You are dumb because you want.

[SirManison]

Think about it.
Just for a second.
In medieval times, learning was a privilege of nobles and wealthy families, and even they weren´t able to access to certain specific books kept in monasteries under the hands of jealous monks.
Later on, with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, the knowledge and sapience became more accessible to a rising bourgeois class, who boosted movements like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and contributed to humanity´s development.
Nowadays, our access to information, and therefore, to knowledge and sapience, is in the palm of our hand. In our very fingers lies the biggest library of the history of humanity: our phones. All the knowledge that all people throughout the ages have brought to others is free. And we don´t use it.
In an era where being intelligent is practically free, it´s our fault to be dumb.
Start to read and you will see how your life will improve.
Not fiction, but psychology books, philosophy books, economy books, among others. Books that will change your perspective of the world. Books that are worth to read.
One place where you can find knowledge.
Another place where you can find knowledge.

 

[K0WLOON]

In medieval times...

If there's one thing this one loves, it's contracting a thousand years of history across an entire continent of many cultures into a single monolithic (one might say floating) signifier for it's personal and ill-conceived brainthink

 

[vulonkaaz]

yes

 

[punisheddead]

I'm actually very smart, my AI sycophant tells me that all the time.

 

[llillilll]

One very interesting thing i found is information without practice is usually worse than no information at all.

Reading economic books won't make you understand the current state of things better for example, working in white collar after a year or two on blue collar work will.

Reading how a engine runs 20 times will teach you less than taking apart a cheap 4 cylinder engine, reading about psychology won't do anything.

 

[RisingThumb]

Think about it.
Just for a second.
In medieval times, learning was a privilege of nobles and wealthy families, and even they weren´t able to access to certain specific books kept in monasteries under the hands of jealous monks.
Later on, with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, the knowledge and sapience became more accessible to a rising bourgeois class, who boosted movements like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and contributed to humanity´s development.
Nowadays, our access to information, and therefore, to knowledge and sapience, is in the palm of our hand. In our very fingers lies the biggest library of the history of humanity: our phones. All the knowledge that all people throughout the ages have brought to others is free. And we don´t use it.
In an era where being intelligent is practically free, it´s our fault to be dumb.
Start to read and you will see how your life will improve.
Not fiction, but psychology books, philosophy books, economy books, among others. Books that will change your perspective of the world. Books that are worth to read.
One place where you can find knowledge.
Another place where you can find knowledge.

Having knowledge is not the same thing as intelligence, but is rather more about being educated. If you are not educated, you will always be on the back foot when discussing anything with anyone that has a prerequisite for being educated. Perhaps the best example of this, is financial education, especially among younger people. Most people are financially illiterate. The easiest way to demonstrate this is in compound interest: The formula for compound interest:

Where quite often these younger people say they have plenty of time to start investing later on in life, thinking what they have saved will have a bigger effect. How much you put forward, is multiplicative, while the amount of time you spend investing is an exponent. Knowing this fact about compound interest doesn't make me intelligent, but it allows me to make decisions that seem intelligent(in other words beginning investing early in my 20s).

The example above is what being educated or knowledgeable is about. If you aren't educated, these sorts of things simply never cross your mind as you don't spend hours of your life thinking about it, and you will be kept at a distinct disadvantage throughout your life. I think intelligence is more about critical thinking, which can't be taught as easily. Another example of this education being poor, is some people don't realise that a 2% raise, against a 4% inflation rate is actually roughly a 2% loss in salary adjusted for inflation- but if you're unaware of this, your lack of financial education lets employers take advantage of you.

This lack of education manifests itself in other places too. I think Mathematics and Finances are the two where you're most likely to be taken advantage of and manipulated if you don't have it.

One very interesting thing i found is information without practice is usually worse than no information at all.

I think this is worse in school. As an adult, I can see how knowledge can be applied, make a note of it, and apply it when the situation arises. As a child in school, with the example above, learning about compound interest in mathematics was completely useless as I wasn't taught or appreciated the significance of the components of it. I could certainly apply the equation in rote standard questions, but had no appreciation for what it meant.

 

[Punp]

>joined yesterday
>most basic and retarded of takes
Yeah.

OP neglects to voice the following:

• The sheer amount of noise to signal in online "information".
• The broad scope of all that there is to learn vs its applicability to reality
• Access to the data hose of information allows for easier distraction
• Learning forty hours of Homestuck lore is of value to nobody
• Psyops and control via "learning"
• Infinite luxury time to learn is a luxury
• The capacity of learning is a metric of biological hardware and psychological competence

It's nice to feel smugly comfortable in your masturbatory education, but maybe lurk more etc.

