Nah, I think people that have critical thinking skills are not afraid of being wrong, aka their own curiosity and growth. The rest of the world wants simple dichotomous logic and is incapable of constructive engagement. They are simply too narcissistic to process abstract thinking and are looking for any excuse to rot in their dystopian existence.
it’s simple thermodynamics. critical thinking requires energy, calories that you’d rather use surviving. critical thinkers appear when their needs are externally covered because they have disposable energy.
Neurotypical people barely think. They conduct rituals.
Just see all the RF Engineers with black candles and pentagram before testing stuff in the dark spikey room.
Are you overthinking the whole concept of overthinking…
Maybe they just realize having kids is hard.
I don’t think this is genetic though. Critical thinking is something you should learn how to do. It’s a failure due to chronic underfunding in education.
I do agree with you that the people who can do it, often despair and withdraw from public discourse out of frustration. But they could be making babies like rabbits at the same time.
From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.
Will Durant
… by our nature we are dumb, frightened, superstitious animals but given enough time, effort, energy and dedication we can overcome our natural instincts of fear and ignorance.
Unfortunately, it is so easy for us to fall back into our old animalistic ways.
Wait it’s a learned trait?
Wait y’all get taught critical thinking?
I just hated all the teachers and instinctively challenge all authorities, from parents, to teachers, to school admins, police, and governments. Trust nobody.
They don’t teach critical thinking in schools.
Remember, critical thinking and trusting nobody are two very different things that don’t really have anything to do with one another.
Critical thinking means that you learn to figure out who (and what information) you can trust. If you are a critical thinker, you know how to vet sources, learn what marketing/political lingo actually means beyond the apparently obvious meaning of the words. You know how to find discrepancies between different bits of information and how to balance them and figure out what’s behind them.
It certainly doesn’t mean to not trust anything, because that means you are discarding actual information in favour of hallucinations.
Not trusting anyone based on feelings or emotions rather than through knowledge, experience and unbiased information is also a very dangerous thing.
It can lead people down a path towards cults, religions, and authoritarian leaders and movements that have all the “answers” for you.
There is no greater power for an individual to have than a broad range of knowledge and information from reliable vetted, openly available, openly shared and universally accepted sources. If your guru has secret knowledge that no one knows about, chances are that information is either no good or it is unacceptable for a reason.
And also remember “keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out”
And also remember “keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out”
Love that, I’m gonna steal that ;)
It’s a quote often attributed to Carl Sagan but I think it was around, or a quote like it has been around far longer.
I love the quote too and often remind people about it especially when they want to share information or knowledge that is extreme or not well known.
We do have to question the world and everything and everyone in it … but not to the point where we abandon reality.
Sounds like they thought you critical thinking by teaching you not to trust them.
I am the same, but I got diagnosed with ODD lol
“critical thinking” genes
Uhhhhhh that’s like the entire basis and conclusion of the eugenics master race argument 😬
I would assume critical think correlates with intelligence which correlates with depression and substance abuse. So maybe but I think their are many other more influential factors such as a shit education system
No no. It’s far easier an explaination.
I have critical thinking skills. I see the world is hot garbage. I see the ecconomy is not only harsh,but DESIGNED to be harsh. We live in a 2 income household society. You’re EXPECTED to have a partner who makes a full time living, while you ALSO have a full time living.
I do not have a partner. I can barely afford rent. I somehow don’t qualify for SNAP, even before the defunding. Which means most days I just don’t eat.
Why the FUCK would I want children?
Meanwhile, if I didn’t have critical thinking skills, I might just go out, fuck a bunch of women. Be dumb enough to not wear condoms, and now have 18 different kids with 23 different women. Obviously I’d be an absentee father in these kids lives. And the women willing to have sex with that version of me wouldn’t be very bright either.
The end result is the dumb version of me would have dumb kids with dumb women.
The smart version of me doesn’t have, and isn’t planning on having kids.
This is such a good answer and I hate that it’s true.
I also am a one income household and also am no stranger to having to choose “rent or groceries” on a regular basis. I hate that you can’t get food assistance unless you make minimum wage, but where I live they release analysis every year that a single adult needs to make at least 3x minimum wage just to be able to afford to exist with a one bedroom apartment at market rates and that’s without having extra money for savings, hobbies, or going out.
I have fucked up so many things in my life but I will always be eternally grateful that I never fucked up and got pregnant.
Literally the intro to Idiocracy.
I’d say you are confusing critical thinking with anxiety. Critical thinking is a deliberate exercise that I choose to engage in, and I might be able to do for a certain period of time. I’d suggest that critical thinking is an investment of time and energy to really understand an issue, how it’s framed, how to re-frame it. At the highest levels, critical thinking will eventually lead to where you stand on an issue, and what scenarios change your standing.
But anxiety is something I don’t mean to engage in, and might not be able to stop. I’d agree it’s a disruption of critical thinking. It’s either a response to stress, or perhaps a force is pushing you to anxiety to break down your OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and render you less effective on the field you’re playing in.
Critical thinking isn’t genetic.
Also critical thinking is not equivalent with overthinking.
Evidence that may contradict your claim is that the average worldwide IQ increases by 3 points every 10 years. So the species appears to slowly be getting smarter. Dumbness may just be more noteworthy in our culture.
I presume you’re talking about the Flynn effect. Posts like these are usually based in Western Anglo-sphere nations, where the society as a whole is clearly getting dumber. Not shaming OP though - I feel all of this too as a USAmerican.
For the majority of the world, the last several decades have centered on expanding schooling of children, supporting women (half the population) in education, promoting small businesses of women, supporting small businesses in undeserved areas, and reversing the damage of colonialism.
The majority of the world has been steadily growing more intelligent as access to education has increased, and medical access has mitigated the toll of life on people. Undoubtedly, the USA and UK and many EU nations has been growing stupider, and supposedly in 2024 the rate had slowed to 1.2 IQ points per decade. It may also be that Western systems favor dumber people, but coming from the USA, I don’t think that those sociopolitical systems changed recently.
The upward trend by now has reversed
