How Intellectually Compromised We Are
I have said for the longest time that we live in the misinformation age. We live in a period where you can find anything to back up anything, pretty much. We live in an era where every source, including fact checkers, has their credibility contested. And we live in a period where at least the United States has a majority of its population with a comprehension level, and I don't mean just reading, of a 15 year old or younger. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy and PIAAC data on adult prose comprehension, roughly half of American adults read at or below a sixth grade level, and that gap widens significantly when applied to complex argumentative or analytical text. And we live in an era where people are like, "Well, I provided a source, why don't they believe me?" If people actually paid attention to the world, they would know everything I have said in this statement to be true. The problem is people are too busy accusing people of being in cults, of ...