 

[灰の男性]

>joined yesterday
>most basic and retarded of takes
Yeah.

OP neglects to voice the following:

• The sheer amount of noise to signal in online "information".
• The broad scope of all that there is to learn vs its applicability to reality
• Access to the data hose of information allows for easier distraction
• Learning forty hours of Homestuck lore is of value to nobody
• Psyops and control via "learning"
• Infinite luxury time to learn is a luxury
• The capacity of learning is a metric of biological hardware and psychological competence

It's nice to feel smugly comfortable in your masturbatory education, but maybe lurk more etc.

Also it's supposed to be "You are dumb because you want to be dumb" or "You are dumb because you want to". Also the usage of dots in headlines is grammatically incorrect.

 

[punisheddead]

It's nice to feel smugly comfortable in your masturbatory education, but maybe lurk more etc.

I like how he talks about the joys of reading books but then doesn't give a single example of a book he thinks is worth reading.

 

[Noxy]

I wish all of humanity's knowledge was up there for free on the internet, but it's really not, there is way too much stuff locked in physical books that never got digitalized.
Plus reading in the computer is a miserable experience in the long run.

One very interesting thing i found is information without practice is usually worse than no information at all.

Reading economic books won't make you understand the current state of things better for example, working in white collar after a year or two on blue collar work will.

Reading how a engine runs 20 times will teach you less than taking apart a cheap 4 cylinder engine, reading about psychology won't do anything.

It sure as hell won't make you 'smart', much less a professional, but having a basic grasp on a concept is better than knowing nothing at all.
I.E. Maybe he does not know how greasy the engine really is, or how to take it apart, but he knows why it may melt if it's not cooled properly.

 

[Klaus]

I became dumber after reading that

 

[llillilll]

I wish all of humanity's knowledge was up there for free on the internet, but it's really not, there is way too much stuff locked in physical books that never got digitalized.
Plus reading in the computer is a miserable experience in the long run.


It sure as hell won't make you 'smart', much less a professional, but having a basic grasp on a concept is better than knowing nothing at all.
I.E. Maybe he does not know how greasy the engine really is, or how to take it apart, but he knows why it may melt if it's not cooled properly.

but engines can't melt ...

 

[Richard Smith]

I think one of the main issues with the main point of this post is it assumes that access to knowledge does not guarantee that the knowledge is even useful in the first place. In addition to that, studying on your own in a less structured environment tends to have worse educational outcomes than working in a group of your peers guided along by a more knowledgeable instructor. There is a level of romanticism attached to the idea of the solitary genius that tends to be eroded the first time someone attempts to learn on their own at a collegiate level. A good example of this phenomena is the general failure of MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) to create a more educated populace or lead to any sort of revolution in the way education is handled. Very, very few people actually finish any sort of self learning program on their own and the people who do generally would excel in a structured program anyways. Hence why its important to have well structured, affordable, quality education available both for younger folks and people later on in their lives looking to pivot their career. Sure you could learn engineering or programming or any other deeply technical subject for free with just libre text, lib gen, and Youtube, but will the quality of the education be there without anyone to check your errors?

There is also the issue of how deeply your reading the books from these online libraries. Reading to learn is very different from just passively reading or reading for entertainment and requires taking down notes while you read. I think the average person is not up to the task of doing this in the small amount of free time they have especially if they don't have a structured learning plan or any feedback on what there doing. Finally, there is the issue of being able to demonstrate said skills to prospective employers. If your learning just for self edification that is great, but I assume if its learning to program or some other technical subject its so the learner can get a better paying job or go into business for themselves. So while I agree most people are in ignorance and should spend more time learning, I believe the best way to learn is with others in a structured environment that has an actual meaningful benchmark for your personal development (Certification, Title, Degree etc.).

 

[angertard]

You'll notice that when you read things on a screen, you eyes move into a skipping mode. They did some studies on this or something. I'm not sure if this doesn't count for kindles or other paper-like e-readers. I am an audiobooker, but that really doesn't work well for anything with math.

 

[SirManison]

I like how he talks about the joys of reading books but then doesn't give a single example of a book he thinks is worth reading.

Nearly all of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle´s Dialogues are worth reading in order to have a clearer view of the world and its concepts.
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius if you want to understand stoicism.
Basic Economy of Thomas Sowell if you are a beginner in Economics.
De Optimo Genere Oratorum if you are socially awkward.
Don Quixote because I like it.
If you have any other recommendations, feel free to add them.

Plus reading in the computer is a miserable experience in the long run.

