"influencers" are setting us back

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• arctanthrope@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I see the point, but I don’t think intellectual elitism is the same as anti-anti-intellectualism. I think intellectual elitism creates a sense of alienation from science that in fact leads to anti-intellectualism. “I have more specialized knowledge than you” is not the same as “I’m better than you,” and acknowledging that is the solution

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  • EyIchFragDochNur@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think they’re joking about the elitism part. People just need to stop to listen to idiots

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    • arctanthrope@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      completely tangential, but this is actually an interesting grammatical point. I’m guessing you’re German by your username; “stop to listen to idiots” would mean “aufhören, um Idioten zuzuhören.” “aufhören Idioten zuzuhören” would be “stop listening to idiots.” it’s interesting because “to [verb]” and “[verb]ing” are often interchangeable, but in this case they actually mean the opposite

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    • DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’m afraid, unfortunately, that it is precisely the idea that anyone could understand everything without much effort that makes people so susceptible to utter nonsense.

      This also gives rise to the impression that so-called intellectual elites are nothing more than charlatans who want to pull the wool over the public’s eyes with their incomprehensible “intellectual secret language.” So people end up looking to idiots who, while having not the slightest clue about the subject, explain things in a way that anyone can follow—even without knowing anything about it themselves—or at least believe they understand all the “nonsense” those snobby scientists are spouting.

      In my view, this effect—which definitely exists—also clearly reveals who is primarily responsible for it: namely, the operators of the major social media platforms, all of whom are billionaires that have a genuine interest in ensuring that the masses allow themselves to be duped.

      If that were not the cause, this effect would have to occur particularly among the financial elite as well, and people would be asking en masse whether their vast power might be unjustified—yet this does not seem to be the case at all among the general public.

      This in turn gives rise to the schizophrenic state whose effects we are witnessing today: People distrust science, but they do not question the goals pursued, for example, by climate change deniers, who by no means came up with their narratives on their own, but are well paid to spread them as widely as possible.

      I fear that this problem could only be solved by significantly reducing the influence of billionaires on public opinion—but in our system, where they wield almost unrestricted power, this unfortunately seems virtually impossible.

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  • Signtist@bookwyr.me ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The issue is that anti-intellectualists think that the very concept of knowing more than them about any given topic is elitism.

    My conspiracy theorist mom would go on and on about how her spending an afternoon googling something put her ideas at a higher level than someone who got a degree studying it, and if I agreed with the person with the degree, then I was an idiot for not following her. She thought that right up until she died trying to treat her cancer with quack therapies.

    Regardless of whether we frame it as “I’m better than you because I know more than you,” the anti-intellectualists will still be framing it as “I’m better than you because my ‘gut feeling’ knows more than you.” It’s a competition to them, not because someone told them they were lesser, but because they already believed they were greater.

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      My mom is on that path, but still alive. She won’t drink regular tap water because she’s scared of fluoride. She no longer believes germs exist. She won’t get vaccinated or get flu shots (and won’t vaccinate her dog either). Her “doctor” is an hour’s drive away because she had to search far and wide for one who wasn’t part of the “big medicine” conspiracy.

      It’s all so exhausting.

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    • FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Well at least your anti vaccine mom is dead

      There are way too many people like her who exist

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  • jaybone@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They want this same elitism. They want to have their own special secret knowledge only they (and a small handful of internet people “in the know”) have access to. This makes them feel special and superior.

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    • searabbit@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Humans feeling a need to impose a hierarchy where they sit at the very top is why we can’t have nice things

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    • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Well then they should just join a mystery cult or practice alchemy

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  • Lemming6969@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They are better than them, at that thing, and if you don’t defer, then they have every right to scoff at the stupidity before them.

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  • Captain_Patchy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I see the point, but I don’t think intellectual elitism is the same as anti-anti-intellectualism. I think intellectual elitism creates a sense of alienation from science that in fact leads to anti-intellectualism.

    That is just the inferiorily informed trying to justify their lack of knowledge by calling the people more knowledgeable than they are in that field “elitism”.

    In the modern day, They could EASILY educate themselves with the actual current and up to date scientific research, the internet exists.

    The fact that they would rather “educate” themselves with populist YouTube bullshit videos that simply validate their incorrect beliefs instead of looking up the actual research papers that are 100% **ALSO available on the internet ** is entirely their fault and no one else’s, you can’t blame the fact that they won’t read the research on “elitism”

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      In the modern day, They could EASILY educate themselves with the actual current and up to date scientific research, the internet exists.

