this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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chapotraphouse
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This explains a lot of the behavior of the lost libs that stumble in here like the guy yesterday demanding exhaustive sources and when provided with such simply said "I ain't reading all that".
More than 80% of Americans are functionally illiterate
And it's by design. An Underground History of Education in America is an interesting book on the historical players involved. And guess who the main ones are (hint: it's capitalists).
to expand on this, according to PIAAC, 1 in 5 yankees cannot reliably answer questions of this level
I'm sorry what
Edit: How is this possible, I mean
Is the kind of anti-intellectualism that I'm seeing plastered all over the internet. Maybe it's confirmation bias on my part, but I swear that people are getting increasingly pissed off with having to read anything.
I was watching a streamer the other day, and the chat was spamming "UP" every time someone chatted more than 3 lines. They were reveling in it.
I think this strain of anti-intellectualism is actually a lot better than what we had in Bush II.
The strain is passively anti-intellectual, not aggressive like the Bush II years. I think that a large portion of it especially from younger folks is really about the fact that the doors are closing, and that being curious or educated doesn't actually benefit you in the way that it used to. In essence Bush II anti-intellectualism was based in a perceived slight. It was a "oh you think you're better than me?". Conversely, "I ain't reading all that" to me is more of an admission of intellectual capacity mattering less in people's daily lives.
They very much lines up with elite over reproduction, and the labor crisis that's happening globally including in AES countries like China where they have a huge unemployment issue with recent graduates. I think it's reasonable (but ultimately wrong headed) to deduce based on what's happening in the world that education isn't an unalloyed good. It's expensive, it's difficult, it doesn't have the same economic benefits it did 10 years ago let alone 20 or 30, and it makes you feel bad about yourself and the state of the world.
Intellectualism has been sold as a means to and end, rather than something intrinsically valuable, so it's not a surprise that the foreclosure of the future is leading people to anti-intellectual conclusions.
I think this is an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. It reminds me of the bill hicks bit he did about sitting in a cafe and being asked, “why are you reading?”.
While I think your ideas about the motivations of younger people are very plausible, I’m not so sure that the slightly older generations ever lost this aggressive habit.
Again, I was watching something the other day, and the streamer was getting angry about an online commentator because they were sat in front of a full book case.
Anyway, I’m not disagreeing with anything you said, I’d overlooked the context that some people have arrived at these feelings by. I would say, though, that the spread of people online is greater than ever before. So there’s a chance to run into a wide variety of different positions. Including men raging at book cases!
Ah anti-intellectualism:
This was 60% of people on TV in 2002.
Especially in the case I referenced where it was some racist western lib blindly assuming anyone saying positive things about China's internet regulations must be a paid CPC asset.
Cuz you know the "free" western internet is doing so great right now with the likes of Musk and Zuckerberg having a duopoly, rampant human trafficking and a thousand crypto scams popping up every day.
no for sure, they definitely are. there was even a meme (the nerd emoji) that got used sometimes to reply to people who typed too much. i also notice a lot in chats, people will send a long thought through many messages instead of just one. it's very strange.
seeing someone say "i aint reading all that, i ran it through chatgpt and here's why it's stupid" would actually surprise me bc it's slightly more effort than im used to seeing
What gets me is ChatGPT yaps its fucking ass off like it's trying to reach a word minimum.
So like????? What do they mean when they say they put it through chatgpt???? Often, they do it for simple statements or analysis to so it's not like it is breaking it down for them either as at least that would make sense. It's just as long-winded but is also a bottle deep into benedryl by design so it makes shit up as it fundamentally has no grasp of reality and they're having it read text and explain it for them????
chatgpt reads the abstract and then rewords it to be way more confusnig, this is saving me time
Lmao I've never heard that expression before, that's hilarious
Gotta practice the posting-prose every now and then
I've also seen the nerd emoji be used to mock pedantry, where someone nitpicks some incorrect part of what someone said that has no bearing on their overall point.
Westerners. Kanada isn't any better. And "ai" is making it so much worse.
*Kkklanada
smdh even Hexbears are falling behind in their Maoist Standard English proficiency
SSorry, I need to read more booKKK$.
in that guy's case imo it was more psychological shutdown than a reading issue.
can you summarize this post, it's too long for me
other people dum
Thanks @grok