Schools ‘should teach children how to spot conspiracy theories’
Cambridge scholar says that lessons on identifying and debunking fake news should be on the national curriculum
So when Teach says “socialism works” who is it that gets to debunk such fake news?
Anyone now at school is too young to remember the USSR and Comecon, so Teach can get away with it
Does the Bank ‘of England’ identify as being competent or something? Been an absolute fucking disaster ever since Blair decided they should be “independent”, i.e. unaccountable to the public.
Norman Lamont was a more credible character than these guys.
I would like them to identify as lion spoor.
I think technically that would be the lions’ paw-prints or trail. So unless you’re suggesting Andrew Bailey’s big game hunting, the word you may be searching for is dung or scat.
BiS – I was being POLITE
(and commenting on the wrong thing)
Incidentally, this whole nonsense. I was reading this: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/02/gender-obsessives-will-never-let-reality-stand-in-the-way/ article at the weekend, by Zoe Strimpel where she opines this has all gone too far & it’s time to take back ground. And it occurred. It was journalists like her & the media in general were all alongside same same-sex marriage. (I don’t remember it being a pressing topic of conversation anywhere I was. Unless it was in opposition) And that was where the pass was sold.
Contrary to what is generally said, marriage was never about the two people concerned. It was always a societal thing. The uniting of two families, usually with the approval of the community at large. With the object of furthering the product of the next generation. Commendable self interest by all concerned. And whichever way you parse it, the offspring of a same sex marriage cannot (or is unlikely to be) the offspring of both families. If there’s even any intention of offspring.
Once that lie’s been accepted, everything else follows. It’s the point at which self defining replaced common consent. Heaven knows how you recover that
BiS – Our society stopped making sense when people stopped believing in God.
Steve… Do I need to point out all the atrocities, madness, and general dowright oppressiveness that have been perpetrated over the ages in the Name of God(s)?
These people follow a different Religion, but they’re just as bad/insane as any of the worst of the Biblethumpers.
The legalisation of the homosexual act was liberal.(Lezzie action was never illegal, to my knowledge)
Not sure why civil partnerships between two people who are presumable shagging is different from the relationships any two or more people may enjoy.
But the rest is entirely authoritarian. One’s expected to go along with it, whether one agrees or not. Don’t think we ever required that of marriage, did we?
Steve. I see absolutely no difference between this & a religion. It has the same basis. You will be told what do & to think.
And it has all the same elements. A theology, prophets & preachers. And worse of anything, that horrible, dangerous certainty.
Teaching children to explore all sides of a question and how to spot propaganda will mean sacking 75% of the present teaching establishment and 95% of those under forty.
BiS – YMMV but Christendom was busy living, Clown World is busy dying.
Told you before, Steve. You show me a Christ & I’ll be looking for a hammer & nails & some stout bits of wood. Get the job done before he causes any more trouble.
BiS – blasphemers only harm themselves, my brother.
I’d take Christianity over ClownWorld because the former was based on ancient tribal wisdom, and the realities of life. The latter subverts reality.
Yes Jack, but most of what it means to be English is owed to our pagan Saxon forebears. The freedom of the individual was never a Christian concept. The US Constitution owes much to the Five Nation Confederation of the native Americans they were mingling & interacting with in the early years of the colonies.
Good how Steve uses a single word to destroy his own argument, isn’t it? Well done mate!
Conspiracy theories?
Like, a deadly plague
Government forcibly making the people, even, children, take experimental drugs
Local governments creating ghettos which you can only leave a certain number of times
A “tipping point” beyond which glabal warming becomes unstoppable and we all fry
Those conspiracy theories?
Those were the sort of conspiracy theories I was thinking of too Philip.
Though I think they are really arguing that our beliefs are the biggest conspiracy theory of all.
Was listening to a podcast with an expert on conspiracy theories and he pointed out that the rational position is to believe them as being wrong is generally less harmful than being right.
https://quillette.com/2023/03/31/the-rise-of-the-respectable-conspiracy-theory/
Chris Snowdon had an interesting piece on “high status” conspiracy theories that respectable professionals can still get away with processing believing.