Comment by wpietri
5 years ago
Yeah, the whole reason we have public education is that democracy requires a knowledgeable voter base. When social media companies were just starting out, I get why they weren't fretting about societal effects. But even if we go by business metrics, a collapse of democracy would probably be bad for their businesses. It's past time for social media companies to take responsibility for their negative externalities. And that definitely includes all sort of "negative information value" content.
Yeah, there's a difference between educated and knowledgeable. But I don;t agree on the reason of existence of the public education system - its not about the voter base, it's about improving not only yourself, but the society as well (as improving society secures in a way improvement of you and your offspring).
I don't find social media companies responsible for the user generated content, but I do find them responsible for making it damn too easy to spread fear and then doing nothing about it. Or, as in case of some, promoting the division.
That's a good reason to have public education, of course. But it's a nice-to-have. Democracy cannot function without educated voters.
Agreed for sure on the second point. They turned everybody into publishers with global reach and still haven't really thought about what previous publishers did to make sure that power was used responsibly.
> But even if we go by business metrics, a collapse of democracy would probably be bad for their businesses.
But the ride the will be extremely profitable and business have shown to care more about short term than long term. Some examples are Nestle guzzling ground water during droughts, Johnson's baby powder with talc, the entire oil gas and coal industry, Pacific gas and electric company, etc.
Public education and knowledgeable voter base in the same sentence, what a joke.
Maybe this is a US-specific problem? I'm not American and the public education system is actually doing a great job in most developed countries.
Knowing closely two countries: USA and Mexico, I just know that people in the know and with the means to do so (top %1+) just avoid public education like the plague. (Up to high school, then it's just a matter of going to a top college.)
At some point you have to consider the history of public education and it was just a tool for controlling and repressing individual thought, give busy work to lower class kids so they stay out of trouble, don't grow up to question the system. What is usually taught there? Obey authority at all cost, getting status symbols from authority is most important (not actually learning), do not interact with people different from you (why the grade separation? shouldn't people learn at their own pace?), learn not what interests you, just follow the damn syllabus choosen by someone else, don't stand out, just memorize stuff, don't read actual primary sources, just the predigested/rehashed summary. I mean, sure there might be exceptions but it's pretty much the same everywhere
What countries you think are doing a great job and why?
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