      The people putting out actual scientific information are not rewarded for making their information easy to digest for the uneducated. They’re rewarded for publishing scientific papers in journals that are read by other scientists.

      I don’t know about you, but I very rarely read scientific papers, especially in a field that isn’t one I know well. Even if you know the field well there are all kinds of terms and math that mean reading a paper is hard. If you don’t know the field, even understanding the terminology they use is a huge challenge. It’s not realistic to expect someone with only a high school education to read papers.

      Making media that appeals to, and is easily digested by regular people is a completely different skill set. Some people doing that actually care about real science. There are heroes who spend their time reading and digesting scientific papers so that they can explain them to regular people. But, there seem to be far more people who just make shit up that they know will go viral. If you’re a product of the Mississippi educational system, you probably can’t tell the difference between a legitimate science communicator and an asshole who’s making shit up to go viral. For every David Attenborough, there are probably a dozen Dr. Mercolas. And, let’s not forget that one of the most well known scientists writing about honesty and ethical behaviour was found to have plagiarized her research. So, even if you were reading scientific papers she’d written you might have been misled.

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    • Jax@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You can’t blame anyone for being unable to sift through jargon.

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  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Right, but people will call nearly anything elitism these days. The reason schools don’t offer accelerated learning programs for students who aren’t challenged by the average coursework is because people were calling that type of thing elitist.

    Instead, now we put the upper quartile in the same classes as the lower quartile so that nobody receives the particular level and kind of attention that they need, and everyone is held to “average” whether they’re predisposed to be above that expectation or below it.

    If someone is talented at a sport, people shower them with praise and give them full rides to college. If someone is talented at math or writing, people tell them to be a team player and stop surpassing their peers by so far. Merit-based scholarships are rare nowadays too, so good luck going to a top university just because you excel at your subjects…

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    • Captain_Patchy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Merit-based scholarships are rare nowadays too, so good luck going to a top university just because you excel at your subjects…

      At least that is not true.
      'The rest of it is, highschools are an enforcer of conformity and woe be to anyone that bends the curve.

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    • searabbit@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Except these programs are literally known to be abused by the elite for their benefit. It’s not elitist to want evidenced-based support for low income high achieving kids, and for that support not to be diverted to upper-middle class kids who don’t need it.

      Merit based and sports scholarships are well-known to be specifically designed to attract upper middle class kids because of the benefit they have of tutors, coaches, and extensive personalized guidance through their entire schooling. Actually this is the exact reason top universities prefer need-based financial aid; they don’t need the extra money merit-based scholarships are known to bring. Low income kids tend to struggle navigating admissions systems and financial aid on their own in general, and these particular programs, especially the sports scholarships, don’t make themselves very accessible to prospective applicants.

      I haven’t seen whatever studies have been done on accelerated learning programs, so I don’t know if they help/hurt anyone conclusively, but I will say from personal experience being both included and excluded from them, I absolutely hated them from both angles. If you test into them, you’re doing extra work and being segregated (with a target on your back for bullies) from your classmates. If you don’t test into them, but you learn at a faster pace than the average, you’re literally gatekept from the advanced material even if you want to learn it. I think what would do worlds of difference is bringing respect back to teaching by hiring more teachers and paying them more which would allow for more individualized learning, so each child gets their educational needs met without unnecessary segregation.

      If you want to do further reading, there’s a lot of very passionate people who have dedicated themselves to this topic for decades. This is a slightly outdated, but seemingly comprehensive report I just found online, section 5 is specifically on systemic admissions hurdles for low income kids: https://www.jkcf.org/research/true-merit-ensuring-our-brightest-students-have-access-to-our-best-colleges-and-universities/

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  • ieGod@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    With respect to the subject at hand, they are better than you. Rejecting that is problematic.

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• hansolo@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Even the fucking witches know to trust the virologists

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  • Apytele@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I like the witches who tell people to buy carbon monoxide detectors. One time I told a patient with abusive auditory hallucinations that her nighttime zyprexa was gonna shut the stupid bastard up and she was welcome to active whatever spiritual interpretation she liked to that.

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• DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Holy shit yes. Everybody thinks they’re smarter then everybody else. That’s a huge part of the problem. Nobody can just stay in their lane and admit anymore that a person with a PhD in a specific field might know a little more about that field than you. Even the educated now think they’re the smartest person on the planet.

  You 100% should not trust:

  • An epidemiologist’s opinion on inflation
  • A civil engineer’s opinion on viral spread
  • An economist’s opinion on traffic flow

  They’re just as guilty of this bullshit as everyone else. It’s everybody. The whole fucking planet at this point.