Of course, but if you can´t afford physical books, digital ones can be your salvation.

 

[SirManison]

I think one of the main issues with the main point of this post is it assumes that access to knowledge does not guarantee that the knowledge is even useful in the first place. In addition to that, studying on your own in a less structured environment tends to have worse educational outcomes than working in a group of your peers guided along by a more knowledgeable instructor. There is a level of romanticism attached to the idea of the solitary genius that tends to be eroded the first time someone attempts to learn on their own at a collegiate level. A good example of this phenomena is the general failure of MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) to create a more educated populace or lead to any sort of revolution in the way education is handled. Very, very few people actually finish any sort of self learning program on their own and the people who do generally would excel in a structured program anyways. Hence why its important to have well structured, affordable, quality education available both for younger folks and people later on in their lives looking to pivot their career. Sure you could learn engineering or programming or any other deeply technical subject for free with just libre text, lib gen, and Youtube, but will the quality of the education be there without anyone to check your errors?

There is also the issue of how deeply your reading the books from these online libraries. Reading to learn is very different from just passively reading or reading for entertainment and requires taking down notes while you read. I think the average person is not up to the task of doing this in the small amount of free time they have especially if they don't have a structured learning plan or any feedback on what there doing. Finally, there is the issue of being able to demonstrate said skills to prospective employers. If your learning just for self edification that is great, but I assume if its learning to program or some other technical subject its so the learner can get a better paying job or go into business for themselves. So while I agree most people are in ignorance and should spend more time learning, I believe the best way to learn is with others in a structured environment that has an actual meaningful benchmark for your personal development (Certification, Title, Degree etc.).

I think my message is more for people that can´t afford quality education and tries to justify their ignorance with this tight budget, when you can actually learn entire careers without needing to pay for classes. Of course this knowledge would not be as trustworthy as university one, but it is a great step.

 

[Some_porcupine]

if it were so simple, oh boy, society would be like that "society if..." meme macro...
also, bored to say, this is not the first time where agora came up, with your thread, to theme of education and internet.
graze you eyes upon then-discussed topics and user-theses!

The internet and education

The internet is a place where you can quite literally learn almost anything. You won't get any sort of special degree, but just really thinking about the amount of information is huge. If you want to know about something, knowledge about it is out there somewhere. From something simple as making...

forum.agoraroad.com

 

[Richard Smith]

I think my message is more for people that can´t afford quality education and tries to justify their ignorance with this tight budget, when you can actually learn entire careers without needing to pay for classes. Of course this knowledge would not be as trustworthy as university one, but it is a great step.

Ah I see. I do agree that people will make up excuses to stay in place. Oftentimes these excuses sound very reasonable too. There is always a logical, good sounding reason to not do things that are not fully necessary. Still you have to do it or you go stagnant.

 

[☯змія☯]

Think about it.
Just for a second.
In medieval times, learning was a privilege of nobles and wealthy families, and even they weren´t able to access to certain specific books kept in monasteries under the hands of jealous monks.
Later on, with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, the knowledge and sapience became more accessible to a rising bourgeois class, who boosted movements like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and contributed to humanity´s development.
Nowadays, our access to information, and therefore, to knowledge and sapience, is in the palm of our hand. In our very fingers lies the biggest library of the history of humanity: our phones. All the knowledge that all people throughout the ages have brought to others is free. And we don´t use it.
In an era where being intelligent is practically free, it´s our fault to be dumb.
Start to read and you will see how your life will improve.
Not fiction, but psychology books, philosophy books, economy books, among others. Books that will change your perspective of the world. Books that are worth to read.
One place where you can find knowledge.
Another place where you can find knowledge.

 

[CLOVER-ZERO]

It's not just because of want, people don't prioritize the health and overall being of their minds or "intrinisic" aspects of themselves. About as much as it is a good need to worry about getting in with the wrong crowd, they don't work their brains with that want. We live in a society of instant gratification and fulfillment, which while great in some aspects, is terrible in others.

Learning takes time, but we have a society where education is mandated to be grasped within a specific time frame else you're just stupid to their standards. In the western world, the main go to of spirituality is that of European originated Christianity, which tells of instant spiritual salvation upon pledging eternal allegiance to its faith. Even without societal institutions, the cultures that founded them have problems of their own, rooted in seeing excessive opulence and greed as the best way of living and that anything that doesn't fit that is lesser.

I don't apologize for these things anymore. You could give all of the information in the world to people, and that could likely be lost due to some individuals being pedantic, zealous to the point of bias, or plain sociopathic or evil. It's how they use it and how well they are raised. People don't stand where they live and they don't want to.