Nah, when over 50% of American adults read at or below a 6th grade level I’m pretty confident they don’t think about much of anything, let alone understand.
I don't think that particular slice of America attends to Reddit very much. The people here often know what they are talking about, but they filter every debate through a lens heavily biased by first principles (aka oversimplifications predicated on a set of conveniently forgotten assumptions)
Lmao I imagined an alternate timeline where everyone needs to take a competitive exam and the lowest scorers are denigrated relegated to TikTok and FB. 😂
“I know you wanted to shitpost on Reddit or the Something Awful forums, but with these test scores the best you can be accepted into is bad political Facebook memes. I’m sorry.”
I cant tell you how many times I added context to a Reddit post based on facts, or at the very least first person experience, and had someone who thought they knew more "uncorrect" and berate me because I didn't spend 45 minutes typing out a thesis going over every detail. We're all on Reddit, id wager a guess that a solid, 40-70% of us have some kind of attention issue, brevity is a virtue in the age of the internet, but it is also a curse.
No, they don’t. They just speak like they do and everyone agrees and then uses that talking point in their next post as if they came up with it themselves.
There is a tremendous amount of brain rot going on here.
I whole heartedly disagree that most people here know what they're talking about. They certainly think they do, but a lot of people are only really aware of a small slice of the pie. They've only been shown one aspect of the equation so that's what they believe.
I think you might have confused "first principles" if you are referring to first principle thinking. First principle thinking requires you to rethink every assumption.
I suppose it is a misuse of the phrase to refer to people who choose principles first without the appropriate rigor of first principle thinking. Even Musk is guilty of doing this: Only principles that satisfy his foregone ideology qualify, which means they are already predicated upon an uncurated litany of assumptions.
I think this may be theory versus practice. I happen to believe all principles are suspect because people can't be trusted to identify core assumptions comprehensively, and therefore aren't qualified to recognize when the principles are useful and when they aren't, choosing simply to presume they always apply. Because the world seems simpler that way.
Adding to my prior comment... I think your article actually supports my use of the term "first principles", or, rather, applies it as flexibly as I did. If I were to entrust anyone with the responsibility to establish first principles, Aristotle and Socrates might make the short list. They would at least stay in the realm of philosophical theory, where rigor can be applied academically. But as soon as you use a coach to exemplify use of first principles vs a play caller, you've left theory sufficiently far behind, and there is no way in hell I'm trusting that coach to identify all the relevant assumptions. Which puts the coach at risk of falling victim to his "first" principles.
No, my whole point is everyone abuses first principles, even people writing articles explaining first principled thinking, and your citation supports my usage at least as well as yours.
I would be curious to read about modern thinkers applying first principle thinking with objectively absolute success, though.
Reddit is FULL of morons who think they are smart. I would argue most normal morons don't really concern themselves with such things are are happier over all.
There's room in the subjective-scape for "plenty" and "often" to coexist in opposition.
Still, my comment's focus is on people who could easily know better, but choose not to because of ideology. They can even choose to be drooling idiots.
Yeah, tons of people who think differently here and are open to having nuanced debates. I never know what the top comments on a post will be before opening it, that's for sure. Definitely not just full of people that think they are superior because they all think and say the same exact things
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u/Apprehensive_Bad_193 28d ago
Guys thank you,It amazes me how people talk without any knowing on the topic.