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  • Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Also people think being smarter means knowing more, which is stupid. A guy who spent thousands of hours studying random topic is obviously going to know more about it, no matter how smart you are it just doesn’t replace time spent learning

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    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s me, I’m a complete dumbass but I like history and recognize that to know the most about history I need to understand it in an interdisciplinary way. Which is how me an barely high-schools graduate has a working understanding of trade networks and macro-economics because how else am I to understand the Late Bronze Age collapse and it’s causes.

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  • Jax@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It wasn’t always this way, though — general education standards have been severely eroded. There was a point in time where you could trust that a civil engineer would have the general knowledge required to understand what they don’t know — thus leaving the decision to better educated minds.

    There are so many things wrong about how we teach each other in the U.S., and wrong with how we perceive being taught. So many people believe that unwarranted advice is the worst fucking crime imaginable, or that correcting someone’s spelling/grammar is a shitty thing to do. So many people are so innately positioned against learning that it’s no fucking wonder why your anesthesiologist has 0 fucking clue what the nation should do regarding immigration. Totally ignorant of the fact that they should absolutely be intelligent enough to come to the correct answers, or at the very least listen to those who come backed with facts.

    I have no idea what should I can do about it beyond being a grammar nazi. /endrant

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    • DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s the thing though…in real life that anesthesiologist is going to be just as confident in their shitty opinion about immigration as a high-school dropout.

      I want that anesthesiologist and that high school dropout to admit that they don’t know as much about immigration as a sociologists, demographers, and immigration lawyers, and should trust those professional opinions rather then their own shitty opinions that are probably based on cable news shows.

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  • Jakule17@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    an economist’s opinion on traffic flow

    An economist’s opinion

    Ftfy

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    • DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      There it is though.

      An actual “Economist” will have a Masters in Economics at the least or a PhD in Economics at the research level.

      So I would and should indeed trust an economist on matters of economics more than anyone should trust, well, you on matters of economics.

      You just proved the point of the post. Unless I missed that you are an economist and are poking fun at yourself…

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    • AceTKen@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Economist here. This is pretty much the anti-intellectualism that everyone here is talking about and this is the opinion I’ve seen constantly on Lemmy.

      Most people have no idea what it is that I do and think it’s something to do with making billionaires more money. It isn’t and it never has been and it hasn’t been for anyone that I’ve kept in contact with for many of my classes.

      You don’t have to be involved in financial matters to be an economist either. We’re more involved in finding out root causes and impacts in certain fields.

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  • casualvagrancy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    But there are plenty of antivaxxers with PHDs…

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    • DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yes. That’s the point. A PhD in Geology does not in any way to qualify a person to declare the safety and efficacy of a vaccine.

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• protist@retrofed.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Intellectual elitism is absolutely not what we’re missing, we’re missing respect for expertise

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• epicthundercat@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Therapist here w/ Masters. Sick of life coaches.

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  • SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That is one of the most damaging scams in existence. Any jackhole can hang out a sign and call themselves a life coach. They are the homeopaths and chiropractors of psychology.

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• HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Masters degree in AI here.

  Every day I feel like medical specialist during highest anti-vax craze. No matter what I say, no matter what kinda research and articles I cite social media and advertising simply scream louder and more often.

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  • Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Maybe if the people in control of AI weren’t quite literally the most evil people currently on the planet, more people would understand. Also the fact that they’re all trying to cram it into every aspect of our lives, despite it being a demonstrable failure doesn’t help.

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  • skisnow@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Same. AI/ML background long pre-dating GPT; trying to navigate my career is sending me to an early grave from the number of charlatans and rich idiots flooding every part of the industry, talking complete nonsense, and getting an army of devoted fans who make shit memes dissing “luddites”.

    I can’t participate in any AI-related forums any more because of the sheer number of twats pontificating about nature of sentience, who think “backpropagating” is something you’d find at a swingers’ party.

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    • HrabiaVulpes@europe.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yeah AI-related forums are absolutely apeshit. Online discourse is pretty much either “AGI is here, use AI for everything, no questions asked, no criticism accepted” or “AI is the coming of anti-christ, end to humanity and even looking at AI products should be punishable by death”.

      No in-between online.

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• Vreyan31@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  As someone who is an expert in one area and as dependent as anyone else in others, and who also hates appeals to authority -

  To me, the correct stance is that any should be able to question things that don’t make intuitive sense or that one suspects might be a perspective motivated by financial considerations instead of expertise.

  Note that I said question. Not invent your own replacement fever-dream explanation.

  Questions require good-faith attempts to find information and understand.

  Not pitch something where its main virtue is that it makes ignorance feel good actually.

