>2018423
>France
>fine
no, just no