we need classes in high school or maybe even earlier that teach general media/social media/political literacy, that teach kids about technology, rhetorical techniques, fallacies, etc that are used to prey on emotions and biases. what does a (political) Dog whistle sound like? what are some red flags you might encounter while watching a conspiracist on Tik Tok? what can you do to prevent yourself from being radicalized by youtube’s algorithm? what can AI currently do, and how can you identify it?
the problem is all this stuff moves so much faster than education does, so it’s going to be a constant uphill battle.
You don’t even need to do all of that. Simply teaching kids to be curious, critical, and not afraid of failure prepares them in a much more universal/general sense.
A lot of these people were probably told they were special growing up and “really smart,” which unintentionally reinforces the idea that they naturally know things and their identity is tied to being smart/knowledgeable. So when anyone contradicts that identity–confronting them with facts that don’t align with what they thought to be true–it feels like an existential threat to their ego.