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  • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I just want people to trust. Being skeptical and wanting to learn is perfectly fine, but also, people do go to school for these things for years, you know? Have a little a faith they aren’t lying to you.

    By “you” I just mean people, of course.

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    • tetris11@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You’re both spot on. We live in a deliberately low trust society with grief merchants heckling experts for the sole intention of division.

      I don’t know how we can get back to a high trust society, but it did exist once, and I think the first step to it is education and the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine in the media

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    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Counterpoint: a group of MDs in Toronto published a peer-reviewed paper in 2020 claiming SARS/Cov2 was from outer space.

      MDs are not scientists. They pretend they are.

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  • PhoenixDog@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There’s a reason peer reviewed studies are so important.

    It’s literally other people with knowledge on the subject questioning the results of a study until everyone agrees to the conclusion.

    It’s not just one person pulling something out of their ass and saying “Look! This thing!” and everyone just going along with it. It’s questioned and proven multiple times.

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    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      There are many peer reviewed studies subsequently retracted. The problem is most journals do not value the expertise or time of reviewers. Not a perfect system.

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    • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’ve gone to college. I’ve been taught buy people who are supposed to know this shit how to find scholarly sources. I’ve cited such sources in essays. Something I’ve never been shown are those peer reviews. Hell, it seems like half the experiments I was taught about in school come with a “And here’s why we ethically CAN’T repeat this study” like the Stanford Prison Experiment.

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  • huey_m@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I generally agree, but there is a level of ignorance where you don’t even really know what questions to ask, and subjects complicated enough that you just aren’t equipped to understand an answer without needing a lot of background education first because they just aren’t intuitive at all by nature. At that point, is there really much value in asking the question?

    Determining where that line is is hard sometimes, but I do think it’s there.

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    • PattyMcB@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Asking questions doesn’t hurt. If the answer still confuses someone, they then need the humility to admit it instead of covering their ears and yelling “I CAN’T HEAR YOU”

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  • rayhem@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This breaks down pretty quickly though because laypeople fundamentally don’t engage with the world scientifically. The default mode is “can I believe this” but science requires “have I excluded everything else”. The former feels like the job is done, so why put in more work?

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• TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Says someone on alt right pedo platform Twitter. He’s not wrong, but come on. The irony.

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  • Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    With a blue check. Which means they paid the pedo techno fascist.

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• ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m sure you can find many people with MDs that aren’t above peddling snake oil.

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  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Dr Oz.

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    • uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Ugh. I have Medicare so I get notices from Dr. Oz on occasion.

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  • Photonic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes but the percentage would be much lower.

    Also, an MD isn’t necessarily a virologist or vaccine expert. I mean, you really shouldn’t ask an ortho bro about anything but bones and joints. So I doubt MD necessarily means “elite”.

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  • Kage520@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes, but the barrier to entry is much much higher. Also, we should trust licensed MDs, and if they are a public nuisance (eg, “vaccines cause autism!” nonsense), they should lose that license, and thus the trust.

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• CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  People so fragile they can’t live with the idea other people might be smarter than they are

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  • A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Spot on, this is literally how society rotted away.

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    • Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Nope, that was unfettered capitalism.

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  • Captain_Patchy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    People so fragile they can’t live with the idea other people might be smarter than they are

    Need to be ridiculed, and their opinions ignored.

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  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    But put MDs at the top of that list. They refuse critical assessment.

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• Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Could just say we need to get rid of anti-intellectualism but has to be phrased in the most provocative way possible because it’s on social media 🙄

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  • musubibreakfast@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    No, we need to reform the education system and make studying affordable. So Joe Schmo, your weird uncle and all the Yoga Mommy’s can go to university and find out exactly how they measure up to the rest of the country. And maybe in the process they can make some good friends and learn something about themselves.

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    • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That sounds like “getting rid of anti-intellectualism,” and the literal opposite of “intellectual elitism.”

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• Someone8765210932@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I feel like pointing at “influencers” and putting the blame on them isn’t really correct. They are probably more of a symptom.

  Whose fault is it that some random blogger is being treated the same as people who studied something for decades?

  E.g. the media owned by the rich or the governments bought “lobbied” by the rich.

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  • casualvagrancy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The idea that its scientists vs bloggers was created by PR firms. It’s scientists and bloggers vs scientists and bloggers. Both sides have geniuses and idiots.

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    • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No, not in the cases of vaccines or climate change. The incredibly overwhelming majority of scientists are on the plainly correct side of both of those, they don’t have to be geniuses for that, just somewhat educated.

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  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, before we had influencers on the internet, we had celebrity gurus, magazines, etc… In Hungary, interest in home gardening surged after some magazines declared that if some fruits/vegetables rot in a weird way, they must be GMO, thus must cause cancer and have zero vitamins. Some went as far as if some powder of a common food item existed, such as “milk powder”, it meant that said thing was made out of crude oil, and all milk products were fake and vitamin-free.

    The moment my stepmother heard meat powder and egg powder existed, I had to move in with them, so once they got their hands on chickens they can let free of “GMO food made out of crude oil”. That part never happened, but at least it helped to sabotage my college education.

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• AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  No, what we need to bring back is dumb-shaming. People need to feel ashamed of their own ignorance so they stop believing what a fakebook idiot tells them.

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• A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  No, don’t just blindly believe professionals either.

  Cause some of them a assholes who try to sow discord for their own personal profit.

  Like Andrew Wakefield, who started the whole “Vaccines cause autism!” fraud, because he wanted to sell his own brand of vaccine and thought undermining faith in existing medicine would be a great marketing ploy.

  and theres been tons of famous, formerly reputable doctors since, that have put down their ethics and picked up the snake oil since then. Like Mehmet Oz.

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  • FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I have had pharmacists refuse to hand over the script after asking a few questions because it turned out the prescribing doctor was actually very incredibly dangerously wrong.

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    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s the reason why Pharmacology is a tough degree. Nurses also cross check MD mistakes every day.

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• yelling_at_cloud@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Not just influencers, but also politicians and news media. I have a master’s degree in statistics, and it’s not at all uncommon for politicians and media to misrepresent scientific results. Correlation does not equal causation. If a study hasn’t been peer reviewed, I wouldn’t say that it proves anything just yet. Studies on a non-representative sample aren’t generalizeable to the population as a whole. And so on…

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  • PattyMcB@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And science is more about disproving things anyway. It’s more of a “this is the best we can tell right now, given the information and observations we currently have”

    Not “zomg vaccines cause puppy deaths! My dog died after getting hit by a car but wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been vaccinated! See? I proved it!”

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• NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I don’t think it’s elitism to believe that a scientist understands their field better than an influencer. And I also don’t think this is a new phenomenon - as a society we have been buying remedies from carnival attractions and Hollywood celebrities for centuries.

  Humans en masse tend to listen to those who yell loudest, not those who appeal to common sense. We can be smart as individuals, but we are dumb as fuck as a group

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• AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Calling that intellectual elitism is like calling state-funded healthcare socialism

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• Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is not a shitpost!

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• c64z86@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  We’re not just fighting plain stupidity though, we’re also fighting organised stupidity that is being enabled and fanned by those in power and their billionaire backer donors.

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• cecinestpasunecommunication@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The thing is, expertise can manifest as tyranny.

  Rather than using education to find our way around this and equalize power, we’ve just made stupid-fascism and expert hegemony because everyone with certification is sick of a guy on Facebook who describes himself as a ‘ball talking influencer’ telling them their 20 years as senior person at the CDC on the front lines of epidemiology and decade of med school are worth nothing.

  We must never improve. Nothing must ever improve.

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• SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Idiocracy has become a documentary.

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• tgcoldrockn@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  We need to bring back actual learning. Sorry, but an accredited source will always be better than anything from X.com.

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• CoolSouthpaw@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Part of the problem is that we glamorise them calling them “influencers”. We should call them “cuntfluencers”, or maybe better yet, “cunts”.

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• Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Good luck making the pigs stop eating slop

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• uberfreeza@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Based on what I see in this thread, I find more of an issue to be media. Mainstream media can walk the line of truth and falsehood and make people think a certain way. Anyone who sees that can be redirected to an online source, which can be anybody from Jane/John Infantbrain to legitimate scientists. Being an influencer doesn’t preclude being a specialist, academic, etc., but the average person isn’t going to determine or care for the difference.

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• nullspace@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Don’t forget that only 9 out of 10 dentists recommend toothpaste and you can be damn sure that last one is the one giving out medical advice on socisl media.

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• huey_m@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: this kind of “elitism” is literally just division of labor which is basically required for a modern society to function.

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• mrodri89@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I dont mind if people stream but sometimes the exaggerated thumbnails with their stupid exaggerated expressions is so fucking weird. Like it smells like LOOK AT ME.

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• JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That’s not elitism.

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• Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Nope. Intellectual elitism, or elitism of any sort, promotes classism and conflict. What you need are first, “intellectual communicators”, people that can explain complex concepts in an accessible manner. Second, you need educators that will/can actually teach and finally a public receptive to education.

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